Sunflowers
I hadn’t been an intern for maybe 4 days before I was confronted for having a “sunflower” (how juvenile is that term!!) for a fellow intern. The accusation was absurd. We happened to be interested in the same things. We happened to be at the same place at the same time fairly frequently. But I had no such “sunflower”. And that was not the first time I was confronted about it, in regards to multiple guys who were interns. It got to the point where I started laughing at the accusers because it was so ridiculous. I saw this happening all over the place – people were so eager to prevent “inappropriate” relationships from taking place that even a sideways glance would get you confronted. I know of many friendships that were damaged because of ludicrous accusations.
Leadership
From my own experience, I have nothing but respect for Dave Hasz. He was nothing but kind, understanding, and supportive to ME. Intimidating, sure. But I never felt the way many of the blog readers/writers have talked about. But as I said earlier, I took a lot of what was said “from the pulpit” with a grain of salt, so to speak. I didn’t take every word he spoke as being the Word of God. As for Ron Luce, while I think his heart was in the right place while I was there, I always felt like he was living in la-la-land. That he could not relate to NORMAL people in the real world. And I often felt like when he looked at me (or other interns), that he was trying to peer into my soul to determine if my heart was in the right place or something like that. It was very disconcerting and always made me uncomfortable.
Conclusion
I am glad that I did the internship. Did I love it? No. Did I hate it? Sometimes. But being there really strengthened me as a person. It really allowed me to understand how important it is to not just follow blindly. It showed me how fallible we are as humans. And while I know this isn’t what the TM staff would like to hear, the #1 thing I got out of the internship was the relationship I built during that year with my future husband. No, nothing inappropriate or rule-breaking happened. But we both loved each other and knew that we were going to get married someday. So we spent that year developing our friendship, long distance. We were engaged 3 months after I returned home and have been very happily married for almost 12 years now.
Also, I have SO MANY great memories. Memories that I will always treasure. But almost all of those memories revolve around friends. Not around the TM staff.
My memories are of going and playing volleyball after work and meetings were over. Or of having a picnic out in the back 40. Or of having a big slumber party where we all baked cookies and made homemade salsa and giggled all night. r when we’d pile into a car and head over to Mercados to fill up on chips and salsa and split a few meals b/c we were all too poor to buy a bunch of food. Or when a bunch of us went to see the re-release of Star Wars in the theaters. Or when we went on a camping/river rafting trip and were swinging on ropes into the river and were chasing fireflies around. The list goes on.
There were so many good times and THOSE are some of the reasons I am glad that I went.
There are things, though, that I never really thought about until reading your blog…things like unnecessary or undeserved shame or guilt over the choices I have made in my life. I have no regrets and am doing what I believe in my heart that I am supposed to be doing, but there are often these nagging “what would they think if they knew?” thoughts in the back of my head. And I know I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve even found myself avoiding getting together with other interns over the years out of a fear of their judgmental thoughts. Which is sad, really. I love the Lord with my whole heart and am raising my children to love Him as well, but we aren’t the typical bread & butter Christians you see in the Teen Mania realm and I know I have nothing to be ashamed of. So again – thank you for your blog. Simply knowing that others are out there who feel the same way I do is an amazing comfort.
13 comments:
Layne Tannersays:April 6, 2010 at 9:04 AMReply
Sunflowers! I have a theory about the use of “sunflowers” in regards to attractive female interns and the indirect passive aggresive acts of jealousy in the form of “confrontations” by the ladies who were receiving less attention from fellow male interns. I think that it’s more than a coincidence that the prettiest girls on campus were on the receiving end of relationship-specefic confrontations than any of the others.
Just saying.
I’m sorry you had to deal with that. On the other end, though, you could take it as a compliment ^_~
Micheal McCombersays:April 6, 2010 at 11:31 AMReply
“what would they think if they knew?” ….WOW
Yea i have to say, I am consumed by that, sometimes dont get together or a free with my friendship with past interns.
If they knew what i struggeled with I would just get the you are not digging in deeper fluff or another canned christan answer.
So i just started to shied away everyone that knew me. I went to a dark place. But after really getting to the point of not caring. I was ok with it
I do have some great memories as well. Thanks for the post
MM
hitchcockhillsays:April 6, 2010 at 12:33 PMReply
yeah. my best memories had nothing to do with the actual HA program. My worst memories are dealing with the TM bureaucracy and possibly the worst manager to ever work at a non-profit. The relationships were the best part. Even though I’m not in direct communication with the 500+ people I met – it was great to have met and been in touch with so many wonderful people.
