Why I Am Not a Team Player!

Once so many years ago when I worked for Bank of America and I had a wonderful office on the fifty-fourth floor and a splendid view that I loved.

My boss was very friendly to me and asked me to meet him at our lunch hour at the adult bookstore not far from our building where we could share a private booth, a film and some ‘romance’.

Well I was not interested so I did not show up or give it even another thought. But after a week of his invitations and my not showing any interests, he complained that I was not a team player to my agency and Bank of America never officially took my contract, so I was contracted to another company or corporation; but I always did miss that wonderful office on the fifty-fourth floor and its splendid views!

Anywhere I was contracted that I liked being at, I always thought about staying if I was offered to be a full salaried employee, and I was always good at whatever I did anywhere I went; but I did not always want to be hired at all the companies or corporations! But I was not always asked, as some were only one or two year contracts and there was not always the option to remain any longer than that.

I learned a lot, and some businesses were filled with lofty mindedness and positive social ideals and worldly (cosmopolitan) interests. And it was in those kinds of places that I was always a team player as it were. But not the kind of team player that my boss at Bank of America meant for me to be for his immediate and daily lunch hour gratification.

I attended evening classes towards furthering my education and made many friends. I was also busy with volunteering and serving in religious matters and social concerns in the Church and under the auspices of the Church. And there were all the inner-city concerns that I was interested in as well!

And time quickly went by and in no time years flew by! And one day I woke up to realize that I was forty-five! Where do I go from here?

My resume looks fragmented though it’s really not. And I am no longer twenty-five and hopeful and filled with all that youthful awe about my life as if there are always all these opportunities just waiting for me to pluck them to my heart’s content!

And when another man hit on me in an awkward and painful situation and I turned him down, now he has given me a bad report that is effecting me and affecting important things about my life, and once again I am ‘not a team player’, and that aspect of my personality is causing me even more trouble again and now already at forty-five!
But I do not look my age and I somehow look all available for another man’s need for quick gratification, and this time in another ‘professional’ setting, and there is nothing I can say or do to cure the situation, but by having already tried, I even made matters worse for myself! If only I had learned the first time already just be to “a team player” aye?!

Missed Opportunities!

Twenty years ago when I was contracted to Ross Perot’s company and very happy there, with a view of the city on one side and sailboats on the other and I was good at my job, my contract was running out and I had no word from anyone at the company except that the position itself would be taken over by a long time employee there who interviewed for it, so I contacted my agency and told them the news and they contracted me off like a commodity onto another corporation or company then, either to the phone company or Triple A? Or possibly even to one of the downtown law firms?

And I was told months or a year later at dinner with some friends from Ross Perot’s corporation, that if I had stayed around longer they had been planning to phase me in as a ‘real salaried employee’ there! And I loved it there! But who told me that information when I was there and scheduled to have my contract end there! No one!

Twenty years later I still live with that regret about a situation that no one told me about but that nice people were all performing in the background secretly for me without me ever knowing until it was way too late to reap the happy benefits from all their kind efforts!

And that is only one of several situations for me that were in the happy offing for me over the years and by those who were working secretly in my behalf but I never knew in time to make the correct choices to get to reap those happy blessings!

And one goes from twenty-five or so to forty-five or so, and then one remembers all those things and nice people and pleasant but missed opportunities, and regrets the mistakes made even if they were made in personal ignorance because a persons has to weight their choices in life and especially when they come to those proverbial ‘crossroads’ about things and have to make decisions about things right then and there!

And for me I always weigh everything with all the information that I have in the matters concerned, and then I make the choice that seems the best and most responsible for me to make at that moment! What can a man do than what seems to be the best thing to do and the most responsible thing to do, with all the facts that he has to work with, and that that moment in time? A man can do nothing else better than to do what seems to be the best choice for himself as well as the most responsible decision with the facts that he as to consider and to weigh through right then and at that very moment. There is nothing better that he can do!

