Google Me Success; Google Me Failure: Google Me Shame; Google Me Mercy

A disturbing telephone call yesterday afternoon upset me terribly.

The woman sounded perky.

Perky!

At 4 in the afternoon! Perky.

All I wanted to do was watch football on tv.

The perky woman’s suggestion appalled me utterly.

I am not the sort of man who would do something like that.

Ever!

When she told me what she wanted, a sense of shame washed over me.

I felt as though I were a tiny little roach on a flat tabletop and someone turned a big bowl of pudding upside down right over top of me. I choked and struggled in the cloying stuff.

That perky woman’s words dredged up every sin, and failure and faux pas and stupid blunder and omission and fault I’ve ever committed. Memories I’ve strived to forget for years.

Tattered dreams. Fizzled potentials. Frustrated ambitions. A failed first marriage. Alienated people. — all this sludge surfaced in my mind and overwhelmed me.

Why would this perky woman do this to me?

I haven’t ever bothered her.

Oh, I know I should have expected a call from her or some of her associates.

A couple of months ago they send me a postcard. Then they mailed a brochure. Then a dunning letter.

Pestering me. Intimidating me. Shaming me.

Why! I did nothing to antagonize her and her friends.

Why should these people want to belittle me, shame me, make me feel like belly-crawling under the bed to hide. They want to remind me of my every failure. They want to rub my face in my lack of success. They want to ridicule my appearance. Snicker at my facial deformity. Make fun of my fat. Spotlight my failure. Nod knowingly at my poverty…

Yes, you guessed it — this perky, pesky woman tried to intimidate me into attending the 50^th Reunion of my high school class.

Her call actually nauseated me. Gorge rose in my throat. My hands trembled when I put down the phone.

Ginny thought I was having an attack of some kind.

I was.

I was having an attack of shame.

The thought of attending a dinner/dance with all those shining, brilliant, successful, charming people overwhelmed me with shameful memories and a realization of what a failure I have been in life. What a damn looser I am.

I did not need to be reminded.

I’m almost coping with this stuff now, but the perky phone call knocked the props out from under me.

Later, when I could breathe again, Ginny and I drove up to Georgie’s where I consoled my sudden onset of depression with barbeque.

Holding hands across the table we talked about the meaning of the words success and failure, winner and looser, shame and mercy.

When we got back home, I pulled out my dictionary and looked up the word Success — “a favorable or desired outcome; the attainment of wealth, eminence or influence”.

I have attained no wealth.

I have attained no eminence, nobody wants to kiss my ring. Heck, I don’t even own a ring.

And as for influence, just ask my kids about how influential I am.

I strike out on all three criteria.

Flipping through my desk dictionary while balancing it on my knee, I suddenly remembered an easier way to look up definitions: Google.

A few days ago I mentioned studying a computer manual on how to use Google.

To find the definition of any word, simply type the word define in the Google search box followed by a colon and the word you want; then hit Enter. Instantly the definition of that word appears on your computer screen.

For instance, define: success + Enter brings up “a state of prosperity or fame;

Define: winner + Enter brings up, “an achiever: a person with a record of successes”.

Define: failure + Enter brings up, “Failure in general refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective. It may be viewed as the opposite of success.

You can do this with people’s names too.

For instance, define: Polycarp +enter brings up “Greek bishop of Smyrna who refused to recant his Christian faith and was burned to death by pagans (circa 69-155)”.

Define: John Quincy Adams + Enter brings up “John Quincy Adams (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth (1825-1829) President of the United States. He was the son of President John Adams and First Lady Abigail Smith”.

Define: Ringo + enter brings up all sorts of information about the famous Beatle as well as about the First Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Isn’t it handy to know that?

About Google I mean.

When I tried my own name with this Google search function the reply came back, “No definitions were found for john w. cowart.”

I suppose it only works for successful winners.

So I tried the word shame and the computer replied, “Shame: a painful emotion resulting from an awareness of inadequacy or guilt”.

Yes.

That’s what I feel.

That’s it exactly.

Now here’s where this train of thought gets tricky. As a Christian, I believe that the mercy of God overrules my sins, faux pas, mistakes, shortcomings, blunders, and whatever else has me beat. I believe that God’s mercy shown to us by the death and resurrection of Jesus makes unworthy people like me accepted in the beloved.

“Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,” Paul wrote.

“ For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly,” he said.

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”.

I really do believe that.

I believe that, but I feel like crap anyhow.

I feel as though every goof I’ve ever made still hang over me, that my sins are engraved in stone, that my lack of success in life condemns me, that my sense of failure is what counts…

I suppose this dichotomy between my true belief and my true feeling make me some kind of emotional hypocrite.

Then I Googled define: mercy + enter …

Guess what I found.

It’s worth checking out for yourself…

But I still have no intention of attending that 50th reunion!….

A sinking, lurking thought arises in the far corner of my mind:

Maybe this is not about me.

Not about me at all.

Maybe the Lord God wants me to attend this function, not to celebrate my triumphs and status, but as a live demonstration of what the love and mercy of God can to do an absolute looser.

Maybe there’s some other poor bastard there who feels about his life like I do about mine.

Maybe the perky woman’s voice was the voice of God calling me to service.

NAW!

Couldn’t be!

Could it?

I need to mull this over a bit more.

Dear Lord, please, please, please, if I do have to go to this thing, please let them allow smoking. Amen.