Boots and Bibles

"Welcome to Trader Joe's – I Love You"

I tend to see grim, dystopian predictions of the future as the most valid and accurate. Nineteen Eighty-Four rightly predicted the surveillance state and institutionalised disfiguring of language. Brave New World foresaw mass-market streamlining of existence coupled with a society exploited and controlled by its most petty desires. Then there's another brilliant work of dystopian satire, which while perhaps not as weighty as the two aforementioned novels, still bears heeding and attention: Mike Judge's Idiocracy. In particular, while at Trader Joe's today, I was reminded of a scene where the movie's protagonist, played by Luke Wilson, goes to one of the Costcos that have overrun the future. Upon entering, a greeter hails him and every other customer as they come into the store, saying "Welcome to Costco - I love you." This is not a genuine proclamation, but something spouted out by a blithering moron whose capability for experiencing or expressing true affection ends with their paycheque. She is someone too stupid to even understand what she is saying - or why it is so ridiculous.

From the moment my wife and I walked into Trader Joe's we were bombarded with greetings, smiles, questions as to whether we needed any help. These are all a part of any decent retail experience though. To whit, I've always appreciated Trader Joe's dedication to customer service. The employees have always been considerate and polite, but this went beyond either considerate or polite. It was intrusive. It was irritating. The employees weren't helping anyone or anything, they were getting in the way, and worse, making me sick to my stomach by even having to be around them.

No One Likes Us – Continued

So it seems there is a noise, a rattling sound.

Good. This is most encouraging.

As I mentioned previously, there are two things keeping my bones dry right now: that I cannot fulfill my calling to teach, and that I have to go all over the place to be with the old UGC family again, and even still I miss a whole slew of you.

But you see, UGC family, God is breathing life onto this wasteland with more than just the knowledge that you want to see something happen again. No, what's best of all is that something is already happening. 

Perhaps you have heard me mention the Porch. Some of you, perhaps, have even gone to outreaches or services with me. The Porch is an interesting phenomenon in light of this whole wilderness I've been making my way across. It was started by a family who uprooted themselves from across the country to reach out to the underground and the outcasts here in NYC. They started with amazingly little, but God has secured their place here (mostly through the agency of Christian and Missionary Alliance establishments, I should also note).They do extensive work in the East Village, especially to travelers and squatters. Brian and Kelly, the Porch's leaders, are thoughtful, passionate individuals upon whom the L^ORD has placed a great burden. And on top of that they've somehow figured it's worth it to extend the right-hand of fellowship to me.Now with temperatures rising and outreach opportunities returning, they're also wanting to kick it up a notch.

They have also stated that they would let me teach a Bible study.

And I want you people to be there.

I feel in my heart that the Porch is moving on from where UGC left off many, many years ago. Brian and Kelly's vision is refreshing, and even startling in its similarity to the burdens that initially drew me up here and drew us together years ago.

I don't know when this Bible study will be (I'm thinking Friday nights?), or even where it will be (my place? Sandy's? Davis's? The Petersen's?) But I feel the time is coming night. I feel that sooner rather than later, we will need to re-connect and rebuild that community that was a haven to us. Brian and Kelly have set the foundations. I want to invite you now to raise up the house.

No One Likes Us, We Don't Care

You ever get that feeling like you just don't belong anywhere except, well, where you belong?

3 September, 2006. I remember the date well. It's where belonging ended for me. It's where I had to destroy my family, my mission, my life – everything I'd fought for in the previous four years. It was like losing a war. And I suppose as a natural corollary to charging from victory to defeat, I began the most difficult period of my life to date, a time of depression and confusion; a time where I let down everyone who hoped in me, disappointed everyone who believed in me, and abandoned all those who looked up to me.

Yeah, it had to be done. Yes, everything that church stood for had been twisted or undermined by the time it was over. It still doesn't change the fact that there was a purpose in all of it. Underground Church, NYC acted to reach out to those not affected by the popular efforts of the church, and to bolster the faith of those who were. What I re-learned in the years that followed was that sometimes it is outcasts in the church themselves who are the most neglected and marginalised.

Today, I Became a Statistic

Well, we all should’ve seen this coming.

I work at a financial firm. I’m on the bottom of the totem pole. Technically, I’m so low that I’m not even on the totem pole. I’m like the mud or the clay that the totem pole’s been stuck in. There have been massive layoffs at my firm. In fact, I knew several people who were let go over the past couple of months.

In case you hadn’t guessed yet, I’m about to become one of them.

In the worst economy since the Great Depression, I am about to be unemployed once again.
My bosses wanted to keep me around, which is nice; but unfortunately, when one’s contact in HR has also been laid off, the company has lost over $300 billion in a year, there’s a hiring freeze going on and a new CEO has just taken over, HR Overlords tend to be sticklers for the rules – and one of the rules is that no temporary employee can stay around for more than six months without being offered a position.

I was also told that if not for that hiring freeze I mentioned I would have been hired by now. I would
have health insurance. I would have holiday pay. I would even get to experience those vaunted, yea, mythological delights called “personal days”.

Getting off work just because you feel like it, and not suffering any consequences? It sounds unreal to me, but others have told me that they are real, and they are as lovely as the legends make them. And I came so close to having them!

But now this.

Oh well. When you’re a cog in the machine, this is your life.

Hopefully it won’t be too long before I land another gig, but it was tricky getting hired back in June, when the economy was significantly stronger. We shall see…

We shall see.

I Don't Belong Here

"Poseur."

I'm walking down the halls, and I hear the word over and over in my head. I nervously take my seat at my desk. I keep my music turned down as low as possible.

"Poseur."

I smile when everyone else walks by. I greet them with my "voiceover" accent. I rush past as I step through the halls. I hope no one sees the tattoos when I fold my arms.

"Poseur."

I don't follow their magazines. I don't listen to their music. I don't like their clothes, their sports, their haircuts, their suburban living or their armchair patriotism. I don't believe in the political establishments they put so much faith into. And the economics system that they live their lives to support? The more I learn about it, the more I detest it.

It's really simple. In the narrow and over-lit hallways of American finance where I currently eke out a wage, I am a poseur. Meanwhile, in the tattoo shops, the record stores, the hardcore shows, and the history-battered streets of Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, I find a perfect home. Where other baldheaded miscreants attack each other for sport, I feel a sense of scum-class pride. When singing choruses in homage to North London's finest or the vulgar heritage of New York City's streets, my heart feels warm.

Nothing makes me feel cold and alone like dealing with corporate BS.