And that, along with prayer, is the way that I have done things and thought about things for my whole adult life, as well as before my adult life, and ever since I have been responsible for myself. And I know that sometimes people have even thought that I had a chip on my shoulder about things, but all I was trying to do was what seemed to the best thing to do in every situation. And that is the best that any man can do!

But I sure still do regret all of the missed opportunities that I did not know about!

“Ten Different Kinds of Sorry!” is a saying when someone does something that makes you angry and you say something like, “You keep that up and you’re going be ten different kinds of sorry!” Or, “…you’ll be ten ways of sorry!” And it basically is just a saying to someone or some people even say that kind of thing like that to their children when they won’t behave.

Well to be honest, I have been just about “ten kinds of sorry” myself! The things that happened to me over the years! I would be offered blessing or good things, or I would have favour with people in positions to get my life going well, and I would lose those blessings, things or situations!

Sometime just because somebody would be working in the background, in secret to make sure things went well for me somewhere, but since I wouldn’t know, I would make choices or decisions about my life and career according to a man needing to just do what seemed best when he is on his own in life and has no one there for him, and then I would find out that I messed up some secret opportunity for myself and for my life, and someone would say something like, “I was planning to do such and so for you if you would’ve just done this and that, but since you didn’t you just messed up that whole opportunity for yourself and you’ve gone and spoiled everything that could been that way and even made things better for you!”

Well good intentions and all do not matter if they are done secretly and even by good people who mean well and care, and for a person trying to responsible, who is just doing things as seems best!

How many times in life have I had things backfire for me when I found out that I was doing things that best way that I could, and then find out that someone or some kind people were all working things out for me in the background, but never told me, so I went on and messed the whole thing and all the matters up just by making choices and decisions as a man doing what seemed best as someone all on their own wanting to do things righteously and correctly in the world as a man without anyone else in the world to care about him or where he goes or what he does? “A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” –Jesus (Jn 10:10) And Satan has surely stolen much from me through misunderstandings hasn’t he?

And now I have even offended some people who meant to look into things for me and to do a bit for me, and were all concerned that I not hang out with ‘older persons’ like themselves, but that I might even get involved with “young people” myself, if we could find any around for me! But I keep telling them that I am already forty-five years old and closer to their ages than any “Youth Group” I could or “should get involved with"! And people trying to be a bit of help to me now think I have this rebellious attitude… But I think I kind of get their problem now, because even where I had some medical tests done the people there kept asking me my age and looking at my personal information and then asking me my age again, and I kept saying that that was me and yes I am really forty-five and I think they thought that I was using someone else’s ID or something? Weird aye?

RECENT CHURCH HISTORY:

The Charismatic Renewal was a Spiritual Awakening in Recent Church History...

When I was a little boy growing up in the Charismatic Renewal of the 60’s and 70’s;

We believed in all Christians,

We believed in St. Mark 16,

We believed in Acts 2 and Joel 2,

We believed in Ezekiel 37,

We believed in the early and the latter rain!

And we believed in Christian Love, the Holy Spirit and Christian Unity!

In Corinthians St. Paul tells us that when he became a man he “put away childish things”.

Must I now become a man who has outgrown his Charismatic Dreams of Christian Love, the Holy Spirit and Christian Unity?

Is the Awakening over?

THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST TO ST. JOHN

Chapter Fifteen

THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES: Then I saw in Heaven another sign, great and awe-inspiring: seven angels with the seven last plagues, for through them God’s fury is accomplished.

Then I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire. On the sea of glass were standing those who had won the victory over the beast and its image and the number that signified its name. They were holding God’s harps, and they sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:

“Great and wonderful are your works,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are you ways,
O king of nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord,
or glorify you name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been
revealed.”

After this I had another vision. The temple that is the heavenly tent of testimony opened, and the seven angels with the seven plagues came out of the temple. They were dressed in clean white linen, with a gold sash around their chests. One of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven gold bowls filled with the fury of God, who lives forever and ever.

Then the temple became so filled with the smoke of God’s glory and might that no one could ever enter it until the seven plagues of the seven angels had been completed.