Rant and Rave

HOLY FLAMING MOSES!!! Is it too much to ask that the people in the school system have a lick of sense? They are, after all, responsible for the education of our children!!!!

When I went to the school Friday to drop off the first installment of supplies and equipment for Jared to start the school year on Aug. 6th, there was a musty, dusty, nasty sort of odor that I hoped was just the usual 'this room has been closed up all summer' smell.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The carpet was MOLDY and had delightful mildewed places all over it.

Now I am a semi-reasonable woman, but how could ANYONE believe this was okay to just rinse off and hope for the best???

Even if the children in the room were alleged to be normal, this isn't a good thing, people!!

Mold and mildew create all sorts of illnesses that are tough for healthy persons to cope with, but the children in Jared's class are handicapped both physically and mentally not to mention the various health issues that are a constant challenge to them on a daily basis.

Jared is an asthmatic. Anyone see a problem here? Mold plus asthma doesn't bode well for the final equation. Since he spends several days each year out of school with breathing issues up to and including hospitalization from time to time, this exposure cannot possibly be good.

I called the principal, I called the superintendent, I emailed the Special Needs liason person and I made sure I sent a copy of all of the emails to not only the above named people, but also to the classroom teacher. While she knows about this mess, she is powerless to do ANYTHING about it without going through the 'proper channels'.

I wonder how fast they'd move their collective asses if THEY had to deal with that kind of mess?

Sort of makes me want to go and remove the carpet myself and put it into THEIR offices. Bet they'd be angry and indignant. Good. Now they know how I feel.

I understand about money issues. But for the life of me I do not understand why we have the money to build athletic facilities but can't replace ONE DAMN ROOM of carpeting for the most fragile students in the school!!!

Yeah, I know. Stop swearing. I'm reasonably sure it will add one more coal to the fires of hell I will be roasting in soon. But I am angry that this doesn't seem to be a priority to them at all.

They can't plead total ignorance on this either. Jared's teacher told me she found out about it DAYS ago. Which means that the custodial and administrative staff knew about it before that.

I saw trucks there at the school Friday working on various building and construction and renovation projects. Yippee. So obviously money is being expended for work on the school. Somebody needs to pony up the cash to make this right. Their argument will be, of course, that they have 'plans' to build a NEW building for the handicapped students in the 0910 school year. Great. I'm all for that.

But what does that do for them NOW?!?!?!?! And what guarantees do we have, any of us, that their plans will actually come through. Plans can change and often do leaving the disabled kicked to the curb because 'they won't notice'.

Is it always wrong to do the right thing without permission? And are there times in which asking forgiveness for having done the right thing is preferable to waiting for the needed permissions that may simply never come because they are too busy scratching their indecisive asses?

Okay.

Take a deep breath.

Take another one because I am still mad.

Take a third breath.

Hell's bells! No amount of sucking in oxygen will make me less frustrated and upset over this one!

Grrrrrr!!

Time to call the teacher and see what, if anything, has been done from Friday's teacher's meetings.

I imagine they will say they have set aside a couple of bucks to shampoo the carpet.

I'll be willing to set aside a couple of bucks to BURN IT. I'll even provide the match and the kerosene. At least then they would HAVE to replace it.

But that would be evil and wrong. I should trust that the 'system' will care enough about these kids to do the right thing.

There's always a first time for everything.

Bills, bills, bills

Bills.

They mark the passage of YOUR money into THEIR hands, whoever they are.

Recently, I have been enjoying telephone combat over a series of bills which came in Jared's name.

Hilarious!

The delightful phone entities always ask to speak to him. After MONTHS of unsuccessful negotiation with these Children of God who work for Satan, I am at my wits' end and for those who know me, it was a short trip.

I have REPEATEDLY explained in a patient tone that Jared CAN'T come to the phone because he is aphasic. After then explaining what THAT means, I'm to the point where I have just become brutally honest with these poor folks who are trying to eke out a living in the worst possible job field there is.

The phone calls generally go something like this:

RING RING

Hello.

May I speak with Jared Merrill (which they generally pronounce as "Jair-Rod More-reel")?

Jared can't come to the phone, may I take a message, I'm his mother?

