I haven't told you about Easter, when Geoff and I went to the morning service at Northwestern's non-denominational Protestant chapel.
The minister's sermon was, of course, about Easter. Specifically, though, his
sermon was about questioning faith. The minister's teenaged son had asked him a
few weeks before whether he really believed that Jesus had risen from
the dead, and instead of being offended, or questioning his son's own faith, or
blowing the question off, the minister took the question very seriously. He
used his sermon to talk about how difficult it is for us to believe in a
miracle like Jesus rising from the dead because the world that we usually live
in is "a Good Friday kind of world." In our world, evil triumphs over
good, and money gets you farther than virtue, and people (even those who love
you) hurt you and lie to you and betray you.
It was a few weeks after I'd been fired, and so I was going through what I had
previously thought of as the Break Up Phenomenon - where every song, every
speech, every meaningful quote, every movie, every book, and every television
show that mentioned love, or sadness, or betrayal, or goodbyes, or forgiveness,
seemed to speak directly to me - to comfort me, to mock me, to instruct me. I'd
spent some time running some of our Management commitee guy's final words to me
through my head: "Everybody likes you. This is not an indication of your
worth as a person." Every time that I would hear that running through
my head again, I would think, "who cares if people like you? That
doesn't matter. Being liked doesn't matter. Maybe being good doesn't
matter." It made me mad and frustrated, and the minister's words seemed to
apply to me, and how ill-equipped I was feeling, fighting against this Good
Friday world.
And I don't know whether I believe that Jesus or anybody else rose from the
dead, and I've never really been a Christian, and I don't mean to equate the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ with my being fired by S&P (I'm not feeling that
bad). But I do mean to say something about how no matter who you are, sometimes
it feels like the bad stuff is winning. Sometimes, in fact, the bad stuff is
all you can see. Sometimes it doesn't seem to matter what kind of person you
are or how much you care or how hard you try. Sometimes it seems like you've
lost completely. Sometimes it seems like losing is just the way the world
works.
So the minister's message spoke to me. Sometimes it's really hard to live in
this Good Friday world, and it's hard to believe that goodness and love can
triumph over evil and hatred. And then sometimes, you think of some powerful
incredible story, of someone good who triumphed over evil, who could not be
destroyed by unkindness and hatred, and (in this case) whose story has inspired
people for thousands of years.
Even if you don't believe in the literal truth of Easter, it's an amazing
story. Sometimes there are miracles. Sometimes there is goodness. Sometimes
goodness wins. Sometimes the world works the way that we want to believe it
will. (Even for you. Even for me.)
There were tears running down my face for most of the service.
I've found myself thinking about that Easter service lately, probably because
I've been struggling to have faith in myself, and struggling to make myself
believe that good things are in store for me, and that everything will be ok,
while at the back of my mind, niggling wriggling doubts lurk.
I want to believe.
Two weeks before this past Monday, I got a call from an attorney who used to be
a partner at S&P before it was S&P. I had worked with Ike when I was a
summer associate at the firm which pre-existed S&P. After that summer,
during my third year in law school, Ike had called me to see if I'd be
interested in working for him. He told me that he and some other partners there
were planning to leave the firm, because they didn't want to be part of the
merge that was about to happen. They would leave, he said, sometime soon. Maybe
February. Maybe March. Maybe April. Ike would like for me to work for him, but
he didn't know if the timing would work out.
The timing didn't work out. Ike did eventually leave the firm, but when he did,
his other new partners didn't want to hire any new associates at first. When
they were finally ready to hire new associates, I was already safely (ha!)
ensconced within the firm of S&P. Ike called me in March or so of 1999 to
see how I was doing. I was doing fine, I told him. I was happy. I wasn't
looking to move at that time.
I didn't hear from Ike for a long time after that, but I did hear stories about
the new firm that Ike had left the firm to become part of. I heard stories of
screaming matches in hallways, and fights between attorneys, and horrible
working conditions. I heard that the first named partner - Bile - hated almost
everyone and made the new firm a miserable place for a lot of people to work.
(This was no surprise to those attorneys still at S&P who had at one time
worked with Mr. Bile. Mr. Bile had apparently also made life difficult for many
people at our firm, but he'd been one partner of many, instead of one partner
of four.) Since I'd heard so many horror stories about the new Brown firm, I
hesitated to call Ike to ask about available positions. I'd considered myself
lucky that I hadn't started working for that firm straight out of law school.
And then one morning, almost three weeks ago now, Ike called me. "Hi,
Jessie, it's Ike. I was wondering if you'd be interested in working with me."
"As a matter of fact," I told him, "I would."
He made me his pitch. Bile was making the new firm a miserable place to be. Ike was planning to go out on his own, to share space with a small firm of 20 to 30 lawyers, and to hire an attorney to work with him. Marvin, the attorney Ike had been working with for the past several years, didn't want to take the pay cut necessary to follow Ike. And so Ike would like the associate he hired to be me.
The details don't really matter anymore. What matters, I guess, is that the call from Ike came out of the blue. The job he was offering sounded like something I'd love. And it was going to be mine, without having to sit through another interview or send out another cover letter or convince somebody why they want to hire me. (I asked Ike if he wanted me to send him a resume. "Oh, no, I don't need a resume," he said. "You're a proven quantity. You're proved yourself to me.")
I told several people about the Ike opportunity. When I talked to my mom, she said, "Well, you know what your grandmother would have said. This is God's way of looking out for you." We laughed.
And yet, in a small way, I sort of believed that. Ike didn't even know I was looking for a job, and yet his timing happened to coincide with mine. And even more than that, Ike's offer was proof that sometimes relationships with people do matter, and can pay off. We hung up the phone, Ike saying, "Well, I'm very excited about this! Don't go anywhere. I'll be in touch." "I'm excited, too," I told him. I felt like I had been given a gift.
You probably have some idea what happened.
Marvin, the attorney Ike works with now, changed his mind about going with Ike. He decided he wanted to go. And although Ike reportedly agonized over what to do, since he'd already talked to me, in the end he had to go with Marvin. After all, Marvin is already familiar with all of Ike's cases. Ike was very sorry. Ike had really been looking forward to working with me. Ike would be happy to write me a letter of recommendation and be a reference for me.
And one of the first things I thought, in the moments of pain that followed that second phone call? That hearing from Ike was a punishment instead of a gift. That this was no blessing from God. That really, this was just one more lesson to me, teaching me once more that most of the time, this is a Good Friday world. Things don't work the way I want them to.
I told my Mom, later, that I'd had that thought, that this was God laughing at me, instead of God blessing me. We laughed.
Because hearing from Ike wasn't anything, right? It wasn't a punishment. It wasn't a gift. It wasn't the world stopping in its orbit to make a change in my life, for good or bad or indifferent. What happens to me will likely have very little effect on the world at large. What happens to me, as I face this challenge (a challenge that is by no means life-threatening, that I will certainly get through, and that is smaller, by far, than many challenges faced by many others on any given day), will have very little impact on anybody else but me.
I'm a little lonely, I think.
Today was my last day at S&P. You want to know maybe the best thing that I
can say about that?
I am relieved to go. I am eager to move on. I want to know what happens next.
There is some goodness in that.
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