OVERQUALIFIED

(I started to make this a social media expression, but decided to move it here. It’s just some musings, and I’m not going to spend extra time editing it or over-formatting it. Some will get it, others will not.)

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OVERQUALIFIED.

It’s the word that keeps coming to mind tonight as I review and reflect upon an experience I had tonight.

While it was moderately or maybe quite “successful” it was not fully what was expected either on my end or on theirs, per se. It was a learning experience, I suppose.

And I learned what I already know, which leaves me in such a “head banging space” for so many reasons. I’ve been around the block enough to know that I get the most affirmation, or forms of broader encouragement, in a sense, for that which I’m LEAST QUALIFIED for.

And that the circle is much more narrow of those who more deeply value and respect me–and want to see me succeed and do practical things to make that a possibility.

People just seem to love that stuff I’m so OVERQUALIFIED to do when I do it. I can almost bet, I will get a lot of kudos for this thing, at some point. I suppose it’s impressive to do a whole painting in 26 minutes. It takes a lot of skill, I suppose. And the fact that I can do that, AND, produce a video of doing that within the next half hour, is perfect demonstration of how OVERQUALIFIED I am.

That people seem to like and digest that kind of thing so very easily, leaves me in further contemplation. It’s hard to know what to do about that…but to keep on trying to communicate to those who will hear and support me in that which I’m QUALIFIED to do. And that which I am supposed to do.

It’s terrible to be forced into the wrong place at the wrong time, so to speak.

Yet, I’m simply overqualified–UNSUITED–to a number of things, and possibly that thing. Or at least, unsuited to doing that thing on those terms. And in that situation.

And yet I continue to state in a thousand different ways that which I’m actually QUALIFIED for.

Ultimately, I kind of think I was in the wrong place at the wrong time tonight in the wrong situation. Yet, I found myself there for a reason.

A reason that many people may not be qualified to even understand. And that makes me so frustrated. I wish I was QUALIFIED enough to have the power to keep myself away from things I shouldn’t be focusing my energies on, and be doing the things I’m actually most qualified to do.

Sometimes, I suppose I just hope that those who might really hear–or WANT to hear me–will do so. There’s so much between the lines here…

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For some reason tonight, I think of the story of Joseph in the bible. I find it an intriguing story.

Was Joseph in the wrong place at the wrong time when his brothers threw him into a pit? Or, was he in the right place at the right time? Or, was he in the wrong place at the right time, or…the right place at the wrong time.

Who knows.

We learn from the story, as it goes on, that in Egypt, Pharoah finds Joseph more than QUALIFED to do that which he is supposed to do, in God’s plan. We aren’t told what qualifications his brothers have for their lives, we just find them eventually needing to come to Egypt for help during a famine.

I don’t know…it’s quite a story.

In recent years I’ve given more thought to the story of Joseph because when I had to leave home in 11th grade to go into foster care for about 5 months my mother wrote long and somewhat odd messages all throughout different part of my children’s bible (long story–at 16 I was saavy enough, along with a neighbor mother who advised me, to contact social services on my own behalf).

I had been escorted back to the house to get some of my books, clothing and other necessities, and during the days I was first gone, my mother had done this thing.

When I was chatting with a Pastor in my 20’s about this, and showed him her writings, he pondered her selection of pages on which she inscribed. I think he kind of mused that one would have thought she might pick the story of the Prodigal Son!

In recent years, as I’ve blog written some of my life stories with my mother, and as I have learned more about how she was treated as a young, intelligent, high achieving woman by her siblings–who showed up at the UVW and withdrew her without her consent, and worse…I ponder all these years later why in my mother’s mind she thought she might scribble a message to me on the pages of my big children’s bible at the story of Joseph.

Just many thoughts.

I never had any natural siblings, so I don’t know what that is like. The body of Christ and cousins have been “like” my siblings.

My mother was the youngest of ten children. My father was the oldest of eight children.

So many interesting musings I have about my mother and her unfortunate situation so young…her own mother dying at 17, and all her siblings seemingly believing she should be dragged out of college and brought back to the hills of WV to take care of her ailing father. Because apparently, that’s what “Margaret Ruth” was most QUALIFIED for.

