My back pain is slowly getting worse, as is the foot numbness and trouble with my legs starting in. And since I haven't exercised enough my fibromyalgia achiness is increased too. Tomorrow I start physical therapy, but I need to start writing cards to send with the death notices I'm sending out to family and friends who couldn't come to the service (mainly due to distance). Tuesday I pick up the printed cards and envelopes and will make copies of the obituary. Then the next couple days I'll be working on getting those out, but I don't have enough of the notices from the funeral home, so my brother in Seattle has to send me more (I left a stack with him), but he's sick too now.
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Some of the things I'm discussing in this blog about the mission and my experiences with it might seem to some rather nit picky, but when combined to end out with some of the things I experienced with the mission they take on another light and they add up to something not so nit picky.
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This next quote discusses the results of a British study in which trainees were administered a questionnaire about their values and the values of their new employer.
"The greatest difference between the two sets of values that emerged concerned the task orientation. In the beginning, most trainees saw both themselves and their organizations as being dedicated to the task. However, the trainees at both companies gradually realized that the organizations were not as interested as they were in getting the job done.I think that if I had been one of those subjects in this study, I would have fit the responses described here. That is, I learned that the mission didn't value "getting the job done" as much as I did and I didn't change my values. One major difference though, is that the Vienna mission was a total, authoritarian organization and as such could not tolerate members not adopting its own values. So whereas I might have done just fine with the employers where these subjects worked, I did not fare so well with the mission.
The results of the questionnaire and of the interviews showed that the trainees' socialization included becoming aware of the differences between their own preferences and those of their organizations. Hebden concluded that in most cases, socialization does not mean that employees change their values to match those of the organization. Instead, employees grow to understand the differences between values and to discover ways to cope with those differences." (p. 512)
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"In some organizations, the culture written down in pamphlets and presented in formal training sessions conflicts with the values of the organization as they are expressed in the actions of people in the firm. For example, a firm may say that employees are its most important asset but may treat employees badly. In this setting, new employees quickly learn that the rhetoric of the pamphlets and formal training sessions has little to do with the reality of the organizational culture. Employees that are socialized into this system usually come to accept the actual cultural values, not those that are formally espoused." (p. 513)It seems to me that the Vienna mission was one such organization that seemed to lead a double life: the publicly visible one and what happened behind closed doors. This was, of course, largely because of its security concerns but it was also facilitated by public acceptance of the need for security and secrecy in the geographical context the mission worked in. This said, it seems that I should try to identify characteristics of these two sides of the mission. I'll try to do that, but I'm tired right now, so I'm going to take a break so I can come back more refreshed and clear-headed to give this the proper attention I think it deserves.
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Okay, I'm back after several days hiatus. I'm wiped out, my fibromyalgia pain is elevated and the possible new stenosis in my lower-mid back is also taking its toll. I'm trying my hand at making strawberry jam... and successfully preserving it. Mom always put wax on her jam to preserve it but when I did that mine always went bad. So I found a good deal on strawberries (the seasons here in Florida are a little different than in more northern states) and I decided to try again. Right now they're macerating in sugar and lemon juice.
Let's see if I'm alert enough to give this subject (about the mission's double life, I mean) a reasonable appraisal. One caveat that I need to make clear at the start, however, is that this is my understanding based on my experiences, observations and recollections. Others may have had different vantage points that presented them with somewhat different impressions of the organization.
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Public Image:
- Christo-centric: Christ as the guiding force and raison d'etre
- Bibically based: Biblical teaching assumed to apply also to its modus operandi
- Treats its workers well: Has the individual's best interests in all its dealings with him/her (For example, it made me change my prayer latter explaining how I ended out back in the USA after just 5 months in Vienna.)
- Apolitical (other than disdaining Communism): The mission as pure and simple Christian ministry.
- Security-centric: Christ's reign subject to security concerns. I.e., Christocentric unless security concerns dictate otherwise.
- Pragmatic: The ends justifies the means. As long as the church in Eastern Europe is strengthened through its ministry, it's okay to sacrifice usual Christian norms, values and beliefs to assure the success of the ministry.
- Treated its workers well only under certain circumstances; is not averse to treating its workers poorly: The worker is expendable and the mission cannot be questioned or disagreed with; the mission will find ways to make the individual conform or leave.
- Probably had at least military connections (through the chaplain h.r. staff)
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I guess that's it for this post, and since it's taken so long to finish it I'd better get it off. However, I would like to talk some about my family.
As you can guess, a lot has happened, family-wise, with the death of my mother. So now we've lost both parents, since my father died 5 years ago.
I've got all mom's address books and I've been working on mailing out notices to them. To me this seems almost a symbolic act because mom loved to write and she worked hard at maintaining relationships, so I felt like I needed to do more of this than at dad's death. Dad did more - that is had more "accomplishments" - in his life, but mom was the relational person in the family. She was an excellent conversationalist and didn't seem to need to resort to small talk even with new people she met. And she really hated technology, not so much as a Luddite, but because she wasn't technologically inclined. This is no great secret, believe me. So sending out written notices with personal touches seemed like a fitting way to honor her and the spirit of her. I must say it's been very satisfying to do this; it really feels good to do it. But a lot of the people in her address books I don't know or I remember the names but not that much more about them. I hope some of them respond by writing messages on her obituary page, but also maybe donate to the church in her memory.
Even while I was in Seattle though I was calling people to try to inform them and the like. So I had contact with people I hadn't seen in a long time, some of whom I may never see again, I'm sure. If I had to characterize mom, it would be through her web of contacts. But now that she is gone the web is disrupted, broken even.
(Mom was also very dedicated in her Christian faith, too, though, but I'll leave that for another day.)
The thing is that I feel like I'm sort of a temporary surrogate of my mom in my reaching out to all the people that she cared about.
Part of the web of her relationships is familial. In some ways some familial relations were funneled through her. For example, my relationship with my brothers has in recent years largely been held together by our relationship to mom, such as our concern for her, or sharing experiences (such as the Alaska cruise a few years ago) that she facilitated. So now our relationships need to be restructured and redefined. What will they look like a year from now? Five years from now? Ten years from now?
I think my brothers' relationships with one another are pretty secure, so the question is more about how I will fit in in this newly restructured family. In many ways I'm pretty vulnerable (sick, poor), but I'm somewhat ambivalent about my relationship with my brothers for several reasons. I'm not sure I want to go into all that now, but it will definitely be interesting to see how things pan out.
I think that's enough for this post. Good night...
