Context
I went to give blood today. The person who attended to me struggled with almost all of the tasks associated with drawing blood and the end result was that my pint had to be discarded due to air contamination. Most of the time she was struggling, four or five of her coworkers were sitting around talking.
Commentary
Because of the Quaker testimony on integrity, I try to make the Context part of my blog as straightforward and fact-based as possible. Now that I'm in Commentary, I can tell you I was royally pissed off about the situation this morning.
I am what they call a baby blood donor, so I try to donate regularly. I enjoy the chance to do something that helps out and normally causes me very little trouble. Today's missteps at the blood collection site not only inconvenienced me, they made it impossible for me to donate for another eight weeks, which is likely to inconvenience some babies! So I'm a little perturbed about that.
However, I found the woman's coworkers blasé attitude even more disturbing. It's entirely possible that there was nothing they could have done to improve the situation, but from my viewpoint they looked like their work was of no consequence at all to them.
So that got me thinking about salvation. You don't really want to know how my mind works, because you'll become just as crazy as me, but here's what happened: my husband and I had a discussion about religious universalism yesterday in which I was generally in favor of it (my opinion on this topic changes almost daily). His main objection to universalism is that it fails to give enough importance to God sending his Son to die for us. In response I said, "yeah, but salvation doesn't seem all that important to some people."
That made me wonder why salvation is more important to me than many people I know, so I resolved to spend some time thinking about it today. Here's the progression I then went through: I think salvation is important because I believe in sin, which I know is not true of all everyone. Most of the people I know who don't believe in sin are moral relativists. I think moral relativism starts from a good place, i.e. "there are different moral standards in different contexts." However, it too often seems to end up at "since there's no absolute morality, it doesn't matter what I do!"
Do you see how I got back to the blood center workers? I believe that the moment we start believing that what we do doesn't matter, we start doing wrong. I also believe we get really depressed because it sucks to not matter, but that's an issue for another time.
What did you see today?
7/18/2007
I heard a student compliment my patience
Context
I teach computer classes at the Shreve Memorial Library, both for staff and patrons. Most of my students in the patron classes are seniors. Today a student praised me for being patient even though they learn slowly.
Commentary
I get the "patient" comment a lot. I was taught that it's rude to reject a compliment, so I always say, "thank you," or "you're kind to say so," or whatever. However, what I was thinking today was, "it's not like I have something better to do."
Said in a certain tone of voice, the above sounds churlish, but I mean it sincerely. The library pays me to teach people to use computers, so at that moment I don't have anything else I'm supposed to be doing. I'm not actually being patient; I'm just doing my job.
In my mind, here's what impatience is: it's what happens anytime I believe my current situation (waiting in traffic, going to school, listening to an elderly aunt tell the same story for the umpteenth time) is keeping me from truly important business. Psychologically, it's a bizarre combination of helplessness and arrogance. I feel that I have no control over the circumstances, but if I did I would put my time to much better use. As a person who has a strong sense of time being a precious commodity, I can get very impatient indeed.
My religious beliefs make this a problem, though. A certain amount of helpless feeling reminds me that I'm in God's hands, so that's a good thing. However, the arrogance that asserts I can put my time to better use than God does is foolish indeed. It's forgetting what my real job on this earth is and who's the boss. I don't actually have better things to do than what He places before me.
What did you see today?
I teach computer classes at the Shreve Memorial Library, both for staff and patrons. Most of my students in the patron classes are seniors. Today a student praised me for being patient even though they learn slowly.
Commentary
I get the "patient" comment a lot. I was taught that it's rude to reject a compliment, so I always say, "thank you," or "you're kind to say so," or whatever. However, what I was thinking today was, "it's not like I have something better to do."
Said in a certain tone of voice, the above sounds churlish, but I mean it sincerely. The library pays me to teach people to use computers, so at that moment I don't have anything else I'm supposed to be doing. I'm not actually being patient; I'm just doing my job.
In my mind, here's what impatience is: it's what happens anytime I believe my current situation (waiting in traffic, going to school, listening to an elderly aunt tell the same story for the umpteenth time) is keeping me from truly important business. Psychologically, it's a bizarre combination of helplessness and arrogance. I feel that I have no control over the circumstances, but if I did I would put my time to much better use. As a person who has a strong sense of time being a precious commodity, I can get very impatient indeed.
My religious beliefs make this a problem, though. A certain amount of helpless feeling reminds me that I'm in God's hands, so that's a good thing. However, the arrogance that asserts I can put my time to better use than God does is foolish indeed. It's forgetting what my real job on this earth is and who's the boss. I don't actually have better things to do than what He places before me.
What did you see today?
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