Oven-Baked Flakies

I didn’t know whether I should be furious or depressed. The sixth person had just called to say, “So sorry, I won’t be able to make it tonight.”

Normally it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but this was the third or fourth week in a row that something like this had happened, and I was beginning to see a pattern emerge that I didn’t like at all. It was as if I was stuck in a parallel universe where “yes” now meant “no” and “you can count on me” now meant “I’m going to bail, but only at the last minute.” It reminded me of high school.

It was then, in a brilliant flash of light, that the answer came to me (if it sounds dramatic that’s because it was). I don’t know if you know this, and what I’m about to share may shock and amaze you, but I’ve discovered that people, yes even those close to you, can be…FLAKEY.

There, I said it. I know you’re probably reeling from the aftershocks of such an insightful realization. We’ve all been victimized by the Flakies, as I like to call them. Those people who look so excited as they assume some huge responsibility for you, holding your credibility in the balance only to laugh as they gleefully run away without ever doing a thing that they had promised.

I can’t think of how many meetings I’ve been to or people that I’ve talked with who have had encounters with the Flakies. The stories all have an eerie ring of familiarity. Maybe it was an event collapsing before it even got off the ground. Maybe the parent of a kid in your youth group forgot the food for a Wednesday night gathering. Maybe it was the fourth volunteer who balked at the same project. One thing is for sure, this was all the work of those dastardly Flakies, strategically sabotaging everything good that we try to do.

One thing is interesting though. I’ve noticed that it’s easy to take my frustrations with an individual, or with several, and project them onto an entire group of people. It leads to saying things like, “College students are lazy!” “All of my volunteers care more about themselves than they do about who we are trying to serve!” “No one here supports what I do!” Sound familiar? Johnny’s mom forgetting the pizza rolls for Wednesday night wasn’t really that big of a deal, but it illustrates everything wrong with where you’re working. Why couldn’t she have just remembered?

Has something as silly as pizza rolls ever become an oven-baked metaphor for the fact that no one cares about you or what you’re trying to do? Suddenly Johnny’s mom forgetting the pizza rolls reminds you of when Stephanie’s dad didn’t let you host the Super Bowl party in their brand new gigantic house, which reminds you of when those 3 kids that you really wanted to get to go to camp this summer couldn’t go just because their parents didn’t sign the permission slips, which reminds you that no one has really shown up to your parents’ meetings that you’ve carved out of your ridiculously busy schedule, just to try to involve them. Oh, and that reminds you that they keep accusing you of not involving them. No one would blame you for being frustrated. No one would think less of you if you moved to another ministry area. It seems like a lost battle, so best throw in the towel, chalking up another victory to the flakies.

At least that’s what I did. I lead a group of students at UCLA who are trying to make a difference not only on the campus, but in the Los Angeles community. Our meetings were going great. We had a solid group regularly showing up to dream, brainstorm, and learn from each other.

And then it happened.

One by one they began disappearing.

Phone calls, emails, and Facebook messages were always responded to with a “Oh yeah, sorry about that, things just got busy this week. I’ll be there for sure next time.” Most never were. By the end of the quarter, our group had dwindled down to two.

As I watched our group shrink by the week, I couldn’t help but remember what other people had told me about UCLA. When I first started, I talked to several people who had been doing ministry on campus for several years. The problem was that they had the same experience that I did. Instead of helpful advice, what I got was reinforcement that I would never be successful. “You can’t work with UCLA students. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.” “All they care about is their studies, they don’t make time for anything else.” “Just go on campus, everyone is either listening to an iPOD or on the phone, they don’t even make time to talk to each other!” I began to believe them.

Each time I walked onto campus and saw students on the phones, listening to their iPODs, or talking to themselves like crazy persons (which I later realized was just them talking on their cell phones via Bluetooth hands free device, my bad), I could feel something bitter and acidic swelling up inside of me. Here I was to save the day, and none of them cared. I saw them as villains.

Looking back, I wonder how many people in our group actually stopped coming and how many people I just stopped inviting. When you expect the worst from people, it’s easy to operate on the assumption that they will meet or exceed your expectations. Villains are never heroes. But I had to ask myself, if I really was seeing only the negative in people instead of their potential, why was I spending my time with them?

That realization just made matters worse. I was still upset, but now I felt trapped by this annoying little thing called a conscience that kept telling me that giving in to my own conclusions couldn’t be the best answer. I was still frustrated, but now felt guilty for feeling that way. Ever been there? I knew that somehow my mindset needed to change; I needed a new vantage point. On a whim I decided to try to see things from the students’ perspective, to understand their side of the story; and when I began to put myself in their shoes my heart began to change. What I found was that the first step towards humanizing my villain was to find empathy.

I had forgotten that when I’ve spent the most time on the phone with people back home was when I was feeling most alone. I began to remember how awful I felt when I had to cancel something I had committed to because I just ran out of space in my day. Slowly it all started making sense. If I didn’t have anyone to talk to, I’d walk around talking on the phone or listening to music. If I felt trapped under the weight of 18 units per quarter plus a full time job to pay for it all, I may call to cancel at the last minute even if what I desperately wanted was to feel valued and like I had a place to belong. Suddenly the iPods and cell phones weren’t symbols of self-absorption anymore, but simply ways to try to ease the pain of being lonely. Suddenly, the last minute cancellations weren’t signs of flakiness, but the extroversion of someone overwhelmed by all the responsibilities they faced with no solution in sight.

I wonder how many times what we see as the worst in someone is actually their pain finally finding a way out. I wonder if the villains that we’ve created in the past have actually been the ones who needed our help the most. What would our relationships look like if we began to try to put ourselves in the shoes of those we’ve chosen to villainize? What kind of impact would it make on someone who has been labeled by their worst moment to have someone who actually understood what they were going through? 

What if in every villain, we chose to find the hero inside, waiting to be discovered?



By_David Haley