BEFORE CHAPTER FOUR
Warnings in life come to awaken us to Truth, but we often ignore the warnings. Many of us do not pay attention to the teachings of spiritual awareness. When something happens that we think is “good” we celebrate and when something happens that we think is “bad” we complain. This teeter totter is how children think. It is fun to go up and misery to go down. Neither is real or True. When we remain on the teeter-totter, we remain mired in the material realm.
We are sure to suffer when we identify ourselves as a material entity. The smallest irritation can start a fire of discontent, complaint and misery.
When we depend on the perfection of wisdom in the realm of desire, in the realm of form and in the realm of no-form we depend on emptiness.
Emptied of our identification with desire, with our physical body and our mental formations we transcend the world of suffering.
Chapter Four - The Warning
‘Mister Robert Kirkwood, sir’ is what Mrs. Geesky called her boss to his face. She sees him hide himself behind the heavy glass door and laughs at what she thinks are ridiculous attempts to be in charge. He is no more a real sir than I am a Mrs. She asserts this comparison every time he announces in a staff meeting that he wants to be called sir. He thinks of himself as Lord of the Shop and wants all of us to kowtow to his whims. He sends out memoranda, what he calls important reminders. Stupid stuff. Just stupid stuff!
‘Be on time. Support the patient. Support the caregivers. Wash your hands. Wear your ID. Always do the paperwork. Be neat and tidy. Ask for help, we are a team.’
He’s just repeating what all the manuals tell us to do. He treats us like ignoramuses. These are the repetitive thoughts that flow through Mrs. Geesky every time she sees Mr. Kirkwood sitting behind the thick glass wall of his office.
Tweed in winter and short sleeves in every other season. He looks like a balloon on the end of a pipe cleaner with his big head atop his thin, clumsy body. Like most days he wears a vest, buttoned up and snug. He’s been sorry ever since the Ministry went to bat for me, got me in, stood behind me in my extraordinary singular service. He doesn’t say so, but I know he regrets hiring me. The Ministry knows my remarkable skills.
His shirts, every one of them too big on the shoulders, too long in the sleeve do not conceal his real size, his very small manliness. His office is rectangular with warehouse high-ceilings and one long, narrow desk placed between a credenza and the glass wall shrinking him further.
I don’t like him. This Mister! This Mr. Robert Kirkwood that sits at his desk in a glass walled room. He’s so high and mighty. I can’t get by him without being noticed. He watches everyone and I know no one looks at him. I’ve seen everyone, even his assistant scurry past the glass partition in failed attempts to go by unnoticed. He’s a watchman, no more, no less despite the fact his name plate on the front directory gives him the title, Director.
This morning is no different than any other morning. After 15 years of service, he continues to glance up above my head while he motions with his pointed spiny fingers for me to open his door. I should ignore it. I could. Tell him I didn’t think he wanted to see me. Might as well get it over with whatever it is.
“Yes, sir. Yes, Mr. Kirkwood? Did you need something, sir?”
He doesn’t stand and worse, he doesn’t even look up at me. I swear his head is the heaviest part of his body. It hangs over pulling his angular nose close to the piles of paper in front of him.
“You’re late.” he says in the blandest of ways. It is a queer approach, I think, to scold me in such a plain and dull voice. I ignore it.
“It is common courtesy sir, when speaking to a…” I stop myself from saying the word Mrs. and decide to use a higher rank, “a Reverend… to at the very least, to look me in the eye.”
I watch him as he looks up askance and says in a boring tone, “Oh.” then in a mitered manner returns to his desk work. He thinks himself, the archbishop of stacks of paper and artificial rules.
“And sir as you know, I’ve been up all night.”
“Yes.” Mr. Kirkwood said without looking up, “Mrs…pardon me, Reverend. I’ve had a complaint.”
“Who complained? It’s common practice to come in late after being up all night.” Mrs. Geesky pushed her shoulder against the open glass door, the weight of which challenges her ability to keep it open.
“And Reverend Mrs. Geesky, it is my common practice to maintain confidentiality for the complainant. As you well know.” Mr. Kirkwood pushes the cuff of his too long sleeve up his weedy arm, taps the end of his pen one of the piles of paper making a thud, thud, thud sound. He returns to look down on the papers and continues to write.
Hunched over a stack he ends his point with her title, “Reverend, Mrs.” It is a crisp, clear decisive point letting Mrs. Geesky know she can let the heavy door swing close as she is to leave.
Mr. Kirkwood makes a point to pause but does not raise his head. Mrs. Geesky stands up to his dismissal by taking one step towards his desk while she keeps one foot and shoulder against the propped open door. Mr. Kirkwood stands up as he digs the point of his pen into a stack of paper. He explains why he motioned her to come into his office in the first place.
