Tempus fugit

"But meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail." Virgil

Another year of time has flown beyond reach and again I'm confounded by its swift and silent passage. 2011 joins 40 other years that have flown beyond my reach. I'm neither fully nostalgic nor profoundly untouched by the passing of 2011. Old Year's End seems to become more of a way to mark the length of the journey than anything else.

Here is my question this morning: "I've journeyed past 40 annual markers on my way to what destination?" Is it Life; Death, Self-realization, or perhaps just Self-indulgence? Perhaps the journey leads to where time flees?

By now you may have realized I'm a philosophical type of person. Not for me the traditional celebration of New Year's Eve. Joining the throng who are delighted to clean the slate and try again to be the human being we'd prefer others to imagine we are, if we could only muster the will to actually pay the price for being that person.

I genuinely believe the passing of a year is both sad and joyful. One less year left to live and yet perhaps something unimaginably wonderful is awaiting our arrival in the next year that is being offered us.

Whatever else is true the fact is, that this year has flown beyond my reach, and as 2011 sinks below the horizon into the unreachable past, slowly morphing into history, I'm compelled to ask myself if it was worth the effort of living through.

I'm glad to say I feel it was. I'm aware that the life I drape around my shoulders this morning is a little more worn, but perhaps also a little wiser and more profound, than the life I draped in 2010.

My game plan for seeing this year's end come to pass is to give the old year its due and reflect on both the problems and promises it delivered to my doorstep. Then later today my wonderful wife and I will drive to Kansas City and celebrate the imminent arrival of a virgin year as yet untouched and untainted by my insatiable appetite for the love of detail.

2011 has generously supplied me with priceless gift of time. I’ve used and abused it, yet in hindsight I’m unsure if I’d make many alterations to my choices. To quote one of my favorite authors: “It was both the best of times and the worst of times.” I do hope 2012 offers less of a roller coaster like ride, but whatever it brings it too will eventually flee to that place beyond my reach.

I’ll leave you with an Irish benediction.

'Go mbeire muid beo ar an am seo arís.'

Translation

May we be alive at this time next year.

Yellow Brick Road

There is this awesome set of scenes in the Wizard of Oz where Judy Garland meets a group of unlikely heroes who join her quest to find a way home.

The best teams are built from a eclectic group of individuals with different gifts and needs but with one goal. The picture above is of some of YLC St. Louis' Committee. Each of them have astounding gifts; skills and talents. I think about what they can do naturally and brilliantly and realize that without them I'd be one of those eccentric guys trying to be a one-man band. Over-burdened with instruments, unfocused and just plain odd!

So I'm in awe of my fellow travelers as we walk down a very unusual road looking to create a safe place where people can seek out an answer to life's complexity. The only difference between me and Judy Garland is that if the flying monkeys turn up I'm going to try and recruit them! How cool would it be to have flying monkeys on our team? I have to confess the wicked with had some cool team mates. Ahh well........ sigh....... back to reality..... actually now that I think on it there are quite a few differences between me and Judy Garland..... sigh......

The people in this picture have all met and recognized a mutual need. So we joined together and walked together.

What do you think it takes to be on the Yellow Brick Road? A tornado or just a deep desire for the place we call home?

The Counting Game

Last week I was in Kansas at a Young Life staff conference for our old people in their mid 30's and above. We spent some time looking at John 4 and the story of the "woman at the well."

What hit me was that the story begins with some religious people getting their panties in a twist about the number of people who are going to Jesus. All these "good" people were turning up to be baptized and it was putting the religious establishment's nose seriously out of joint. So Jesus packs up the revival meeting and moves on. He heads to a community of people that doesn't count and then talks to the person who counts least in that community. The narrative sweeps from a traditional culturally religious scene to a counter cultural experience with those outside tradition.

When I was a kid back in Ireland when we played games there was a constant cry in almost any game we ever played. "That doesn't count!" It meant that whatever just happened couldn't be counted as a point towards winning the game. A heated debate would then ensue to determine whether it did indeed "count."

