Unpremeditated Poop Explosions

Last week I sent in my resume to work at a church. I was quite confident after 2 weeks in the forest with Z that I was the bestest in the whole world, that any church would be insane not to accept me immediately, that I had a fresh voice that the churches of this spiritually crusty country needed.

The rejection letter was short and concise. I had not managed to woo them with my almost complete degree from a prestigious university, with my life-threatening missionary endeavors in Nepal, or with my dapper good looks and charming wit. I had not even been judged worthy enough to be asked for an interview.

Having recently read a book about discrimination and cultural racisms in Sweden, I was suspicious that I had been judged in advance, that they had not seen past the challenges of a new person who doesn’t know anything to the gifts I had to offer. Everything I read really was true. Immigrants in Sweden can only get jobs as mechanics, hotel cleaners and kebab pizza makers. Nobody with a strange sounding name or imperfect Swedish is given a second chance. Secondly, I was convinced that they had failed to acknowledge my years of impressive ministry experience because almost all the work I have done was volunteer. I was falling prey to evil bureaucratic ideals - unable to get paid positions and experience unless I had had paid positions and experience which I couldn’t get because you have to have paid positions and experiences for that.

After getting through the poor-me and righteous anger phases of the experience, I reached the decision that it was time for me to stand up for all the little people of the world. I wasn’t going to take it. I was not going to keep letting myself get walked over because I lack the courage to say what I really think or what I really feel. I was going to break that curse from my life. I wrote a beautiful letter of challenge and encouragement which put a couple clever barbs in a wash of Christian love, good will and mature parley. How much I was going to grow from facing this experience head-on with truth in love, grace in the face of opposition, and maturity in the face of hidden structural malaise. However, M suggested I not send it until I had a chance to let it rest some more.

I am rather glad I followed his advice, for later that day I discovered that I hadn’t really sent that church my real resume. I had attached the wrong file to the e-mail and what they had actually received from me was a bunch of badly spelled early resume-stage brainstorming in a mix of bad English and worse Swedish.

The moral of the story?
I think I need to get out more (once I can show my face again)

Hopefully I can show my face and get a job before we run out of money. I think I could make a pretty good kebab pizza...