No, we need to speak to him directly about a debt he owes.

Do tell, Jared owes you money? For what, if you don't mind me asking?

We need to discuss this with him.

You CAN'T discuss this with him because he is aphasic. He is also a totally disabled 15 year old CHILD.

(Silence)

Now, how can I help you with this issue.

Generally, this is where their happy little train of thought derails in a most unpleasant manner.

After explaining his medical history to the disgruntled operator, I indicate that since he is totally disabled, his medical bills at this point should ALL be referred to Alabama Medicaid.

Then I ask for the name of the company who referred us to this collections agency. The last phone call I got, the nice man on the phone working for Satan said "I can't give you that information." To which I replied, then I can't help you any.

He said if you will just verify your information, then we can get this matter taken care of.

Do what?

YOU CALLED ME, MINION? YOU CALLED ME!

Whereupon I generally tell them that I don't know them, haven't done business with their company and will NOT give them private information which could then be used to create fake ID's in my son's name.

They are not amused and frankly, neither am I.

Then, I ask to speak to a supervisor. Tony, who was trying in vain to pry personal data from me (most of which is on the computer screen in front of this nimrod), transferred me to Mike who did nothing to help. NOTHING whatsoever.

Finally, I got the name of the company which THEY said put this matter into collections.

So, being bighearted, I cut them some slack and tell them I'll call the company directly and find out just what fool punched the wrong button on the billing cycle statements.

Then, the process starts all over again when I call and speak to some chick named Kita. I have spoken to Kita frequently enough to hum the song that is on her voicemail announcement. Then, after jumping through the 7 hoops of flaming death to reach the lowest level of telephone hell, I get to speak to another lady, who has yet to tell me her name, but who is actually helpful.

If I knew her name, I'd send HER flowers.

We get the file open and see that it has already been flagged to REMOVE from collections. Because we NEVER owed them anything. Not one red cent.

And Jared didn't open a contract with them at all. Not that I would mind if he were capable of so doing. That would be fabulous. Because that would mean his butt would be out working somewhere to PAY for the account.

But I digress.

The point here is that these faceless and most of the time nameless people are just doing a job which they probably hate as much as we hate getting the calls from them. They work for Satan because they have kids to feed, a mortgage to pay and an ex who hounds them for money 24/7 because they want money but don't want to work to obtain it.

I try to be patient.

Sometimes, I am.

So next month, when I stroll out to my mailbox, I fully expect to see the same bills once again. The amount on them varies from billing cycle to billing cycle. I assume that is an exercise in seeing if I am paying attention to it.

Jared doesn't care. He doesn't have to talk to them on the phone. All he cares about is that Mommy stops shouting to the 'nice' man on the phone who is demanding information be tendered when none is forthcoming.

Maybe someday, all of this will get sorted out. In the meantime, we just pray that the Lord will say 'It is enough' in Jared's behalf and he can be restored to perfect form and condition.

I wonder if it is illegal to put a bomb in my OWN mailbox? Just to blow up the bills, you understand? I could run the trailing wires up to my porch where I could sit with Jared and help him push the button to activate the charge of dynamite I can whip up with my chemistry set.

KABOOM!!!

The next time they call, I could then honestly say, I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that particular bill.

It's a thought . . .

Nightmares

Plagued since early childhood with nightmares of the most distressing kind, I have often awakened myself with my own screaming.

There is no horror movie by Wes Craven that could compare to the technicolor and vibrance of the nightmares that have been visited upon me. There is no rhyme or reason for when or why they come, if I could figure that out I'd prevent the nightmare from the get go.

I don't watch horror movies for that reason. I don't like to be scared to begin with and the very idea of paying money to pee in my pants sort of seems counterproductive. And embarrassingly expensive.

There has been a constant thread from the time I was a small child that I had an arm cut off. Not a fun dream. When I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, it was in the arm which I had repetitively dreamed was cut off. Go figure.

While I still retain a majority of my arm, I do have a pretty wicked scar where they followed my instructions to 'get it all while you are there the first time'. Adults are repulsed by it, but I am personally just thankful to be alive. Kids are fascinated by it and I generally tell them I got it through some sort of heroic battle with a shark near Madagascar.