I think so many of us wonder who and what counts. And if we ever reach a point of confidence in the fact that we do indeed count, then we join the counters, those who determine who else counts.
Last week I was delighted to have some serious "counters" tell me that I count and even should be considered a counter in my own right.

But since then I've been wrestling with the uncomfortable realization that the only people who counted things in the Bible were the bad guys. Big black hats, curly moustaches and some handy rope near a railroad track.
I wonder what life would be like if I just stopped evaluating everyone else and quit the counting game.

What do you think? Are you someone who counts? Do you think there is a counting game in life? If there is should we quit playing?

Mystery into Magic

I'm in one of my reflective moods and so this blog will be reflecting that reflectiveness.... sort of like mirrors reflecting mirrors that are reflecting mirrors....

I just finished a 4 week study on evangelism for my local church. It was a dress rehearsal in many ways for the next performance this Thursday evening. We'll be launching YLC STL's 5 week volunteer training at our apartment this week and I'll be spending much of this week before then tweaking that training program. The awesome thing about dress rehearsals is that you see the flaws in the show before everyone takes their seats. So it is with this training program.... little tweaks; unexpected side-effects, awesome repercussions to using one illustration over another... all add up to a better constructed training unit in the future.
I was asked yesterday if I had a "take-away" handout that would cover the material of the 4 weeks so people could reflect privately on what we'd covered. The Cliff notes version as it were.
I'm sitting here wondering how to condense it into cliff notes and then realizing that I didn't really say anything new during the whole time I talked. I'm just rehashing a very well known set of ideas and propositional truths into something palatable for a 21st century palate. So that makes the cliff notes easier than I thought.... 5 steps to awesome self realization.

1. Be a decent human being - Respectful and Authentic
2. Know where the source of your empowerment is located.
3. Know where you stand and who/what is central in your life. What's the Divine in your life?
4. Know where and to whom/what your passion is directed towards.
5. Know what makes you uniquely you, what potential you have in that uniqueness and why that matters.

Yet again someone has managed to condense mystery into magic! 5 magic ways to be sure you are the best you!

"Hoc est corpus" the Latin phrase used by priests in Church became Hocus-pocus the favorite magic incantation of the 17th century english peasant.

That is my main concern with Christian Cliff Notes and informational distribution of ideas. They too easily become incantations. The recipients aren't fully aware of their meaning but understand that the words have power. So they take the words without the full meaning and incant them at others or themselves to magically change circumstances or people.

The word "Jesus Saves" is just such an incantation.... If said forcefully and loudly and with enough repetition it will magically change my reality to one that may seem more comfortable. It is considered so powerful even the written form of the incantation is seemingly all-powerful. I've lost count of "Jesus" bumper stickers in St. Louis. The suburban 21st century magician who is doing 85 in a 55 while crossing four lanes all in under 3 seconds while magically dispelling, or, converting "evil" in all its forms. Magical! Or, perhaps just a mystery?

So I'm sitting here this morning trying to figure out how to create a useful "take-away" that is at least somewhat proof against becoming the next magical incantation to destroy evil in St. Louis.

The irony is that the word Hocus-pocus is often used today to refer to something that is fake or unreal. When we take mysteries like the Transubstantiation and make them magic we too often merely create anoher word for fake.

So am I creating the next magical incantation for people to banter around or is it possible to enter a conversation where you leave with questions to chew on, rather than power words to spit out at the world?

Have an awesome week......

Team work

This is Ed Bowen, he is our new Volunteer Team Leader. At 39 he is ensuring that I'm not the only old person on the team. Along with the impressive fact that he has managed to live for 39 years he also brings some remarkable skills and experience to the team. Ed has a Masters in Apologetics. Below is the definition Google supplies.

apologeticsplural of a·pol·o·get·ics

Noun:

Reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine. 

