Ups and Downs

Evenings were less than perfect this week, by far. Tuesday was placid…David Jason and I went with Juan to his apartment for a stimulating Action Group discussion. I decided to go though Mere Christianity with Juan and made the decision to meet with him one on one at seven in the morning on Friday…which I naturally regretted later.
Wednesday, free night, well, theoretically it was. In honestly the first part of the night was hardly free. A certain level of drama had developed in the house centering on a single member of the project. While the other eight of us usually get along and are like minded and solid; this guy brings an unfortunate destabilizing element to the project. He wasn’t accepted by the staff, but transferred to the Los Angeles project when the Detroit project was canceled due to a lack of interest. He has been a serious point of conflict. He’s mentally unstable at times, very awkward, self-centered and often demanding…and shares a room with myself and Joseph. In short, he is very hard for me to love but I’m trying, everyone is trying. Everyone has catered to him at some point but that has never helped. Anyway, and incident (totally unprovoked) happened between him and Mike that ended up with both Max and Tom driving out to the house and the four of them having a discussion. It was decided that he is one step away from being sent home from the project. Mike, fortunately, was vindicated of any wrong doing. He handled himself extremely well considering that personally I would have had a hard time not reacting harshly myself.
We still tried to make a night of it though. Mike, Jen, Liz, David and at least one other girl went to Hollywood. I finally returned to Amoeba Records, one of the coolest music stores on the planet and one of the largest independent ones. I only bought one CD, which dropped my average per visit to 3.5 (this was my second trip there). We decided to drive over to Hollywood Blvd. and walk around…we should have just walked it was only three blocks away, a point I tried to make but didn’t get across. I dropped them off at a place where something important was happening with beautiful people out front and parked back around Sunset, close to where we originally parked. I met up with them at Hollywood and Vine and we walked all the way to the Chinese Theater and back. It was a good time but we were very pressed for it after the incident earlier in the evening. An LAPD helicopter was circling overhead when Mike, Jen and I got back to the car…but it left before any of us could figure out why it was there.
Thursday – A training that I really did not want to attend. I was exhausted and pretty irritable. I had a hard time paying attention. The speaker was interesting but it was hard to keep my interest. I was even more disconnected with the night’s corporate worship than I usually am. There were a flood of semi-pointless announcements and Jason got up to apologize because Monday night’s skit had apparently offended a couple of people (they had some validity but I thought it was a little over-reactive). On the ride back the most problematic girl on the project was in the back seat and within a few blocks of driving I was ready to blow up at her but I restrained myself (she may be going home in a few days because she is really unstable and causing a lot of problems on Mike’s team, I’m fortunate that she is not on my team). I guess the night seems really negative after all I just mentioned. It wasn’t all that bad; however, it marked a significant increase in my disgruntlement at certain aspects of the project. I was encouraged to see Mike talk to Josiah and take some serious iniative to patch things up…a huge step on his part, a step that I probably wouldn’t have had the heart to take. It’s amazing to see people change on this project right before my eyes. I was in the coffee shop on Union when they walked in. I couldn’t help but smile. I really think a lot of Mike…I told him that later on…I hadn’t appreciated him like I should have been. I had started to let negative thought and perceptions cloud my view of him. Those are gone now, and I can’t help but love the guy. I love how God enables me to get past all of my barriers that could easily keep me from loving people.
Friday – No incidents this night, thankfully. However I could have had a better time. The week had gotten to me so I was short tempered and irritable. Mike, Jessica, Josiah (a side-effect of Mike reconciling with him meant he had to come along, but I made sure Mike knew that I wasn’t upset for him inviting Josiah along…although I am still haven’t a tough time with him myself), Robbie and I went first to Downtown…and seeing everything interesting closed we drove out to Westwood and walked around the Beautiful U.C.L.A. campus. After going back to Westwood we were all tired and hungry but never ended up agreeing on a place to go (a brief point of conflict between Mike and I but I had learned my lesson the previous weekend so I relented and tried to fight my selfishness). We drove up to the house twenty minutes later, but finally decided to go look for a place to eat (after dropping off Josiah, which was not a premeditated action). The night ended without further incident, but I was definitely ready to take my fairly negative attitude to bed.