Corinne's Blog

For the last 3 weeks I’ve been working my butt off for a family in the Kenwood Neighborhood who are filthy rich. The problem is that their money has seemed to corrupt the way they look at people and value people. They paid me next to nothing and expected me to do everything to perfection with no encouragement, incentive and constantly having them behind my back repeatedly telling me how to do things that I already knew how to do.

I wasn’t allowed to complain about the work I had to do because the first time I’d said anything about the work I’d been “told on” by the nanny.

Funny enough though, every time I usually shared with the nanny it was her who was asking me something.
After that I was told that I wasn’t allowed to socialize or talk to anyone during the hours that I was work…which was 8 hours a day 5 days a week…40 hours a week of not talking to anyone could drive a person crazy.

I was told that if I was caught complaining that I’d be fired.

Well I was supposed to be put in charge of the meals. I was happy about this part of my job because cooking is something I enjoy doing that I do very well. Yet, when I was constantly shadowed by the lady of the house Janel Goff (which is quite annoying, stressful, and hard to deal with) I asked her politely if since cooking was in my job description and because they’d given me that responsibility, I asked that she let me be in charge of making the food and I asked that she give me control in the kitchen when it was my time to cook, instead of her thinking that I am not doing things right instead of doing them her way.

Asking her this must have made her feel that I was trying to overrule her command because the next day Brian came to me and told me that he and Janel didn’t want me making meals anymore, and they had discussed it before they went to bed. They had decided to punish me by taking away the one thing that I enjoyed during the day.

When I worked on Labor Day while the rest of America’s working population was off, I asked for time and a half which was fitting. But, my employer Brian Goff told me that I couldn’t get it because the day I moved into my small 2 bedroom apt and still worked a half a day in the house, I’d been paid for a full day.

When I told Brian that I might want to take up an afternoon job because what he was paying me was so low, he told me…okay sure since you aren’t doing dinner now you can work till 5:30pm and start you babysitting in the afternoons. I didn’t know that the hour that he’d decided to let me off early for would cost be my 2nd daily break time.

I got off an hour earlier because I sacrificed my own free time…like when a teacher takes away minutes at recess.

I heard that Brian was the kind of man to play tricks like that, not paying people, overworking people, creating contracts that practically enslaved people.

The main reason I was settling at the Goff’s place for only 100$ a week…not including food costs was because I needed a place to stay and I was technically working off my living expenses by working for the family.

I was given my own place to live while I worked for the family, this place was supposed to be treated like an apartment away from the main house. “My own place” I was given a house mate who was also working for the Goff family, their gardener Louie.

The problems that I encountered with this living situation was that Brian felt that even during my break time he could come onto my side of the house and give me orders for what I should be doing later. When I felt that my break time was the only time I could escape from my servitude and relax…that became extremely stressful. Not only that but when I was on break, because the Goff’s didn’t care about anyone but their own selves they had neglected to fix anything in our part of the house…we didn’t have internet, cable, a separate phone line, and for about a week and a half our main plumbing in our kitchen didn’t work and our sinks were clogged. I spent most of my nights going to the local coffee shop with my housemate to go get internet.

One thing that I was extremely grateful of were my weekend off. This was a time that I spent living the life I would be living if I hadn’t been working all the time. I bathed weekends, went and read, went home to visit my mother, attended church and was about to refresh and reset myself and my spirits for the following week. The weekends became a time that the Goff would leave me alone and I would leave them alone. Even though more than once I was called and ‘ordered’ to do something on a Saturday morning.

I am  surprised that it was the acts of this past weekend that got me fired and evicted from the Goff household.

My friend Jimmy was being evicted from his home. I am Jimmy’s primary babysitter of his two small children Collin who is age 4 and Caylie who just turned 2 on Sept 11th. I’ve watched over Collin and Caylie so much since before Collin was even walking that I feel like I have a major hand in how they’ve been raised. They aren’t people i babysit for and get paid for. I watch Collin and Caylie for free because I consider them to be family and like my own children.

