Open and Relational Theology & Social Psychology

The 60-Second Read

The Problem: Life abruptly changes due to job loss, death, school, divorce, time of life. You no longer know who you are or how you fit, or have the ability to choose or make it happen. Jesus says you are free. Jesus says he will help you make a way forward. God will lead. With God, all things are possible. But move toward what?

The Insight: Overwhelmed by endless questions, you’re paralyzed. Finding your way forward is helped by a process.

The Action: It takes more than belief it’s possible. You have to send out a search party for new things and then make a plan with small steps. You need to be prepared for obstacles. This story demonstrates the process.

Video: The video and accompanying music video song, Reach Out, are coming soon, as well as a free decision-making app that helps you understand resonant and fearful feelings while making rational decisions. They all take more time to create, but are in an advanced stage of development.

Reach Out

Chapter 1: Throw Jonah Overboard

The_Family_Gemini_Generated_Image_tnntzxtnntzxtnnt

Elias kicked back in his high-backed leather office chair and rested his feet on the mahogany desk. Work completed. Working from home was a curious paradox: How do you get comfortable when you’re already home? And how do you relax when, in a firm this small, you’re technically on call forty-eight hours a day?

He looked around the room. It was a shrine to his competence—framed certificates on things like negotiations and investigation, a shelf of thick legal binders, and a view of the cul-de-sac below, where the lawns were manicured to within an inch of their lives. It was quiet. Expensive quiet.

Relaxing was a frame of mind and posture, he mused. And chemistry. He unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of single-malt whisky, pouring a measure into a two-ounce shot glass. He didn’t need to measure it; muscle memory stopped his hand at the exact line that would shift his mood from “stressed” to “tolerant.”

He dialed Dave, his counterpart at the firm. “Dave, you already quit working, you lazy bum?”

Dave laughed on the other end. “You’re the one calling me. I’m still billing.”

“Touché! Prize to you, Dr. Do Little! Hey, did you resolve that ghost employee issue?”

“Oh, yeah,” Dave said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “The HR director’s husband hacked her login and added himself to the payroll. One-hundred K a year for doing absolutely nothing. He’s looking at fraud charges; she’s in tears. So, did you knock it out of the park this week?”

“Shell game,” Elias said, swirling his glass and watching the amber liquid catch the afternoon light. “Vendor was triple-billing the client through six different shell companies. Amateur hour. Thankfully, the new transparency laws make shell companies easier to nav— hold on, I’ve got a call coming in.”

“Elias here. Whose there?”

“Elias. Do you have a minute?”

He sat up, lost his flippant attitude, straightening his posture instinctively. “For you? Always. What’s up? New high-profile crisis?”

“No. Sorry.” Allen’s voice was thin, lacking its usual bluster. “Look, I just finished the Q4 projections. The ship is taking on water faster than we thought. Unless you can work for free, you have to take a semi-permanent vacation.”

Elias froze. The silence of the house suddenly felt heavy and oppressive. His usual jolly demeanor tried to reboot, but the system dragged. “You can’t save your way to prosperity, Allen. You know that. What if I take a twenty-five percent cut? We can hustle, find new business—”

“I’ve thought of everything. Everything! I hate this! The reality is, there’s a national firm eating our lunch. They’re advertising like crazy, undercutting our rates, and poaching our contracts. There’s nowhere to go but down. I’m actually doing you a favor letting you go first, before we start bouncing checks and the others take all the jobs.”

Elias attention was drawn to his antique Wheel of Fortune on the wall, then zoomed in on tragedy and the fallen warrior. The comedy/tragedy mask in the middle laughed at him as it wept.

“You know what they say,” Elias said, his voice sounding hollow in his own ears. “There’s nowhere to go but up.” The quip fell dead on the floor.

Reality grabbed him by the throat. “What about severance?

“We never got that policy set up. There’s nothing, Elias. I’m sorry. You can file for unemployment.”

“Unemployment won’t even cover COBRA medical insurance payments,” Elias said, his grip tightening on the phone. “Allen, I need that insurance. My diabetes meds alone are—. I’m sinking fast here Allen. I need a lifeline!”

Allen cut him off. “I don’t want to sound insensitive, but we knew the risks when we started this boutique firm.” His tone shifted to defensive. “The market moved. We didn’t. That’s capitalism.”