They know I am kidding with them because I wink at them when I tell the story. Sometimes just the joke is enough, but for kids who have been through that kind of nightmare with family or personally, we dispense with the hokey stories and jokes when the crowd thins out and we talk pretty seriously about the fear and the horror that cancer can bring.

Most of the time, when people think about nightmares, they are truly confined to the evening and sleeping hours of the day. But I've lived through a few of them in broad daylight, so I am well aware that horror producing events don't always wait until bedtime to show up.

Having heard that "C" word more than once, I just sort of take it as a process of life. Not normally so sanguine about my life experiences, it just seems like there are some things that are part of the mortal journey that require a few marks of their passage in order to come out on the other side of the event in any measure.

Scars on various parts of my body are reminders that I have lived through some of the daytime nightmares in my life. Some scars are deeper and wider than others and some create physical changes in the tissues around them that are hard to explain and some days are even harder to deal with. I want to wear cute shirts and blouses, but truthfully, I consign my wardrobe to a selection of t-shirts mostly because I get so tired of people staring at the gaping absence of me where part of my arm used to be.

I feel like shouting "LOOK, IT WAS GET A HOLE IN MY ARM OR BE PLANTED IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND!!! GET OVER YOURSELF!!"

But that would probably be rude and hurt someone else's feelings and I would never want to intentionally hurt anyone. I know what that feels like and it's not pleasant.

I remember waking from a nightmare shortly after my Momma passed away, feeling very lonely and keenly aware that I couldn't just pick up the phone to call her and talk it all over with her. Momma had told me some years before she became ill that she had experienced that particular feeling herself after her own mother had passed. The feeling of wanting to share a moment - good, bad or indifferent - but knowing that it was no longer possible. That kind of nightmare of missing someone from your life even on the temporary basis which we believe this separation to be is still pretty hard to take.

I am thankful for a wonderful husband who sometimes gets awakened from a deep sleep to help me cope with a nightmare I can't understand or deal with by myself. He has even offered quiet and sleepy prayers to help the imagery to fade away and held me in his arms until a peaceful sleep finally came to claim me.

I listen to a special selection of music when I get freaked out at night. Sometimes the terrors of the night take on their own life and creep into my next day unbidden and most certainly unwelcome. For those times, I am thankful to know that I can ask for a priesthood blessing to help sort out and put right the truth from the fiction and be able to have an oasis of calm through the desert storms of my nights.

Even though other people are susceptible to the ravages of nightmares in their nocturnal mental gymnastics, it doesn't seem as personal to 'hear' about them as it does to experience it all in the full-color, imagination filled darkness of your own bedroom at night.

We normally have at least a little bit of light on for that reason. I am afraid of the dark.

I know all too well what happens in the darkness.

So a tiny shaft of light piercing the gloom makes all the difference between making it through the night and being overcome by it. Beneath a blanket and with my music playing softly in my ears, the light is the one element that truly drives away the nightmares. Light and dark cannot exist in the same physical space. Maybe that is why I am afraid of the dark so very much. Because something has to be in charge in this life and be the boss - and my childlike heart knows that it cannot be the darkness that wins and me survive it for very long.

That is why I am happy to be aquainted even at a distance with the Light that can fill the whole world. Through His Light, I can survive the nightmares that come.

Just rambling through some random thoughts tonight while revisiting my music collection . . .

The Image of Christ

Faith is an individual matter and should be treated as such. I respect that.

What I am having trouble with is the sign-seeking that seems to be filling the airwaves and online communities with images of Jesus in everything from pancakes to plywood.

I firmly and with all that I have in me believe that God moves in mysterious ways, but I'm not too sure that he intended for the image of His Only Begotten to be 'discovered' in a Cheetos.

Recently, the 'image' of Christ and the Madonna on a grilled cheese sandwich was sold on E-bay to a gambling house. My, what a contrast. The sacred against the profane in all of its detail and bias.

I just watched a snippet of newsworthy information about how a family had 'discovered' the 'image' of Jesus Christ in a shroud in the fur of a kitten in their home.