Having someone trained in reasoned arguments or writings in justification of Christianity is obviously a handy person to have around. Add to his academic inventory a passion that may exceed my own, a long history of leadership from his time served in the US Army as a staff Sergent, to his leadership in the local church and you have as well rounded a team player as anyone could wish for. We've been working together now for a few weeks and while it is awesome having a guy like me in leadership with me I know having two guys as passionate as us may mean we need some leavening of solid, sensible team-mates, but right now I'm just enjoying having a guy who is delighted to be as excited about life as I am.

 

Next Thursday Ed and I will launch "Core" the weekly YLC event that is for Christian students and those interested in being volunteers with YLC STL. It is the first of five "C's" that make up YLC STL's ministry. We have Core; Crust, Club, Camp and Church. Core is as I just said a Christian focused discussion group/Bible study. Crust is the time we devote to building authentic relationships with students. Club will be our weekly Spiritual discussion group that is for those students outside the Christian world-view or those who would say they have issues with that belief system.  Camp will be when we and our student friends go out for a week on a service project to help create something for those less blessed with material wealth. I'm hoping to go into rural Missouri and build playgrounds for economically depressed communities. It is something we did in Europe with great success. Taking western European students to eastern European countries to build playgrounds for kids who have almost nothing. Church is the last and also the first in many ways. The unending circle of YLC STL. Our members come out of the Church with a hope of being part of the larger world and creating safe places to have conversations about life, spirituality and humanity. As we actually believe in our chosen world-view we hope our friends would reach a point in their life where they too see it as the most compelling of the world-views on offer. If that happens we get to introduce them to the Church. That group of eclectic people who have usually only one thing in common. Jesus Christ!

 

So we're starting the cycle by taking Christians out of their safe, small world of "Church" and helping them join the rest of humanity in a discussion about how we should live together with respect, open-mindedness and tolerance.

I had a couple of awesome young men at my place for breakfast yesterday and the conversation turned to how we can believe we have found the "Truth" yet be authentically open minded about other world-views. I threw my usual mental hand grenade into the conversation by stating that I am completely open to one day hearing someone present a different world-view that is more compelling and logical than Christianity. Until then I'll hold fast to the belief that I actually have a compelling belief system that is both personally compelling and well thought out while remaining open to the fact that I might be completely wrong. Anything less than that would mean I would be asking everyone else in my life to be open to change their mind and embrace my world-view without having the courage to have the same open mindedness. I think that may well be one of the best parts of my job. I get to be exposed to a multitude of world-views and because of my proximity to university students I also get to hear some of the most erudite and compelling advocates of other view-points state their case. If there is a better way out there I'm in the perfect place to discover it. And if there isn't then I'm in the perfect place to reinforce the belief system I hold to now. I love my job!

 

Hope life is bringing interesting people into your sphere and changing how you see the world.

 

Wicked

It might be shocking to see me in heels and makeup but not as shocking as it was to actually wear heels and makeup! Bethany and I were at a Halloween Party whose theme was the Wizard of Oz. Bethany came as the whirlwind and I as the wicked witch of the east who was tragically killed by Dorothy's house at the start of the movie. I chose her and decided to allow her both life and shoes!

Bethany's parents generously treated us to a show at Fox Theater a few years ago. It was called Wicked and was a prequel to the movie. It amazingly made the wicked witch the heroine and twisted the traditional view of good and bad. I was enchanted by both the show and the concept of seeing life through the eyes of the wicked witch. Perhaps it comes from where and how I grew up. Perhaps it is my natural affinity for those considered different by those who like to label people, or perhaps I just never felt empathy or attraction for the white witch who was so clearly above getting her hands dirty.

