Two weeks ago under mounting pressure I finally submitted my resignation letter for the post I lovingly and proudly held for the last three years. My days as Trainer/Homefinder are behind me now but I must confess the way things ended has left a bitter taste in my mouth and my heart cries out to God for justice to be done.
I have left behind great friends and co-workers; individuals whom I will carry close to my heart for years to come. I truly loved working at the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services and will miss many wonderful things about the place but I finally had to put distance between myself and a boss who was increasingly becoming impossible to work for. I swear to you, it seemed to me, she was out to literally destroy me. I sit here and ponder why another human being would treat someone as Ms. Mildred Gonzalez treated me. A "job well done" every once in awhile goes a very long way with me but she simply refused to do so and in the end I grew tired and felt defeated at every turn by her snarls, judgmental stares, self-righteous posturing, and behind-the-scenes investigations hoping to catch me doing something inappropriate. I had been forewarned she was looking for any reason to fire me.
Believe me, I am not sharing all this to malign her character but simply to try and make sense of it all. I have wrestled with all these questions and complaints about the woman all alone just because I was afraid of coming across as what I myself believed she was being towards me-judgmental, critical, and completely unfair. Sadly, I do not have a crystal ball and I cannot tell what the outcome of things will be with any degree of certainty. I fall short of understanding what is inside another person's heart and have to constantly keep bringing all my questions back to God in the hope He will allow me to sort things out correctly and gain better and clearer understanding as to why things are the way they appear. What appears is not always what is and it is with this knowledge of man's fallen nature that I try to make sense of it all.
These are the facts as I perceive them: I worked my butt off for my employer and in the end I was treated unjustly and my character and job performance maligned. The latter because Mildred Gonzalez believed the worst about me. I can only share with you what I was told by others since Mildred never came to me personally and never dealt with me directly. She was always unapproachable and out of reach. According to what I was told by Diego Valdez, Assistant Director to the program I worked for, Mildred had it out for me. She believed because I wore all-white during the month of August that I practiced a form of witchcraft known in the Latino community as "Santeria". She would have none of it and therefore repudiated me because of what she believed I practiced. Please understand, Mildred professes to be a christian who adheres to the old-time religion of Pentecostalism. She will only wear dresses because she has been taught that anything contrary is ungodly and therefore not pleasing to God. I am sure she adheres to many other practices familiar to the Pentecostal way of life and I better than anyone else know about since I was a die-hard Pentecostal myself during the days of my youth. I no longer practice many of their teachings because I found no room for grace and everything seems to be performance-based, not to mention superficial. No offense to anyone who practices Pentecostalism or "holiness" as some have termed it but to me it falls short of the abundant life Jesus died for us to have and enjoy. Too many "Don't" rules to abide by and very little appreciation of brokenness is all I ever found there.
All along I thought Mildred's mistreatment of me had to do with the fact I was an outspoken Gay man who believed himself to be born-again and therefore a devoted follower of Jesus. Let me set the record straight here...I do not practice (and never will) the Santeria religion. Santeria goes against the very things I believe in and to me personally is a worship to demons; something I do my best to steer clear of. I have enough demons to wrestle and fight against. The last thing I need is to join them in their pledge to destroy me. In my life there is good and evil and both forces are in constant tension within and without. Call me medieval if you will but I believe in what the Bible has to say about such matters and that being the case I know I have an enemy who is out to rob, kill, and destroy me. If only he could! Thankfully, I take greater stock and refuge in the good, the power of God in me that delivers me from all evil.
If Mildred would have taken the time to ask me, I would have gladly told her the truth: I wear white during the month of August because of a personal vow I made to God to do so as a visual and symbolic gesture of thanks and acknowledgment concerning the purifying and on-going life-long process of sanctification in my life. The act of wearing white is something I hope to continue to do every year in August as long as I possibly am able to. It brings me much joy to do so even if it can be challenging at times. Trying wearing only white for thirty days and you will know what I mean. Dirt finds you anywhere you go!
Long story short...I was shown the door last Friday...a week before my scheduled last day. You should have seen the smirk on her face as I sat there dumbfounded, indignant, and tears streaming down my face. I was so angry but powerless to do anything about what was transpiring. Even worse, Diego had betrayed my confidence and duped me into thinking he was a friend only to turn around and sell me out. He gave Mildred an email I had written earlier that day where I stated in part how I sincerely felt I was being forced out and therefore had no choice but to resign. Three years of service and dedication overturned in one hour by a meeting where Mildred and her benefactor, joined forces and justified dismissing me right on the spot.
It has been a week since I left the Coalition and not a day goes by I don't think of what I could have done differently. I should have confronted Mildred much sooner. Maybe if I had volunteered an explanation as to why I did what I was doing she would relax a bit and not be so against me. Many other questions and scenarios are running through my head at the moment and I know I will have to revisit many things before moving on to what God has in store for me. My three years at the Coalition were full of life lessons and experiences which if I allow can mold me into a better person. This is why I am resisting the temptation to become bitter and be angry. I must see everything as working for my good! God is shaping me and molding me into the man I was created to become; the man the great cloud of witnesses cheers on. The man who is little by little becoming a reflection the one he is attentively gazing on. I am not ashamed to speak of my love and I know He is not ashamed of me either.
Well, there is much more to share and wrestle with here but I will end it with an open invitation to anyone reading this who may have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them here in this safe space I have created for myself and others to continue to be transparent and honest. Here I hope and pray no one will find the judgments and criticism found elsewhere, which make us want to run away and hide. I declare this blog to be a well watered garden where crooked things come find acceptance and have room enough to grow.
Crooked Notes by Idilio Rivera is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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