The Death of Personal Responsiblity
Our lovely housesitter is snuggled all sound in the guesthouse, and I've packed my bags. Going to try to get a few hours of sleep in a moment. The airline changed our flight. It has happened a handful of times here flying home, moved up, moved back whatever. As long as we're not sitting in the terminal like we were the time they pushed our flight back four hours.
But I am just puzzling over my morning. It was a doozy.
There's a guy I know, that was a member of our church who's now stomped off angrily. Why? Well, he was eager to help out, but he was a big problem. No matter where he was slotted in, or asked to help he just didn't pay enough attention to what he was doing. It always ended oh so badly. Needed to do X during the service, look over and he's lollygagging looking out the window completely in outer space. Then when he realized he was needed or have missed a cue he would start grumbling that someone else had messed up and would cuss and carry on, even in the middle of the service.
It finally got to the point where church leadership had to tell him that the best more fitting role for him was to simply bless us with his presence, and to silently pray from the pew. It really had gotten that bad, but he always blamed someone or something else.
I guess it is just a natural human tendency to do that, never take responsibility for anything. It's a skill set I've had to acquire as a mother and a wive, admit and apologize when needed, recognize there will always be tasks I'm ill suited to do. Nobody is perfect, but the sooner you realize that and start operating like someone that does sometimes screw up, the better off you are.
This guy refuses to do that. He got very angry when being told he could not have an active role because he couldn't do it, and he left. But that thing he does just followed him. Earlier in the week I heard his dog was the one that was eaten this week by the crocodiles in the estuary here. This guy, bless him, had been laying down sunbathing on the estuary end of the beach, ignoring the dog and it ran into the water only to be snapped up as a quick meal by the crocs.
The crocs are notorious for doing just that. There are big signs warning you not to swim there, or let your dogs run free. At least once or twice a year some gringo paying no mind to the signs gets bitten.
I saw this man today, and he was busy ranting about this, blaming the fact that the government hasn't removed the crocodiles for what happened, not the fact that he wasn't watching his dog and it was off leash, another big no-no on the beach. No personal responsibility at all. I had to point out, as kindly as I could, that the estuary is the natural habitat of the crocodiles and we're actually trespassing on to their property.
This morning I got up to more angry Evangelical Christians spamming my Facebook profile over the Bethel story of failed resurrection. So far that's well over 200 people sending me messages about their ideas on how Bethel is wonderful and I'm just one big old meanie.
I might be a big old meanie, at least some of the time. But I'd gotten just completely fed up with the bad behavior of so-called Christians, and had been responding only to the last few. The rest I just deleted with no reply after adding them to my naughty list of people.
So this morning, while running around guzzling coffee, warming up my voice and getting dressed I answered the last five with some version of "Please buzz off"
On to church, sing, come to sit in the back of the room and worry about the ending song because it was a complex melange of carol and worship song that I was not entirely sure any of us could pull off when my smart phone started puking out a series of messages from some very angry young woman. She was one of the two I was rude to because of the "Repent!" nature of the messages. I just sighed, blocked her ass and moved on.
Here's the thing. I have noticed in the last three years, since that fumble fingered vulgarian pile of uber-rudeness called president has been elected that the Evangelicals have only gotten much nastier, more hateful and obnoxious in their public interactions with those they oppose. It's like they think that the most unChristian man in America who sits in the White House has suspended all rules of polite society if you self describe as Christian.
It's unleashed something horrible here. I've tried different tactics with these unthinking Bible hurlers, I've been nice. I've been not nice. I've been sarcastic. I've been sweet and everything in between in the ten long years I've adminned No Longer Quivering. I've tried every appeal you can think of and in reality none of them work. You get angry people stomping around blaming everyone else for the fact that they rudely contact strangers with angry demands. Just like the guy at church flubbing up stuff left and right.
I heightened security on just about everything I deal with, including Facebook and I think the kindest, nicest thing I can do for these people is to just ignore them. I'll never be able to counter whatever crazy thing it is they are believing, and no one is served by any further correspondence.
The lovely part of the day was following church with lunch with friends at the Yacht Club. Fresh lobster and wine make for a very nice way to wash those types of folks out of your hair.