Last night I was green skinned and stocking footed, then after double checking that the nail polish was gone and the make up wasn't obviously still on my face I made my way to an adult Sunday school class and talked about the way we communicate with people outside the Church. I had so much fun that we were asked to keep the noise down by the man teaching the class next door! As my voice is almost gone I was stunned I could create enough volume to be a distraction. I always know I have enough passion but this morning I didn't filter the voice box as I supposed it literally lacked the punch to reach the normal noise making level. So nice to learn that my voice has the capacity to endure almost 5 hours of screaming at a ball game, go to 2 Halloween parties, (one of which had game 7 showing) and then speak for 40 minutes forcefully enough to be told to keep it down! Yeah for my big mouth!!!!!

Tomorrow I visit a Lutheran school to talk to kids about what mission is all about. I have a whole 15 minutes which includes questions! I'm taking a full-size cut-out of John Wayne, my little purple monster called "Screecher" who is two feet high, and a long sword. I'm hoping my incredible voice can handle one more day of meetings before I arrive at the school at 4pm. I love getting the chance to talk to Christian kids about how they should see those outside their Church world. I get to make the wicked witches human, interesting and lovable.

So I'm sitting here re watching game 6 while waiting for the pizza arrive. My voice feels awful and my new sofa has become lost in the land of furniture stores so we're still waiting for something substantial to sit on.

If you are a wicked witch type who others prejudged I do hope whatever house is falling into your life misses you by enough margin to allow you to keep your pretty red shoes.  



Passing traffic

I'm now the proud owner of an American license.

I said in the previous blog that this would be my last step in the immigration process. But it isn't really the beginning of the end; and it is probably better to quote Churchill by saying "it is perhaps the end of the beginning." Or to have a driving metaphor, it was merely passing a really large truck on the highway in the rain on a bend with a lunatic tail-gating me, and the truck driver hogging a part of my lane. I'm relieved to have survived but it wasn't the end goal of my travels. g

I also bought a digital antenna (Aerial in British) and a TV stand all of which made the baseball game last night pretty nice. Believe it or not last night was our first TV watching experience in our own home ever! We have never had broadcast TV because we lived in Germany and to be honest German language TV was never appealing to us as a relaxing alternative. We are also not very domesticated so we dislike being told to be somewhere at 7pm on a Tuesday to watch the weekly installment. We'd rather buy the series on I-Tunes and watch it when we want to.

So how does this all tie into YLC STL? My job at present is primarily setting the ministry up. I'm alone most of the time unless I'm in a meeting. Life is very much like passing the large truck in the rain with the unhappy feeling of being tail-gated. If you slow down, or make a mistake you might very well become much more intimate with the lunatic following you than you wanted to be. The you add the very large truck driver in his very large truck taking up just a tad too much room and spraying copious amounts of rain water unto your windscreen. While this is merely an inconvenient moment in a long journey it can feel like eternity until you pass the truck and allow the speedster to pass you at 95mph. I'll be happy when YLC STL finally gets out of the rain belt, passed the truck and into some nice dry road conditions and friendly traffic. It will get there and this point in the journey will be quickly forgotten but right now that's where life is. I'm delighted to have passed the driving test and I'm delighted one more piece of furniture and another few electronic appliances are now in our apartment. 
But I'll be enthused with happiness when we have enough furniture to actually seat more than two people!

All in all I confess I have little to complain about, I'm living the dream. I'm 40 years old and I get paid to do one of the things I truly love to do and I get the satisfaction of knowing I can safely pass the big trucks life sends my way!

Hope the traffic in your life is manageable.

90 day wonder

I have now lived in America for 91 days. 90 days had been my record up until immigrating in July. That is the number of days a "visitor" to America can stay here on a tourist visa. So now I've passed the visitor barrier and have entered the immigrant barrier. I take a practice driving test this afternoon then go to the driving test center tomorrow and sit the Missouri driving test. If all goes well I'll go to sleep on Wednesday evening with a pristine driving license from the "show me state."

3 months have just flashed past and I feel I barely have my feet on the ground yet. Bethany keeps reminding me that I'm not American and that I should keep in mind how long we gave our American staff in Munich to acclimatize to a new culture. I have a social security number, a cool looking permanent residency card and God Willing this week I'll have the American driving license that is so essential to living in America. That takes care of making my wallet (new American wallet with built-in money clip for the numerous dollar bills) feel American but I'll need more than identity cards to create identification.