Anonymoussays:April 6, 2010 at 1:31 PMReply
@/Layne Turner-
‘I think that it’s more than a coincidence that the prettiest girls on campus were on the receiving end of relationship-specefic confrontations than any of the others.’
So true. I know this because I was NOT one of the pretty girls. I had a very good guy friend.
We hung out pretty much 24/7 and most of that time was 1 on 1. Even to the point that we would hang out in the back corner of the call center alone, durning work goofing off. We were the two best callers on our team so no one said anything.
Two three hours in the calf.. alone. playing games than off for curfew.
He was my best friend at the internship. I wondered for sure if I was going to marry him and even told a few of my friends that.
I got confronted for this relationship a total of… zero times. lol.
And I thought to myself, “If we were both ‘prettier’ people, we’d have a major confrontation on our hands here.”
Even typing this now, I can see even more clearly, a lot of those confrontations were probably out of jealousy and people didn’t even know it!
Anonymoussays:April 6, 2010 at 2:56 PMReply
I wonder if guys got confronted as much as girls did???
Anonymoussays:April 6, 2010 at 3:13 PMReply
Oh, “sunflowers” I had forgotten that TM termage! It is quite laughable now!
Micheal McCombersays:April 6, 2010 at 3:24 PMReply
@ Anon 1:31
that is a great point, just proved the point
@ 2:56
Yes the guy did get confronted as much as girls but again it was the more handsome guys. The ones with the good looks that were confronted.
Again driving the point home
In my own opinion of course
MM
Philip Esays:April 7, 2010 at 1:48 PMReply
I got confronted multiple times, and I’m not all that great looking. :p
Anonymoussays:April 7, 2010 at 4:34 PMReply
This is Anon from 1:31
I personally think the only reason I never got confronted was because everyone wanted to see us get together.
THANK GOD that didn’t happen!
Even my T.C. he’d catch us in our back corner (hahaha. If we were in a secular environment we probably would have been making out back there. We were definitely flirting and enjoying being the ONLY TWO in this little corner… wow. I CAN’T believe we got away with that!) Anyways, my T.C. got jealous one time and said something, but even then I think he really wanted to see us get together. hahahaaha. Again… So glad that one did not happen.
A.M.says:April 15, 2010 at 2:50 AMReply
Just a reminder… The Honor Academy is about raising leaders, not babysitting highschool graduates. While I had challenges, disagreements and at times felt I was wronged, I would be a fool to expect imperfect people to lead perfectly. Moreover, the same grace you expect from the HA leadership is the same grace you should be offering them. If the staff at TM would have led flawlessly, or at least in more agreement with my expectations, I would have not survived the “real world.” Are there any churches, organizations, jobs where this things don’t happen?
Also, if you judge how good your intership was or was not by the rules then you definitely missed it altogether!
Lastly, I challenge those of you who were hurt or offended by a CA, ACA, staff member or other intern to seek that person and talk. If you are sitting infront of your computer and complaining about what happened 4 years ago but have not sought reconciliation then once again, you are not only letting this dictate your intership but you are missing out on God’s big time plan for our lives… RECONCILIATION!
Trust me… I too went through some interesting situations while a part of several interships at TM. I too felt I was wronged, misunderstood, misjudged, nevertheless I let Him be my most memorable experience at TM, and that times that I overcame the most was when I spoke up instead of “behind” people.
Shannon Kishsays:April 15, 2010 at 8:33 AMReply
AM
So AM, your advice to someone who was raped would be to seek reconciliation from their rapist? Because, that is what you are telling those of us that were spiritually abused to do.
Eric P.says:April 15, 2010 at 10:03 AMReply
A.M.: Who’s asking for perfection? (Well, Dave Hasz is, but I suppose that’s not really the point.) The point is not that HA leadership is “imperfect”–which we all are–but that they’re abusive–which nobody should be.
Second: what course of action do you recommend for somebody who’s tried reconciliation (as RA and many here have done) only to have it not work? Jesus’ answer is in Matthew 18: “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:17).
Third: “Are there any churches, organizations, jobs where this things don’t happen?” Yep, lots. I’m in some now, as a matter of fact. It helps when you get some humble, Christlike, non-abusive people in leadership. I hope you find one someday.
Anonymoussays:April 15, 2010 at 10:04 AMReply
AM
you exhaust me with your trite solutions to what is obviously a much larger more complicated problem called abuse.