Thank goodness I decided last year after moving into the house to pack away my unused clothing by season, along with my travel bag of separate toiletries. Packing is a million times easier when all you have to do is grab a packet of clothing for whatever season vacuum sealed into a tiny bag and toss in shoes.
But I am just puzzling over my morning. It was a doozy.
There's a guy I know, that was a member of our church who's now stomped off angrily. Why? Well, he was eager to help out, but he was a big problem. No matter where he was slotted in, or asked to help he just didn't pay enough attention to what he was doing. It always ended oh so badly. Needed to do X during the service, look over and he's lollygagging looking out the window completely in outer space. Then when he realized he was needed or have missed a cue he would start grumbling that someone else had messed up and would cuss and carry on, even in the middle of the service.
It finally got to the point where church leadership had to tell him that the best more fitting role for him was to simply bless us with his presence, and to silently pray from the pew. It really had gotten that bad, but he always blamed someone or something else.
I guess it is just a natural human tendency to do that, never take responsibility for anything. It's a skill set I've had to acquire as a mother and a wive, admit and apologize when needed, recognize there will always be tasks I'm ill suited to do. Nobody is perfect, but the sooner you realize that and start operating like someone that does sometimes screw up, the better off you are.
This guy refuses to do that. He got very angry when being told he could not have an active role because he couldn't do it, and he left. But that thing he does just followed him. Earlier in the week I heard his dog was the one that was eaten this week by the crocodiles in the estuary here. This guy, bless him, had been laying down sunbathing on the estuary end of the beach, ignoring the dog and it ran into the water only to be snapped up as a quick meal by the crocs.
The crocs are notorious for doing just that. There are big signs warning you not to swim there, or let your dogs run free. At least once or twice a year some gringo paying no mind to the signs gets bitten.
I saw this man today, and he was busy ranting about this, blaming the fact that the government hasn't removed the crocodiles for what happened, not the fact that he wasn't watching his dog and it was off leash, another big no-no on the beach. No personal responsibility at all. I had to point out, as kindly as I could, that the estuary is the natural habitat of the crocodiles and we're actually trespassing on to their property.
This morning I got up to more angry Evangelical Christians spamming my Facebook profile over the Bethel story of failed resurrection. So far that's well over 200 people sending me messages about their ideas on how Bethel is wonderful and I'm just one big old meanie.
I might be a big old meanie, at least some of the time. But I'd gotten just completely fed up with the bad behavior of so-called Christians, and had been responding only to the last few. The rest I just deleted with no reply after adding them to my naughty list of people.
So this morning, while running around guzzling coffee, warming up my voice and getting dressed I answered the last five with some version of "Please buzz off"
On to church, sing, come to sit in the back of the room and worry about the ending song because it was a complex melange of carol and worship song that I was not entirely sure any of us could pull off when my smart phone started puking out a series of messages from some very angry young woman. She was one of the two I was rude to because of the "Repent!" nature of the messages. I just sighed, blocked her ass and moved on.
Here's the thing. I have noticed in the last three years, since that fumble fingered vulgarian pile of uber-rudeness called president has been elected that the Evangelicals have only gotten much nastier, more hateful and obnoxious in their public interactions with those they oppose. It's like they think that the most unChristian man in America who sits in the White House has suspended all rules of polite society if you self describe as Christian.
It's unleashed something horrible here. I've tried different tactics with these unthinking Bible hurlers, I've been nice. I've been not nice. I've been sarcastic. I've been sweet and everything in between in the ten long years I've adminned No Longer Quivering. I've tried every appeal you can think of and in reality none of them work. You get angry people stomping around blaming everyone else for the fact that they rudely contact strangers with angry demands. Just like the guy at church flubbing up stuff left and right.
I heightened security on just about everything I deal with, including Facebook and I think the kindest, nicest thing I can do for these people is to just ignore them. I'll never be able to counter whatever crazy thing it is they are believing, and no one is served by any further correspondence.
The lovely part of the day was following church with lunch with friends at the Yacht Club. Fresh lobster and wine make for a very nice way to wash those types of folks out of your hair.
Thank goodness I decided last year after moving into the house to pack away my unused clothing by season, along with my travel bag of separate toiletries. Packing is a million times easier when all you have to do is grab a packet of clothing for whatever season vacuum sealed into a tiny bag and toss in shoes.
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