Every time I watch the Hines children they have stayed at my place of residence, my mom’s house, my dorm, my friend’s house. I can barely count on two hands how many times I’ve watched the children in their own home.

My mother had agreed to watch the children at Jimmy’s request which usually meant Jimmy would be dropping the children off for me to watch them at my mother house overnight, and have them join us while we attended church the following day. This particular time though my mother did not want to have the kids at her house, my brothers Tyler and Eric this past week had been extremely sick and running high fevers.

Since Collin and Caylie are so young and susceptible to illness and since I’d watched them millions of times before in my places of residence outside of my mother’s house, I agreed to watch the kids at my place. I believed fully that the Goffs would have no problem with who I decided to invite over to “my own” apt and how I would be spending my day off. As a matter of fact, to my understanding the Goff family was out of town in Boston, along with the family nanny Information that I had learned while cleaning an empty house everyday for the week that they were gone (During which time I unpacked and put away the families belongings {belongings that i had no clue where to put}… which they’d left in randomly packed boxes).

Saturday went well, I spent most of it shopping and hanging out running Errands with my mother and the kids. Saturday night the kids slept over after we had tomato soup for dinner, I gave the kids a bath and we watched Ratatouille.

Sunday morning I got the kids dressed for church, fed them cereal for breakfast and got them ready to be picked up by my mother to go to church.

It was while we were standing in the driveway waiting for my mother to pull up that all the drama started Janel…attitude flaring came out of my door and Asked me in a yelling strict tone if I’d been watching kids overnight in “her house”. I said no, I’d been watching kids in my apt. And she says, you aren’t supposed to be allowed to watch children in my house. Then she stormed inside. I continued to wait for my mother in the driveway and  understood the memo that Janel had left as a warning for the future not to watch children at my own place.

Then Brian  stuck his head out the door and told me to come inside because he needed to “talk to me” he was speaking in his official scolding voice like he had when he’d told me that if I complained again I would be fired. I was thinking that maybe he had something to show me that I’d left undone from the previous week. Instead he asked me why I was watching children and i told him who they were and the situation about my mother and the eviction and how Collin and Caylie were my Godchildren and family and how it was my day off and I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal.

Everything that happened after that was a big blur…I remember Janel coming and joining Brian as they both yelled at me…and I remember janel slapping her hand and palm together threateningly and I remember telling them that I didn’t know they didn’t want me having anyone over EVER. And I remember Janel saying that she didn’t think I was “happy here” and that things just “weren’t working out” and that she thought I was a liar and that she thought that I had been bringing a lot of people over which made it seem like I was having parties. I told them honestly that I didn’t know anything about their policies and that I wasn’t lying and that I was being 100% honest like I try to be all the time.

At one point as I was explaining to Brian why I couldn’t watch the children my my mom’s place she told me that she didn’t want to be “associated with  people like Collin and Caylie’s parents” or “associated with the people I would be bringing around her house” and it made me feel like whoever I would be bringing around would be bringing with them the disease of being unfortunate and less wealthy and that maybe them being around would bring down her family’s good image.

WHAT A BITCH. It was just then that I began crying and telling them that Collin and Caylie were family…if They didn’t want to be associated with ‘those people’ then what was I for being just like them?!

It was my day off and I was not their slave. Brian hearing what his wife was saying tried to correct and take back her words by saying that it was a liability issue…I could understand liability but the words had been said and the REAL Issue was already out to be addressed.

THE WHOLE THING WAS AN ISSUE OF CLASS STATUS.

Rich vs Poor …Face and Self  Worth. I was poor and they were rich and I was paid to serve them.

Brian told me he wanted me out by Wednesday…I told him that I had no where else to go through my tears and I thought that the whole thing was ridiculous because they’d never told me I couldn’t have anyone over.

