And as if that wasn't bad enough, I found out that my complaint filed with the Better Business Bureau was closed, and I don't think I have a good enough case to file a law suit, because of a lack of contractual agreements with some of the workers. The thing is that it's hard to get agreements like that with workers down here because it is sort of semi-third world. As soon as you start asking for various precautionary things to be build into it then they back out. I tried that. And I think the workers, especially the last one, really milked me for what he could get, and I wasn't well and just wanted to get the work done. So now I'll have to hire other people to fix the the things they messed up, but the one thing is going to really be a potential mess. I hope there's an easy way to fix it. I just don't have a lot of disposable money left.
And I didn't want to have workers come until I bought the mural for the bedroom, which is about $300 unless I can get it on sale. So far they haven't had it on sale, though. It's a bamboo forest mural for the backside of the bed. I already bought plywood and had it cut down to size - actually sections. Since the bed doesn't actually abutt the wall because I have a wellness area there between the bed and the window, looking over the lake I thought some kind of nature scene would be nice. I didn't want it to look too much like the forests I hiked in growing up, though, or it might make me sad, "toska" the word is in Russia. Russians have a very good vocabulary of complex emotional words and toska is one of those words. It's sort of a sad longing or something like that.
Anyway, back to the text...
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Actually, we're starting a new text:McCullough, Jr., Mark. (1978, Spring). Why Christians cannot minister to systems. Military Chaplaiins' Review, 165-117, 9-15.
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"Men in power must surround themselves with the mystique of professionalism." (p. 9)The thing with this is that it's something the other person isn't, so it's used as a way to keep the other person out. I think this was used in the Vienna mission too, and it comes out in my human rights report, which I just read through some a couple days ago again thinking through some things for this blog. That is, the seminary training was used to sort of separate the men from the boys, but, for example, the North American director didn't have any Bible Schools training at all even but he taught seminary courses regularly, so I mentioned that and even my boss didn't have a seminary degree, and he was the assistand director. So there was a lot of two facedness going on and this 'mystique of professionalism' was used when it suited their fancy and however it suited their fancy. Basically, you were either in or not and they could define professionalism however they darn well pleased, so shut up and like it or leave it.
This was clearly a case where Christians could not minister to systems, unless, I suppose, you were determined to have the mystique of professionalism. I wonder if Jesus had it...
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"Power systems must have such a professional aura, must have a shaman." (p. 10)There was a lot of power in the Vienna mission, because I think it was mostly all wielded against me, or at least a good chunk of it was. By the time I left there I felt like I'd gone through the wringer and been hit by a crane (and I don't mean the bird, either). So they had power, all right. Whether they had a professional aura, I'm not sure, but their shaman was the director, I think. He was a powerful system all by himself practically just because he was a strong and forceful authority, he was intelligent and very personable also. So he made the world go round, so to speak. But the ship could run just fine without him, though.
If the Vienna mission had an aura it would be the very awe of the uniqueness of what it was doing that no one else was doing of bringing everyone (all these missions) together to provide seminary education to Evangelicals in these countries where it was a scarce commodity and tainted by government restrictions. Is that a "professional" aura? I think so, because it was professional work and heaven knows how many hoops everything had to go through to get everyone's approval theologically, so it was sound as a rock that way. And even culturally trying to have illustrations that would fit the different countries and things like that. That's professional, don't you think?
Can't you just feel the professional aura? Wouldn't you just like to meet the shaman? And that power system, wouldn't you just like to... never mind...
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"If a system can include such a man as Nicodemus to speak to it, then isn't it redeemable? Our hopes rise... As with Nicodemus, authority's reflex on being challenged is to make the challenger feel naive, an outsider to the system and its vast expertise, its perquisites and its inside dope, and it is cold on the outside." (p. 10-11)The story of Nicodemus is found in John 3 in the New Testament. He was a Pharisee who came to Jesus at night and Jesus tells him how to be saved.
So it's like we knock the Pharisees on their lack of faith and all, but here's this example, and Nicodemus even says that "we know that You are a teacher come from God," so there must have been others who thought like he did.
But when I was in the Vienna mission, it so often felt like H-E-double-toothpicks, but there were people there who I think didn't have much of a clue what was going on, mostly people who were mostly temporary there.
I don't think there was a Nicodemus there. To count temporary people is to side-step the issue.
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"Systems that exercise power must have the capacity to induce such dread in their human instrumentalities. This fear for what power can do to a man is the fear that characterizes the sovereignty of death in human affairs, in this case, in the political authority." (p. 11)The author here is talking about an insecure bureaucrat. I'm not sure I'd describe the director of the Vienna mission as an insecure bureaucrat. In fact, that's probably about the last thing I'd think of to call him. Still, let's deal with the systems issue, and I think that it's not too unreasonable to think of the Vienna mission as unsecure seeing as they went to the hilt with all their security rigamarole.
I know for a fact, based on personal experience, that the Vienna mission has (or at least had - past tense) the capacity to induce horrific long-lasting dread in their human instrumentalities (i.e., missionary members). I'm not quite sure I ever feared for my life, however, just for my sanity. (They kept pushing me... I'll get back to the autobiography... really I will. But I made a list of all the files I have... there are a lot!)
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That's all from this article. It was interesting, but not exactly enlightening on the chaplaincy.