“I left you a note on your desk, Reverend, Mrs.” Aggrieved by Mrs. Geesky’s insistence, he bends forward in the stature of a broken marionette. With both his hands flat against the papers, he leans his lightweight body and stares at her.
Mrs. Geesky knows he wants to be done with her, but it doesn’t matter. It never mattered what someone might expect or request from Mrs. Geesky. She remained adamant in maintaining her innocence as she persists in her accusations that it is always the other’s fault.
I have a right to know who my accuser is, she thinks to herself. Who is this shrink of a man, this wooden figure? We are in the room, in the same room, him spread over his desk, me with the weight of the glass door pushed against me. I am not surprised anymore. I hate it. He’s out-of-order in his office where every surface is stacked with files. His neck is a long wick from which his bulge of a head hangs over his self-made clutter. Her mental arguments give way to the weight of the glass door as she is pushed out at an angle into the hallway where she lets the door swing close.
I call him names this Mister Robert Kirkwood. Today he is Mr. Memo. Mr. Memo kept shoving these yellow slips of paper my way. First, he tells me I am late. Now…he sticks these ugly yellow papers on my computer screen. Unprofessional. It is an awful site. Bird droppings from his high perch, that’s what I call them. These stupid reminders are all over my desk. What does he think?
I heard all I am going to hear from him. Each one of his sticky notes tells me the same thing, each one getting bigger in size. SEE A DOCTOR AND GET A NOTE OR…I keep reading that note trying to fill in the blank. He’s such a coward not to fill it in, not to write it down like a strong man. He’s a weakling. No one else will tell him. But he said to me, he said SEE A DOCTOR AND GET A NOTE OR I’LL SUSPEND YOU. He knows what that means, suspend me and I’ll have to go before a big review team asking me all about why I have a special employment status. I’ll tell them the truth. I wish he’d written it down. Things in writing are proof. They are evidence. The written word held sway, a greater power than a verbal reprimand. It’s all wrong and against the law to leave the end blank. Empty threats. He is a man of empty threats.
Ever since all these sticky messages started Mrs. Geesky kept thinking she should find a doctor to shut him up. But this morning she was happy she waited. It’s a good thing I waited. I happened to be down on one of the shabbiest of streets when I saw a message on a storefront window. ‘Your duty is to do your best.’ That’s the truth. But better than that, it said, Everyone Welcome. I took a picture of the window with my phone. I got the number and name of the doctor. Now it’s settled. I called and made an appointment before work so I could stop him leaving all his sticky, yellow mess.
I know what’s what with him. And just making the appointment will get him off my back. There are other ways, but this one better be enough. I won’t tell him who; he doesn’t get to get any details. Yeah. It’s settled. I’ll tell him the appointment is for next week, next Monday before work. I’ll write a memo back to him, show him how it should be written and stick it on his glass door. I want everyone to see it. That’ll show him who knows what.
He knows very little if anything about honesty. Even though he says to call him ‘Bob’ I know that is not what is right. None of these sticky notes have any properness to them. Mine will be proper.
TO: Mr. Robert Kirkwood, LCSW Director, Hospice Services South Shore
FROM: The Reverend Mrs. R. Geesky B.A., M.A. Chaplain, Hospice Home Services
Mr. Kirkwood,
The Reverend Mrs. R. Geesky has a doctor’s appointment next Monday at 8:00 a.m.
Yours truly,
The Reverend Mrs. R. Geesky
I want to let him know I know the snitch. That granddaughter. She’s like everyone else. Shows up at the last moment for the Great Matter. Thinks she deserves something for nothing. She's the one that complained. I’d bet my eye teeth on it. If anything happens, I’ll bring her up on charges. It’ll be time to get the law involved. The law is on my side. I know the law.
I can eliminate all these sticky notes from Mister Memo Man. He’s just a dot now. Nothing more than a dot. My appointment is all set. I’ll get a good note from the doctor and wash my hands of this interference.
I’ll get it off my chest.
The window said it was free. And this Susan Belle is a doctor. It was hard to see through the front window, but it looked like a tidy, old-fashioned parlor. She knows about duty and tidiness. She’ll write a good note. I’ll tell her right away. There’s no sense in wasting time. Delay is an impediment. She’ll be like the school. They understood I had to kill my baby sister. They got it. Mother and father pretended not to get it. The school got it. The school made me okay. And this doctor will see how important the great matter is and give me a good note on Monday. She’ll make me okay. Then he’ll shut up about it.
Her daggered thoughts flew up inside her into a long blade. Mr. Robert Kirkwood is a coward. He is a complainer. Recites corporate folderol. Baloney. Baloney.
Mrs. Geesky pulled the sticky notes off her computer and pressed them into a ball. She looked around the open office to see if anyone was watching before she threw them in the trash.
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
We transcend the human experience to know our true nature.
Photo Credit of Buddha: William Arsenault - Thank you, Bill!
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