While photo enhancement shows us what THEY are seeing, what I am failing to see in all of these remarkable viewings of Christ in the marble, the plywood and the sandwich is these same people seeing Christ in the people around them.

Those people who reflect His image in their countenance are not in short supply. They are everywhere. It's that man who helped you pick up the contents of your purse when you slipped in the rain and dropped your possessions everywhere. It's the woman at the market who never misses the chance to ask about your family and who knows you by name even if you don't know hers. It's that teen who stops to let you in even though traffic is backed up for miles and no one else stopped.

The image of His love is made manifest in everything from a newborn baby smiling at the world for the first time to the beauty of the woman who is withered and wrinkled by time that sells the garden fresh tomatoes in the gas station parking lot.

The image of Christ is in the face of all those who have willingly taken His name upon themselves through the cleansing waters of baptism. It shines in and through them. It is the image of love in action.

I don't require an artifact of physical properties in order to see my Savior. I don't believe those images that may or may not be on these various objects has any real power. They don't lack for the ability to attract a splashy sort of attention. But what they DO lack is substance.

Miracles are nice. Miracles can indeed be heaven sent. But miracles alone cannot convert because they are fleeting. And the way that people seek after them sort of make me wonder why we can't be happy with the things of God in our daily life that bear only the marks of His Love upon them and no direct image.

It won't be any time at all before someone 'discovers' the 'image' of Christ in a leaf or a piece of shredded carrot or some other substitute for faith. Because that is what we are talking about. Substitutions.

Just like a substitute teacher, it may be adequate for a moment or two, but it truly isn't the same thing.

Our job, it seems to me, is to be willing to take on faith that our Savior will not present himself to the world as a piece of broccoli or the swirls in some prosciutto ham. I have the feeling that those types of 'manifestations' are not what He has in mind for us at all.

Instead, we rely on our faith, knowing that some things just have to come in the 'own due time of the Lord' and not on our timetable. We can't see the beginning from the end and know everything because we have a whim to know it all. That is an earned privelege for the faithful who patiently endure until the time of judgement and rewards comes. And I believe at that time those who have fufilled the measure of their creation WILL see the Savior. He will not be ham or grilled cheese or Cheetos.

He will be divine, whole and totally marked by the scars of just what He bore for us as individual children of God and brothers and sisters for whom He willingly gave all just to save us from hell if we would only come unto Him.

And at that time, we will know Him for who He really is. And we will require substitutes no longer, for our Savior will be before our eyes. The image will become the reality and we will be face to face with the Risen Lord.

There is a song, which I love to sing, called "His Image In Your Countenance". In those words it says 'with no apparent beauty that man should him desire' - unlike these objects which are only substitutes for truth that sell to the highest bidder like so much bologna in the market square.

We won't desire Him in that fashion because He will not come to be popular. Instead He comes to offer salvation, which has a price. It is a price He paid for us in full and with willingness in order that we could choose to return home or choose to damn ourselves through our wicked and willful choices.

And understanding that we are the ones who stand in the way of our own eternal goals is a painful reminder that God never forces His will on us and that Jesus Christ will not magically make us worthy to enter into the kingdom. Instead, we determine how we receive the One who did all for us.

There is a painting that shows Christ knocking upon the door. He stands there and knocks because there is NO KNOB on His side of the door. Unlike the world, Christ will not kick down the door and let Himself in. He will not hold us hostage to His desires for us to make wise choices, but has shed His very life's blood so that the penalty for our poor choices will not be fully laid upon us if we seek His mercy and God's forgiveness.

Because I totally rely on both mercy and justice, I can't believe that either could come from any peice of granite or from a pancake or some other random flecks or swirls in the world. Christ is not an anomoly, He is the literal Son of God. And that is the best thing for me. I can't possibly make up for all that I mess up on my own because I am still learning how to be responsible and make good decisions.

So I need an Elder Brother and Savior who can stand between me and the reality of my circumstances when I have fallen short. At times when I stand convicted, helpless and guilty, I need a Savior not a grilled cheese. I need a Friend, not a patch of random fur. At these times in my life I need an Advocate who can speak for me and make things better.

I seek to someday be worthy to see not just the image of Christ, but to see Christ Himself.

It isn't the image that is important. It's the salvation.