Since I was hysterical and confused Collin tried to defend me…he kept saying “Brian, Janel…we were just trying to take a nap” and “Janel, why are you being so angry?” and “Corinne, why are you crying like a baby?” I felt terrible because I wanted to run away. I’d never been teamed up on and yelled at by such rude and heartless people.

the children are 2 and 4…what kind of threat do they make?!

I told them that it was all too much for me and that I needed to get to church…Brian said that they’d give me a week and that they’d see where we sat at the end of the next week because he realized that I had dirt against him and his family now that he didn’t want me to share with the world at risk of ruining their perfect image…opps.

I went out to the driveway again still crying and hoping that my mom would show up soon…she was already a half an hour late.

Collin and Caylie were both really upset and crying too because they’d been standing during all the yelling the whole time.

Brian came back outside and told me he didn’t want me waiting for my mother in his driveway and that he wanted me to wait inside for my mother…wait inside and be invisible like all good servants are…I kept thinking to myself. Was I fired? What was going on? Why were they so evil?

I ended up going upstairs to try to call my mom and see where she was it was then that Louie came out to the hallway with the intention to walk his dog Chip. I felt terrible and he asked me what was going on. Louie could barely understand or hear me because he had trouble with his hearing. That was one of the reasons Why I felt so alone during the whole situation…there was no one to be on my side and defend me because Louie was upstairs and couldn’t hear and Collin was just 4 and Caylie was crying and my mom wasn’t around yet.

It was so hard trying to explain the situation through my tears to Louie until finally I hear my mom pull up and told Louie I had to go.

I walked out to the car crying hysterically and my mom saw me and asked already with defenses up what was going on…I tried to tell her and she told me that I should be happy…I felt so hurt and damaged inside because of the way and what Brian and Janel had been saying to me.

Money has Corrupted their hearts to the point where they are not humanly good but simply selfish and rude.

My mom gave me tough love all through church and my crying got so bad that I had to sit out of singing and I had to calm down by watching Collin in the playroom during the service. It was a relief when I finally got to talk to Craig after church and try to explain everything because he made me smile the way he always does. I was kind of in shock and I didn’t want to go back to the house Sunday afternoon. So my mom took me and the kids to the park at Kenwood. It gave me time to think and I was convinced that I needed to get out of that environment as soon as possible…mom took Collin and Caylie from me, instructed me to pack and Jimmy and Sheena Collin and Caylie’s parents came by to help me move everything. They’d finished their unpacking and still had the trailer that they’d been using. I’d tried to explain the situation to them and it only took me telling them that it was my babysitting the kids that started it all that made them hate the Goff’s spirit.

The Goffs are heartless, selfless and arrogant  I have never met anybody like them before and I pray to never encounter or have to work for people Like them ever again.

The Hines helped me move all my things out of the apt and over to my mom’s house. I moved everything into my mom’s house with help of my sister and my mom’s neighbor John. It was 10:30pm when we finished and I looked almost dead from all my exhaustion…I took a shower and joined my mom and CJ as they watched “the state of Play” in the livingroom.

I then went to bed, waking every now and then thinking that I was back in the apartment and that I might have something I still need to get done…work. I thought of all the things I’d left behind and decided to go back to the apartment later today with my mother in tow for support.

I am going to ask for my last week’s check and one weeks severance pay…a total of 200$ I plan to hold my house key hostage until they pay me what they owe me.

And I plan to empty out my fridge.

My mom has set up for me to move into a house with her friend Rhonda and I’m looking for another job. For now I am living at home until Rhonda and I have a meeting to determine my rent. I am happy to have my mother to support me along with many others.

I am truly blessed… At first I thought that my finding a job and a place to live would be my ultimate blessing but now that everything has come crashing down I realize that my moral is that family will always come first and that a little bit of change…can be good.

Week One:

July 5 – Meet at Youth Forum Office at 10am to load truck and caravan down to Gustavus. The rest of Sunday will be spent on projects, checking in, unloading the trailer, more projects, hanging out, more projects, and having our first real staff meeting.