My adopted city's awesome baseball team is in the "World" Series, playing those Texas Rangers. I have a few friends in Germany who will be hoping the red bird doesn't swoop in and snatch yet another World Series championship out from under their snakeskin cowboy boots.
I've always wondered about my American friends propensity for sports metaphors until I came to live here. I thought it was a Young Life or Youth worker type thing. But it seems everyone and their dog speaks in sports metaphors to describe every facet of life here. Politicians are ankle deep in football phrases, the chief executive of a fortune 500 has a deep bench and it wouldn't be a real sermon in any given church on any given Sunday if golf didn't find its way into the illustration!

So I'm no longer a 90 day wonder. I live here, I'm part of "here." So now I work on creating what being "here" means to me and what it will mean to "here."

Have a nice week and if you are a Brewers fan please know you have all of my sympathy for what my last minute Redbirds did to your awesome season.....

Bringing Ireland to the world......

Tap o tha dai ta ya!

Bethany and I were out shopping yesterday and I came upon an awesome tweed sports coat with elbow patches. It goes perfectly with my tweed flat cap.

So I'm dressing for Church this morning and as I check the mirror I realize I look almost like my father and uncles did. In fact if I had chosen slacks instead of jeans I would be able to fit into any period of Ireland's last century without anyone thinking I was unusually dressed. The tweed coat and flat cap were very common in rural Northern Ireland for my entire life. I don't remember my father without his flat cap sitting jauntily on his head.

I'm so glad today's eclectic fashion rules allow me to dress this way. There is something romantic and poetic about a tweed coat and flat cap. Especially when you are an Irishman with a red tinted beard and a brogue that is thinker than molasses.

If I wasn't so adamantly anti-smoking a pipe would be the final piece of the picture. Alas as I can't abide the destructiveness and addictiveness of that particular product I will have to live without a pipe.

My wife assures me I am a Dork, Nerd, and even possibly a Geek, and she loves me intensely because of that! I assure her that I am cool and that everyone else thinks so. She smiles, shakes her head and repeats "Dork, Nerd and possibly a Geek!"

So I go forth into a new week assured that my dorky, nerd-like passions still are considered adorable by my wife and also in love with the fact that there is truly nothing new under the sun. I look like my forefathers and perhaps the same romantic strength that enabled them to live their lives will enable me to live mine.



Priority versus Vision

This morning I was talking with a friend about priorities in our life. Our discussion helped me see that vision is more important than the priority that I designate/give to a certain part of my life.

I have a vision for what Bethany's husband should look like: it has a multiplicity of adjectives that could describe its characteristics and I’ve studied them all in my pursuit of “being” Bethany’s husband. Bethany’s husband has certain attitudes, attributes, activities, archaic beliefs, anecdotal befuddlements and all-consuming need to use alliteration in almost any setting. My friend asked me how I was doing with realizing the vision. I responded with my stock answer: “I fake it until I make it!”



You see I have a vision for the kind of man I could be as a husband for Bethany. I also have a vision of the kind of man who should lead Young Life College St. Louis; the kind of friend, the kind of family member and finally the kind of Christian I’d prefer to meet in a dark alleyway. Sadly I’m obviously none of those things, so I decided to Fake it until I Make it. My philosophy is to act as if I am those things and eventually I will form habits that will make me an habitually good husband; worker, friend, family member and Christian. It’s like a metaphysical Ken doll. I dress him up in his roles and wear them, until they become instinctive.
Before you ask me what kind of husband, friend, etc I am, I’d suggest you ask the people who know me…..

My priorities are becoming more horizontal than vertical.



I’m still working on a vision of how a 40 year old Irishman could live in St. Louis. When I have the vision/image coalesced enough to begin a sculpture I’ll add him to my pantheon. Picture a garden full of plinths with different Roberts placed upon them all posing in different roles. 