The line went dead.

Elias lowered the phone. The sunlight through the window had become dim in the late afternoon sun, creating shadows. He looked at the shot of whisky on his desk. A moment ago, it was an amber reward. Now, it had turned greenish brown poison. He didn’t drink it.

He just sat there, the silence of the house pressing against his eardrums. The air conditioner hummed, a shriek in some bearing becoming more eerily pronounced and reminded him of coming expenses, indifferent to the fact that his life had just collapsed. The moment froze, stark reality staring him in the face with no answers.

He needed to move. He needed to find Mary. She was his anchor.

He walked out of his office and down the hall. The house was too big for three people, really—a sprawling open-concept thing with vaulted ceilings that echoed with every footfall. Every step on the hardwood floor reminded him of the mortgage payment due on the first.

He walked into the living room. This was Mary’s domain. Unlike his cluttered office, this room looked like page three of a lifestyle catalog. Cream-colored sofas, aggressively fluffy throw pillows, and artfully arranged coffee table books that no one ever read. It was perfect. It was fragile. It very well represented her creative work as a visual merchandising specialist in Halloway’s department store.
Mary was on the treadmill, headphones on, power-walking to the rhythm of a podcast while sipping an energy drink like it was continuous fuel. She was in her own world, moving forward, while he had just come to a dead stop.

He waved his hands. “Hey! Guess what!”

She didn’t hear him. He stepped into her line of sight, forcing a manic grin. “The ship is sinking and I’ve been thrown overboard! Isn’t that wild?”

Mary frowned, pulling one earbud out. The treadmill whirred beneath her feet. “What is this about a ship?”

“The company. We’re sinking. Allen cut the weight, and I’m the heaviest thing on the manifest so I have to go.”

She stopped the machine. The sound of silence rushed back into the room, static in his ears. “What did you do, Jonah? Tell too many foul jokes to a client?”

He wanted to soften the blow. Tell more jokes. But how do you soften such a huge loss?

“I’m serious, Mary. There’s no job. No severance. No benefits. We’re on our own.”

Mary stepped off the treadmill and plopped onto the arm of the pristine cream sofa. She wiped sweat from her forehead, her eyes narrowing as she processed the data. “Okay. Okay. Maybe… maybe you could start your own business. Clients know you. You’re the best problem solver they can find.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Mary’s emotions turned from companion and helper to deep concern and sudden anxiety. “You’re the fixer. Fix it.”

Elias saw she wasn’t trying to be funny. She was worried and had no power of her own to fix the situation, so it was up to him. He nodded.

As he was leaving the room, Mary said, “I’ll pray about it.”

Elias nodded, continued walking, then turned back and said to Mary, “I won’t hold my breath for a miracle. What has religion ever done for us?”

Mary smiled and said, “God works through people, not magic.” Her smile faded as he left the room. Faith didn’t exclude suffering. It helped your through it. So Mary worried what might come next.

Elias went to bed thinking about it. He stared at the shadows crossing the ceiling fan thinking about it. He got up thinking about it. At three AM, when all the doubts in the world jump on you like a plague, unable to stand it, he jumped out of bed and headed for the shower. The glare of reality was profoundly haunting. I’m nobody.

There were no clients. The non-compete clause was airtight, and even if it wasn’t, he didn’t have the capital to advertise against the national firms.

He mentally listed his marketable skills. He could count them on one finger. He held up that finger in the dark. Problem Solver.
But that was a skill, not a job title. That was a luxury service. Companies hired him to fix disasters once every five years. Nobody kept a firefighter in the living room just in case a candle fell over.

He racked his brain for other skills but came up empty. The crisis sank in. He felt he didn’t have anything to offer anyone except resolving crazy problems that managers couldn’t handle.

He dragged himself into the shower. Afterward, he stood before the sink, wiping the condensation off the glass. He stared at the face looking back at him—graying temples, tired eyes, a mouth used to smiling even when things were bad. “Who are you?” he asked aloud. I fix things. That’s who I am. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it ain’t broke, I’m useless. I have a wife and child to support, a mortgage to pay, three cars nowhere close to being paid off, and I’m dead weight and I don’t know how to fix me or any of it.
He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, his breath fogging the image of himself until he disappeared again.

Where in the world do I go from here?