the more things change, the more they stay the same...

Mowed.  Fainted.  Twice.

Since I was hot and sticky, I tried to scrub the tub, but ended up falling in the bathroom anyway.  So, at noon yesterday, I crawled back into bed and slept until late afternoon.

Then, I spent the entire evening looking forward to a phone call that never came.  Foolish me.

Someone wrote me about some folk who were making an important decision in their parish, but did not pray about it.  He said they were being stupid sheep, himself included.  He said they needed mercy, then noted the following was a good prayer:  "Lord, have mercy on stupid sheep."

I agree.  I keep believing things my experience has told me will not really happen.  How many times have I told myself, over the past year or so, that I will stop doing that?  When will I learn?

I have been trying to decided if silence or polite words are worse.  It's a toss up, really. 

A while ago, I was talking with "Manna" about how someone needed to do a booklet on all the gestures and stuff in a confessional Lutheran liturgical service, since children might be taught those things, but adults won't be.  I agree with those who say the Divine Service should be experienced and absorbed, but there comes a point in time when instruction is helpful, especially when everyone but you are doing the same thing.  Pastor W's most excellent post on gestures was immensely helpful, but not comprehensive enough.  Of course, as the person I was talking with pointed out, many confessional Lutheran churches are not liturgical in the least.  I guess what I have experienced is a privilege of sorts.  Still, I would pay very good money for such a booklet. 

Yet what I long for just as badly is a social skills manual.  I think I have finally learned the hard way to never answer the question: "How are you doing?" truthfully, even in church.  And I, hope, I have now learned to also not give an answer to the question:  "How can I help you?" or "What can I do to help?" truthfully, especially amongst Christians.  Somehow, doing so is selfish.  But what I haven't learned is how to handle, how to address, is all the other times people are just being polite and do not mean what they say. 

Funny, I get that there is a social contract and how I have broken it rather terribly this past year.  I even learned why it was that I did so.  And I am trying very hard not to do so in the new parish.  But I just don't know how to handle when people say they will do things and do not.  Big things.  Small things.  I get, now, that I am not supposed to be disappointed that they do not happen.  Because...really...they were never meant in the first place.  The offer itself is actually not the offer I think it is, just like the question "How are you doing?" is not really the question it sounds like.

I believe people when I should not, both those who are not trustworthy and those who are.  In both cases, I believe what I hear when what I hear is not what is being spoken.  And then I am wrong for having believed them.  I am coming to understand that, contrary to what I would think would be true, intentions mean more than actions.  Because it is the speaking of the offer that counts, not the following through with the offer.  The words are not what I think they are.

Sort of like how Gospel and salvation and baptism and the Lord's Supper and promises and such are different in confessional Lutheranism doctrine.  I can study Luther and Walther myself and have a shot at understanding such things.  But who is there to study about non-doctrine words that are also different?

The funny thing is, truly odd, is that I find this to be the case, at least with me, more amongst Christians than non-Christians.  With most Christians, I share the language of faith, but nothing else. With most non-Christians, they do not share my language of faith—find me rather odd, but accept it, accept me—but share everything else.  Only, since my world view is different and I do not wish to walk in their world, the awkwardness remains.  In both worlds, I am an interloper, socially speaking at the least...probably more.

I could think it is because I did not grow up amongst Christians.  However, I think the real reason is just that I am just plain stupid in a way three college degrees cannot help.  Brother Goose was telling me how he has no common sense, though I would think the whole world would agree God has blessed him with immense amount of  spiritual common sense, incredible spiritual discernment and wisdom in a rather humble heart.  This is something he's had to come to terms with, accept the way he is, because he does not want to be an oaf in this manner. 

He observed that he thought I did have common sense.  I do.  I mean, I do for others.  I have been rather successful at solving business problems for people because of common sense.  I also have a collection of folk who see me at their life coach of sorts, great at helping them sort out things in their lives.  And the appeal of the booklet on how to read the Book of Concord shows that I have common sense in instruction.  Being a teacher is something I have always greatly excelled at because that is a gift God clearly has given me (otherwise being the lame brain I am).  I just never understood the social stuff around that. 

Obviously, as I have documented here, I don't have common sense when it comes to me.  Nor, apparently I now realize, do I understand the words I hear.


Lord, have mercy on this rather stupid sheep!