July 6 – If you couldn’t make it early, please be to Gustavus by 10 am to check into

your room. The students come anytime between 12:30 and 3:30, (that includes

early and late arrivals) and we need your help to prepare for this time!

July 11 – Camp ends around 12:30 pm, and this week we will really need all the help

we can get with packing and cleaning. Please plan to stay as long as you can for that afternoon. Big projects will include tear down of sound equipment, clean up of camp store and the loading of the truck. Also, those that can stop at the office on the way back would be a huge help with unloading the truck back in Eagan.

The protection of a moral ethical code is important in the preservation of an ethical system of rule making, by creating their own moral judgments about what is important in the Bible; through following the house rules developed in the oikonmia, the Eastern Orthodox church created room for the creation of their own ethical system. That made it possible to break the ethical rules developed by the Christian Holy Bible.

An ethical decision is made based on what a person believes and values. Ethics itself is the discipline of dealing with what is good and bad with moral duty and obligation. When a person is defining their own ethics they establish a set of moral principles. Moral principles are a system of moral values. In the Christian religion ethical decisions are made based on the beliefs that are established to follow the teachings, scripture, and tradition of Jesus Christ the son of God.

Within Christianity a set of moral principles was created called the Oikonomia. The Oikonomia was a set of rules that was established by the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches in order to manage the pastoral ecclesiastical economy as well as to enforce what is known as God’s divine economy.

The Oikonomia otherwise known as the “household rules” are based on the teachings of the Christian holy bible. They are referred to when the church needs to make decisions and wants to do them in a way that honors their beliefs in Christianity. What the Oikonomia says is considered authoritative and when it is used in writing the word begins to be used in place of saying ‘this is the word of God’ or ‘this is what God has willed for his people’. Christians in the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches believe that what is said by God becomes divine right and morally good in accordance to the Divine Command theory. The divine command theory is the meta ethical view which claims that ethical sentences express propositions, some such propositions are true. And that those propositions that are the attitudes of God are morally good.

The teachings of the Oikonomia influenced theologians and writers in the Christian Church. Leaders of the church were given the responsibility of enforcing the rules of the Oikonomia and being the final decision makers on how the rules would be used correctly. These rules referred to everything including the management of the church and it’s economic issues.

The ethical issues that arose from giving the clergy such a responsibility of the household rules was that they had the ability to change the rules in a way in order to benefit the church. The church had a lot of power in the government and any decisions that the church leaders made influenced their power. An expansion of the church would create more power for those in charge of the church.

The enforcers of the Oikonomia’s house rules felt that some of the rules should be enforced more than others for the betterment of the power of the church. The favoritism of some of the bible’s rules over others is an important factor in determining which of the rules should be considered morally good and therefore worthy of being followed ethically. Yet the Oikonomia did not show favoritism and was considered a fair and just method of determining what decisions a Christian should make. The knowledge of which of the bible and the Oikonomia’s morally ethical rules are considered wrong and sins and the continued misuse of them is considered a sin in the christian faith.

The ethical situations in which clergy managed the church in a way that broke the christian commandments were wrong because they became sinful against God. Claiming that an act is good because it was from God became the same as claiming that the act was good because it was from the Oikonomia and enforced by the church leaders. The leaders of the church were the only people educated in the Oikonomia enough to be able to understand what rules could be broken. They decided to use their control over the household rules to expand their power in a way that helped themselves get more power by using God’s name in vein. Using God’s name in vein is one example of a sin in the christian faith and the church did just that when they decided to send men out purposely to kill in God’s holy name.

The Christian crusades were a great example of the Christians focusing on some of the rules established in the Oikonomia and neglecting others. The sixth commandment reads, “Thou shall not kill.” The New international Version of the bible translates it to, “Thou shall not murder.” The Bible later states that neither accidental killing can be made nor justifiable homicide in Numbers 35:22-25 and Exodus 22:2.

