Thats not necessarily the first statement that you want to hear in the morning, however, I was the lucky one that did. This woman comes in for her second interview, after rescheduling 3 times. I honestly didn’t even think she was gonna show up. She did however, and almost an hour late. It wouldn’t really have been a problem if she was the only person I had scheduled today but that wasn’t the case either. I had someone scheduled to come in at 2. So she arrives and now we only have 2 hours instead of the 3 hours it would normally take to complete a full session. Honestly it would have taken about 5 hours to complete her second session because she is so slow and overthinks everything. So anyways I just knew we wouldn’t even get to the interviewing part and would have to do that another day so I didn’t worry about “pushing” her along through the exercises. I later found out I should have because she didn’t even finish filling out her surveys. That all being sad, as she was packing her stuff up to move to the room next door to finish filling out the surveys, the second person scheduled for the day had called and said she was running late but was on her way in. I guess she felt this was her que to take a moment and tell me about her recent conversation with God, which surprisingly enough involved me. She proceeds to say:
S: So this job, are you like working on your PhD or something or getting credit for your PhD?
M: No, I work here, this is my job as a research assistant for Tanya, however, I do plan on going back to school but not for Anthropology.
S: Oh really, what for?
M: Well my background is in psychology and I am thinking something along the lines of counseling or social work.
S: Oh thats great, we need more social workers, especially Christian social workers.
M: Uh huh
(Then she goes on this rant about how the world is coming to an end and there are lots of people out there who are suffering and if you are not solid in your faith before you go into a field such as social work, then you will be eaten alive and spit back out and really fall into the hands of evil) So as if that wasn’t enough, she goes:
S: You know I have to tell you I was praying to God about this project and about you and well you may not want to hear this but, I don’t feel like its a coincidence that you and I are here at this moment. I feel like God wants me to tell you that you are very intelligent and smart and whether your confused or unsure about things, religion, you just need to be open to accepting and hearing from God and he will change your life! He will make your world soo wonderful! But you have to be open to it, and in this world of academia they don’t support and glorify God. Its almost as if they are trying to prove they, as humans, are greater than God. Who is the Creator and who was created, ya know? God, God is the Creator, they are never going to be able to prove he isn’t real. I mean take scientist, constantly trying to prove evolution and disprove the existence of God. They constantly are trying to wrap there arms around the universe and what all is out there, but are unable to, and they NEVER will. The universe keeps getting bigger and bigger and we keep getting smaller and smaller. Who created science? Who created those scientists? God did. So whatever the reason is that I am hear, right now with you, I felt I needed to tell you that, and I know you will be fine, you are smart and intelligent and I feel your heart, I feel that you really want to know God, you just need to open yourself up to that.
M: uh huh . . . I mean I know what your saying, I come from a Christian family . . .
S: Oh praise the lord, what denomination?
M: It’s Christian but more fundamental (like I was about to tell her I grew up Jehovah’s Witness, I don’t even want to hear the rant she would have went on about how they are not “truly” Christian) but very similar belief systems and so I know what your saying is out of love for God, for me, for humans and I do really appreciate it. Ya know we are all on our own journey and are at different points along that journey.
S: True, true
M: So again I appreciate you saying that, I do. Thank you . . . Ok well, I gotta get ready for the next person who is coming in, she will be here any minute so if you want to finish up the surveys in the other room and then knock on the door when your done, and we will be in touch, I’ll call you on Monday to finish up the interview ok?
S: Oh yes, oh yes, ok. Thank you (she proceeds to give me a hug. This is not just your oh it was great to chat and Ill chat with you again hugs, this was the kind of hug that was filled with pity and concern almost as if she wanted to transfer her experiences of God to me during that moment of contact kind of hugs . . .that “your such a sweet, innocent, inexperienced child of God” hug.)
M: Thanks . . . chat with you later.
Until Monday . . .
So then I have this second participant scheduled for the day arrive. She is an easy subject and I am looking forward to getting through this session as quickly as possible and ending this very wierd Friday and going home, having a beer and watching a good movie that makes me forget about the day, the week and where I am at, at this moment. HOWEVER, thats not what happened.
She comes in, we talk, she tells me how the last month has been for her and what she thought about the discipline she had. Finally we get her started on the computer exercises, she goes through those quickly (I think ok this is going well, she may have talked alot at first but she is moving through these quickly). She starts the surveys, I run downstairs, heat up a Lean Cuisine (lemon chicken with brown rice and broccoli) and scarf it down. I go back up stairs and shes almost done with the surveys (I think GREAT more than half way done, she will be out of her in another 30/45 mins). She finishes the surveys, I ask if she wants to take a break, she says no, I think YES lets get done, and we move on to the interview. Things are going well were talking, I ask the questions and she is telling me completely and concisely what her experience was like over the last month. THEN we move into the spiritual experiences. Things are going fine, then for some reason she begins to talk about this Jehovah’s Witness at her job. She talks about how she really doesn’t like the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses and she honestly thinks they are a cult, “she really does”, and she did some research to look up critics of JW’s and she found that most critics of the religion were those that previously held higher positions within the religion. She also began to talk about how she loves asking this JW at her job questions she can’t answer right away cause it sorta disturbs her and makes her feel uneasy. The whole time I am biting my tongue and honestly just dumbfounded at the occurrences of the day and really the sequence of those occurrences . . . and as much as that is truly how I feel, I don’t want to even type it, being that it is exactly the kind of thing a person who comes in for this project would say and then follow that up with, “God meant for that to happen, it couldn’t have been just coincidence.”
