Inspiration
What I pen falls under the genre of Inspirational Writing. Twenty years into this and I’ve finally come to grips with the often inevitable backlash of speaking fundamental truth. I usually get a free pass, never knowing what folks really think, but sometimes I step on toes, venturing too far into dark corners where self-conflict lurks, licking its wounds. On occasion this gets me labeled as “self-righteous”. I don’t take it too personally though because I understand the cause.
Sometimes I’ve been asked point blank, “what was your inspiration for that?” More often than not I do have a specific impetus for writing on a topic but then other times, it’s just the result of a combination of collective experiences either personal or observed. I’ve been chided for not dating my essays but I’d rather think the words should stand as timeless, not specific to a date, if they are even remotely generically inspirational.
However, thinking about this, I feel like revealing the process that got me to one essay in particular. In December of 2009 I invoiced a teacher who had pulled together a book signing event in her school with one of my authors. I usually ship books, in faith, especially to schools, because, crazy me, I keep thinking that certain professions are inherently immune to the lower standards now ruling the world. So, I sent the books, they had their event, which the teacher reported to me in an email was successful and that she would promptly be paying the invoice. Two weeks passed and I had not received payment. I knew she had collected the money, and probably in cash, from the other teachers. I felt two weeks was enough time, even for a busy teacher, to handle the simple task of putting a check in an envelope, addressing it, stamping and mailing it, thus I lobbed several friendly emails her way. After no response to the third email I decided I’d test her. I went on the school website and found the email of the principal. I sent one more email to the teacher letting her know that since I had not heard from her, I feared she might be sick or something so I would be contacting the principal to discuss payment for the books.
That one got an immediate response - literally within minutes.
The first sentence read - “Don’t threatened me.” Then she went on to explain that if it had not been for her efforts there would not have been an event at all. In those words I heard both her guilt and her own rationale for whatever caused her to not pay the invoice. It could have been anything. Teachers live generally from paycheck to paycheck. Cash in an envelope in a purse would be easier to use at the grocery store or to pay a late electric bill or buy a Christmas gift. I understand all the possibilities. It’s the excuses that I find troubling and coming from a person who is charged with teaching children is doubly disturbing. I know, it’s easy to say that teachers are human too. What do we gain by piling excuses on top of excuses?
What was really upsetting for me was that, instead of being contrite, or even apologetic, and God forbid, honest about it, she chose to be indignant. She sent me a check plus $10 extra “for my trouble”. This grieved me even more. It hurt my heart to think that she couldn’t step up to be accountable for her actions and instead determined to make me into the villain, justifying herself to herself and nullifying her bad choice by paying me off with an extra ten dollars. So There!
Will she ever understand what happened in this interaction? I’ll never know. I can pray she will. I sent her a Christmas card with a $10 bill in it. I explained that I had no way to account for the extra $10 in my bookkeeping. I apologized for hurting her feelings and praised her for the job she did of coordinating the book event.
Mulling it all over I began to write Accountability. Oddly enough, I spent longer on writing this essay than any other piece I have ever written. It took about five months. I don’t know why. I usually write with abandon and I get it done and up within a day or two. But this time I desired to be sure what I was saying was not written in white heat of aggravation but rather out of real concern that something is going terribly wrong, on a grander scale, and, from my perspective, it’s going to get way worse before it can get better.
Honestly, I’d rather find inspiration in happier things but the rose colored glasses are cracked and broken.
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