Oh how I wish my 61 year old self could sit down for a cup of coffee with my mother NOW…her “78” year old self (she died in 2001 at 78…I was 37 then). Time often reveals stories within stories…and we only wish we might have asked the right questions.

I do know that my mother was rejected by her own siblings (all 9 of them older) and she never fit into my father’s family, either. How sad that was, in a sense. My mother had her issues for sure, but she was a picture of something gone wrong…and…I’m still not fully sure what that was in her young years that set the course for her in some ways…maybe…

There are always so many ways to look at things. Sometimes, we are just left with more questions…

OVERQUALIFIED.

JOSEPH. The story of Joseph. Let me paste the initial part here below; food for thought:

Genesis 37

New International Version

Joseph’s Dreams

37 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line.

Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate[a] robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”

8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Joseph Sold by His Brothers

12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, 13 and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”

“Very well,” he replied.

14 So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.

When Joseph arrived at Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

16 He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”

17 “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’”

So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. 22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.

26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.

28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels[b] of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

29 When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. 30 He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?”

31 Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. 32 They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”

33 He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”

34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. 35 All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him.

36 Meanwhile, the Midianites[c] sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

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In the Bible, Joseph had 11 half-brothers and one full brother. The brothers were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, and Zebulun. Benjamin was Joseph’s full brother.

Explanation

Joseph’s father was Jacob, who had 12 sons and one daughter. Jacob had four wives, and the sons were considered the founders of the 12 Tribes of Israel. Joseph was the second youngest of the brothers.

Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him because Jacob favored him and gave him a coat with rainbow colors on his 17th birthday. The brothers plotted against Joseph, threw him into a well, and sold him into slavery in Egypt.

Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Menasheh, were considered two separate tribes of Israel.

(Above) Me on the left, spring of 1980 eleventh grade, holding an award I won in a journalism contest. I’m in the bedroom of my “foster care” situation and on the right is the “foster mom” (Mrs. A.) They lived out on south Salem Church Road in Newark. It was an awkward situation for me. When social services first took immediate custody of me (when I contacted them) I spent two months with a family I knew (a friend’s family, she went to Newark High). When that became too stressful for them due to my mother’s search for where I was living, I was moved into a “real” foster home.

After two or so months there, I decided I should return to my mother and tough it out til I was 18.

I suppose I was “OVERQUALIFIED” to be in this type of foster care situation. I was a good student, and a number of other things. I was sharing a room in this foster situation with a young girl who seemed quite troubled, as I recall. I had to hide my jewelry from her because she would take it, and it was a very uncomfortable situation to share a room with her.

Surely, that young girl had her own tough situation she came from. I vaguely remember thinking to myself, “Maybe I should view this girl ‘like’ having a sister. Maybe that is what it might be like to have a sister, and a ‘mom’ who was normal.” But, it was not a normal situation. Not for me. Mrs. A was very kind, and we had some good talks. She had grown children and grandchildren.

It was just all so weird for me. And, less than one year after my father had died and was buried the day before I was 16. So many thoughts about this.

I was smart enough and qualified enough to seek my own placement away from my mother and her illness, and though the state of Delaware (based on clear evidence of the situation and my own QUALIFICATIONS) was poised to make me an “emancipated minor”–I assessed the situation and decided I should go back “home.”

I’m glad I did, for a number of reasons. But nothing was easy about it. I carried the situation “sibling free” until the day my mother died. I am grateful for those in the body of Christ in Delaware that helped me in essential practical ways during those times. I have not forgotten.

Just a lot to think about.

(Above) My 61-year old hand holding that same award I got at age 16. I have it in my closet on a shelf with other stuff from my childhood, things I intend to use in various writings, as I am able to keep telling my own life story here. It was the D.S.P.A. Newswriting 2nd Place, 1980. Somewhere I have the writing I did in the live competition, and the markings the judges made on it. This was some type of conference of multiple high schools, in competition. I just looked it up…I think it was the “Delaware Press Association” or some variant of that back in the late 80’s.

After writing this and adding in a few details/images…my mind wanders to a blog piece written back in 2023 that is inter-related to this piece…in my mind…concerning my mother and her QUALIFICATIONS.

My Mother Referenced ‘Confucius’ in Her High School Poetry Assignment