The leaders of the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches allowed the crusades to happen on the justification that they were for the betterment of Christians and mankind through the works of the church. For example in March 1095, at the Council of Piacenza, Pope Urban II received a plea for help from the Byzantine emperor Alixius I. Alexius needed help to repel the advance of the Seljuk Turks that had already taken much Byzantine territory in Asia Minor and were getting closer and closer to Constantinople. Alexius chose to ask help, not from the individual monarchs of western Europe, but from the head of the western Christian Church who, arguably, had domain over all of the western political influential decision making monarchs.

Urban saw this plea as presenting a wonderful opportunity to progress his own personal career. There had been a schism that had deeply divided the Orthodox Greek Church and the Latin Catholic Church since 1054. Urban saw the chance to heal the schism and hopefully become a powerful leader of both churches.
There was an opportunity to extend the crusade campaign to take the Holy City of Jerusalem into Christian hands. In order to gain support of his cause, Urban discussed the matter at the Council of Clermont in early November 1095, and then again on the 27th of November, he preached the crusade.

No record survives of Urban’s actual words in his call for an armed campaign to Jerusalem, but chronicles that were written after the event often show that he indulged in blatant propaganda. He claimed that the Muslims that ruled Jerusalem were maltreating Christians most horrifically, which was untrue.
His lies against the Muslim empire led many European men to kill and be killed in the crusades. He envisioned the First Crusade as the key to healing the schism within the church also  he saw that it had the potential to put him at the head of all the Christian domain. Aiding to the Byzantine emperor became a side show.
Urban said that he had “just cause” in order to take back something that had been stolen from the christian church such as Jerusalem.

The church used the Oikonomia to justify their actions in killing  because they claimed to have the “right intentions.” The fighting could stop people sinning and create more followers of God. In the case of the Muslims, this was achieved by killing them, so they could sin no more. The act had all the legitimate authority when it was approved by the Church, because it was assumed that the act was going in accordance to the Oikonomia. The pope ‘after having already consulted what he knew of the household rules’ then gave his permission. The crusaders took Jerusalem on 15 July 1099, but Urban died about two weeks before the news reached western Europe.

The crusades were a sort of spiritual genocide, a genocide being the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. Because the crusaders were focusing on making war on members of non-Christian areas and Muslims in particular they were in fact committing genocide.

The power that the members of the church were gaining became the main focus of the acts. Church leaders justified their permittivity of the sinful act of killing during the crusades by saying that the Oikonomia (or rather ‘what God has willed’) supports the church and therefore would support the deaths of thousands of people.

Church leaders who were responsible for protecting and preserving the rules of the Oikonomia (which were also the rules of the holy bible) forsook the rules in order to benefit themselves.

The Church created its own spiritual act which is an act concerning not the body but the soul that Christians believe will be able to enter heaven or hell after a person’s death. The spiritual act that they created concerned the forgiveness of a Christian soldier who was sent out to kill in the name of God by the church.  The people who killed could be forgiven and set aside their sins and become born again through the church in the name of God.

They called this act of acknowledgment  and forgiveness of sin repentance. The members of the church did not abide by the divine command theory that God says is always good. Living by what Jesus Christ named the first and most important commandment that God had established for Christian followers to obey. The law in the Christian religion known as the law of love or the Golden rule. The law od love was first established in Matthew 22:36-39 when Jesus was ask of a follower:

Matthew 22:36-39 (New International Version)

³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” ³⁷Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

If the followers of the oikonmia or the rules established by the Eastern orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches to mangagement the divine and ecclesiastical economy had followed God’s household and divine rules for their economy they would have understood that loving your neighbor as yourself would transcend into that of God loving all people of any religion.

They would have learned that God’s commandments should never be neglected for the betterment of the church. Murder is murder regardless of the method of forgiveness. The members of the church may have been justified because Jesus said that all who go in his name, and commit good acts in teh name of his God could be saved and could have their sins washed away. Following God’s commandments should be the first and foremost rule when following the oikonomia and its law of enforcement and wise instruction for the economy.