Looking back it is clear this past few days have been spent in my imaginary garden working on refining and perfecting the many Roberts in my mind!

I do hope your life is as intensely interesting as you wish it to be…. an Irish blessing of dubious ancestry.

Any given Sunday

I started this week at a Ram’s football game. The Washington Redskins had a superb game if I understand all of the subtleties of this new contact sport. My newly adopted Rams struggled with fundamentals like actually catching the ball and holding onto it. I confess the whole experience was large. The huge stadium; huge crowd, and the noise was all more than a little daunting. My wife popped over around half time to ensure her Irish husband wasn’t freefalling into terminal culture shock! By the fourth quarter I had rallied enough to join the Rams in a last ditch effort not to be swamped by a larger more dominant team. 3 hours of Sunday football and I felt just like my new home team. I’d barely kept a grip on the ball, was dominated by the other team (American culture) and was just glad to put some points on the scoreboard.

With some time and distance I’ve been thinking about this new sport I was exposed to. It takes a European some time to grasp that the goal in American football isn’t necessarily to score but rather to make it the next 10 yards. When I first was introduced to football I wanted them to throw the ball far and fast. Make a break and all would be fine! Glory and more importantly some points on the scoreboard not to mention speeding up this incredibly slow game! But I’ve come to appreciate the finesse and sheer gamesmanship in pushing resolutely forward a few short yards at a time.

So it has been in my own life recently. As the quarterback for Young Life College St. Louis I have had the temptation to make a long throw and put some quick points on the scoreboard for the team. I wrestled with whether to risk that throw or stick to the play book and take the ball up the field a few yards at a time. With some help from friends both near and far I made the call and my team pushed a few more yards to second and 7. I still look longingly at the possibility of a massive break and 50 yard dash. But I’m sure the sheer gamesmanship of playing the smart plays repeatedly will lure me more surely than the glory throw.  

I’m off to Kansas City MO this weekend with my wonderful wife. I get a four hour car ride with her all to myself! Now the day Bethany said yes to be my wife was the one time in my life I made a 100 yard sprint to score the perfect touchdown!!!

Any given Sunday somebody is resisting the urge to throw the ball far and fast so he can instead pass it for a few safe yards….. I think I like football but not as much as Baseball….

Creating Concise Opportunity

I spent this morning working on Young Life St. Louis’ strategic vision for the next 5 years. How many students will participate in Young Life events this year? How many volunteers will be recruited in year 3? When should we plan to expand beyond Washington University to another college? What is our definition of success?

I remember leaving Northern Ireland in 2003 with a very misguided confidence in my preparedness for my life’s mission. I’d studied the King James Version of the Bible for seven years; I’d trained how to work inside a Northern Irish independent evangelical village church and was experienced as an evangelist reaching the urban and rural poor of a war torn land divided by religious fanaticism. How deeply naive I was about how little of that “expertise” would translate directly into my new life. 9 years later and I’m still coming to terms with the fact that a fulltime evangelist needs skills and gifts more commonly found in a small business entrepreneur. Strategic plans, administrative skills, management skills, financial planning, fundraising, public speaking on the vision and mission purpose of the new ministry. The capacity to contextualize and translate that vision and mission for a multitude of unique audiences.

I once thought my job was to tell people about Jesus. How utterly quaint and old fashioned an idea that is now. My job is to help create, lead and sustain a multi-generational, multi-cultural, multi-faith ministry for college students in St. Louis. To find a way to produce a safe place for students and those in the community with a heart for students to discuss and explore spirituality. “Telling people about Jesus” is transactional. Creating a safe place for people to do their own exploration into Spirituality can be Transformational. Because of the possibility of Transformation I’m delighted to develop a multitude of skills and competencies that will help create a concise opportunity for young Christian men and women to enter in a conversation about spirituality with their peers from a multiplicity of world-views.

