More Hodgepodge, and Faith Unconcealed

I almost got a job by mistake the other day. It was horrifying. Ninety-nine out of a hundred applications I put in don't even receive a response, let alone an interview. I had accidentally applied to an unfamiliar company which turned out to be an agency, forgetting that agencies hire anyone, sometimes without even interviewing them. I did need to interview, however, and that was a saving grace.

Even though I am a seasoned, accomplished nurse, I have to be thoroughly oriented to a station to be able to perform well. Orientation lets you become familiar with an area, wiggle around in it and know where you are, turn around three times to settle in like a dog going to sleep. Jumping into a new area without orientation is terrible. You don't know who anyone is, how they take their medications, where the medications are on the cart, and inevitably medications are missing which ought to have been ordered to make sure they are in stock. It requires nerves of steel and impeccable organizational skills.

One time at "Mountain View" [well, it was like death for me to work there] I was forced to work a shift in a completely unfamiliar station, due to people calling off work. My first two hours were taken up with a resident whose narcotic medication had been allowed to run out and who needed a new prescription, and who was screaming at the top of her lungs until the situation was resolved. This put my med pass very late. There were three people on IV antibiotics, two of them twice during the shift, and representatives from a mortuary kept coming in the back door and setting off the alarm. It was a shift from hell, but the residents were all still alive when I finally left, two hours overtime. The next day I received a reprimand because someone had wanted juice with their medications, which I had no idea where to find, and didn't have time to run all over creation finding some, and I stated that I hadn't any juice. They didn't like how I put it: I haven't got any juice.

So that's what work at this agency would have entailed: jumping into unfamiliar facilities at unfamiliar stations for a shift from hell, every single time. Disaster. Even if I survived a few shifts, something would have gone wrong, and all the misery would have been in vain. It was too late when I realized this after I applied. I was enveloped in terror. I couldn't sleep without nightmares about working agency. So during the interview, as I am not allowed to turn down work, it was necessary to let the "Aphrodite", the interviewer, know the situation without actually saying, "don't offer me the job."

My approach was to fill out all the paperwork and sit through the interview, but let Aphrodite know that I was extremely terrified of taking assignments under the circumstances, and she eventually figured it out.

The great thing was that for the first time during a job interview I ended up revealing that I was a Baha'i, and teaching the person something about the Faith. It came up because she was asking about availability and I mentioned a study circle I was taking--what on--the "Covenant"--what's that about--The Baha'i Faith--what's that, I never heard of it. I only reveal that I'm a Baha'i when there is no other alternative.

We had the usual discussion where I talked about the origins of the Faith, and the concept of the Founders of the major religions reflecting the qualities and revealing the message of the Unknowable Essence, and how the Faith recognizes the divine origins of the various other major Faiths, so she goes, "So, it's a hodgepodge then." And onward. No, it isn't a hodgepodge, it's an independent religion. And I received the usual testament about her having Jesus Christ as her personal savior and so forth. She was curious but completely unreceptive. Which is fine by me; this is not "wrong." Merely a lack of understanding.

Coming out as a Baha'i is like coming out as being on the Autism Spectrum. I meet with incredulity. How could I be so stupid as to believe this? So I usually walk around hiding this terrible secret, that I'm an insane idiot. Revealing it is like setting my hair on fire. It's as if I were walking around in a sort of burkha which conceals who I really am.

Circa 1850 in the early history of the Faith in Iran, a woman named Tahirih entered a tent full of men without her veil, with her face showing. It was a symbol of entering a new era, where the laws of the old dispensation were abrogated, where women are realized as equal with men. A trumpet blast.

Even though I feel nakedly exposed if people know who I am, even if they think I am a crazy idiot, even if explaining my beliefs is awkward and arduous, maybe it's time to step out of the veil.