In the note, that meeting had been scheduled for 12 noon -- on the day of the note.
Obviously, we weren't home when the note was left yesterday morning, sometime after 8. And the note wasn't found until 4 pm.
So, I proceeded to the office to register a complaint.
Now, mind you, this isn't the first time I've lodged a complaint against this particular property manager. After multiple emails and phone calls, I gave up just yesterday morning (before I got the note, in case you were wondering) in another matter. I'd been asking to meet with the property manager and the district supervisor, in order to resolve some concerns. That meeting was never scheduled -- we had to follow "the chain of command", I'd been told. Instead, we were to meet just with the property manager -- the person with whom we have issues -- without an unbiased mediator.
So this morning I'm having to take a deep breath.
* * *
This is yet another tale of what the demonic really is.
We're interacting through a power structure. I don't know our apartment manager. I just know what she does and for whom she works. So our relationship is defined by bureaucratic power.
She's an agent of the Property Management Company. And that Company doesn't seem all-too-interested in little ole me.
So our relationship is defined by one simple fact -- the humanity has been stripped from it.
If I'm not careful, it's easy to slip into the same dehumanizing dynamic -- removing her humanity as the face of the institutional power she represents.
The point of all this is that I'm coming to the conclusion that one of the demonic forces in modern life is how we are increasingly interacting with each other through bureaucratic systems. When I find myself yelling at the person in front of me it is very likely that I'm not really mad at this particular person. Rather, I'm yelling at an agent of the system. An agent who, after work is over, will go home to her family for dinner. And maybe she will stop off at a liquor store to get a drink to take the edge off. It was a bad day after all. Particularly that guy who was yelling and rude because he got a note scheduling a meeting for today ...
Everyday we are in a battle to hold on to our humanity within a system that is dehumanizing us. Can we crack through the bureaucratic fog to see the flesh and blood people standing in front of us? The waiter. The manager. The return clerk. The bank teller. The secretary. The umpire/referee. The police officer. The bag boy. The financial aid officer. The tax agent. The coach. The school principal. The church staff member. The guy getting a note about a meeting scheduled for today ...
On and on it goes.
If I'm not careful, if I'm not vigilant, if I'm not prayerful, this dehumanizing will destroy me.
That's its demonic nature.
To live Christianly means to live as a human being in the midst of a fallen world.
See, this is what Paul means when he says our "battle is not against flesh and blood".
This is what spiritual warfare looks like.
There are forces of dehumanization that lurk around corners and in offices.
They're faceless and nameless, even though they're incarnate in the faces and names of those folks -- like our property manager -- who work for them.
I can't have the heart-to-heart conversation with The Property Management Company. I'm only able to interact with its bureaucratic channels and agents. In the meantime, the power behind it all sits unmoved and untouched while I yell at the property manager lady.
That's how the demonic works in the world.