The Rhetoric of Labeling

I attended a lecture by Professor Mark Jordan at Washington University in St. Louis yesterday entitled “How Christians learned to talk about Homosexuality.”

As I’m someone who feels a compulsion to be early I found myself sitting beside an older American gentleman named Tom. As we introduced ourselves his first question was whether I was "Orange or Green." The question demonstrated he had a familiarity with Northern Irish “issues”; but the question also revealed a pronounced lack of tack. As I belong to neither side of that tragic dysfunctional family dispute I failed to be easily labeled by his question.  He moved on to explain why he attends these Wash-U lectures that he clearly disagrees with. His goal is to keep "them" (liberal professors) “intellectually honest” by being a dissenting voice in the room. Tom is obviously intelligent; well read, and passionate, but I just couldn’t take him seriously. I continually had to police my facial expression to keep from smiling at his loud rhetorical questions, podium-like pronouncements and body language. Despite his intermittent questions about what I thought, the 15 minute conversation was almost completely a monologue from his point of view. I politely disengaged myself and entered the lecture hall to ensure I had a good seat and to also escape the pre-lecture Tom had just delivered and if left unchecked it seems would have continued to deliver for only God knows how long.

In contrast to Tom’s tirade the lecture I had come to listen to was insightful, respectful and engaging.

Professor Jordan really challenged me about how we use words; rhetoric, sound bites and narrative to defend our position. It is such a tragedy that there isn’t enough time to study everything that I find interesting. I feel so under-educated and ill informed. I ache to know, to be conversant in every aspect of life, yet it is impossible to even skim the surface of every discipline, to grasp even the most simplistic principles from the multitude of academic streams. I’m a starving man invited into a banquet who knows he can only nibble on the most bland of food or risk intense intestinal disruptions.

Ok, I got sidetracked by my love for learning….. I’ve wiped the drool from my beard, taken a deep breath and can refocus on where I was going with today’s blog.

It bothered me that I found Tom so foolish. So I thought about him more than all the other interesting people I met yesterday. It wasn’t that he disagreed with Professor Jordan, it wasn’t even that he was a member of the extreme right on American political thought. It was because he so obviously disrespected everyone else at the lecture. He arrived in T-Shirt and Shorts, was loud, and accosted people with questions he didn’t want answers for. He had labeled us all before he arrived into two distinct categories. The ignorant who were victims that just swallowed what the professors had to say and the professors who were cast as the 1930’s diabolical bad guys. Big moustaches and hats for them all with a convenient train track to tie their victim to. Tom said he has been coming to these lectures for at least a year. I find it so tragic that after all of that time listening to experts in so many fields of learning he probably hasn’t been challenged by what they had to say because he came already knowing what was “true” and what was “false.”

I think Tom is perhaps a caricature  of American society. From the moment he met me he was trying to stick a label on me. It frustrated him intensely that I refused to be labeled. I wasn’t Orange or Green; I was neither Conservative or Liberal, I could see both sides of the argument and felt the jury was still out on each topic he felt strongly about. Whether it was abortion or the death penalty; Immigration as a “property rights” and “civil rights” issue, or homosexuals in the military, that I could see valid arguments for both sides in all these positions seemed to confound him. Despite the fact that I have strong opinions on all of these issues I realize that those on the opposing side have genuine hearts; logical reasons and good motives for their position and I’m open to being convinced my position is morally, intellectually and socially untenable. It seems to me if we could all take the time to carefully demonstrate we respect those we oppose it might restore a level of civility to the conversation. If Tom had arrived in clothing appropriate for the event; had used tone and volume appropriate to his surroundings and if he had asked questions to discover answers rather than to create clear demarcation lines between him and everyone else I might have found him less ridiculous. I think the only response Tom elicited at yesterday’s event was sympathy.

In stark contrast to Tom the professors I spoke to after the lecture were polite, interested in who I was as a person, tolerant of the fact  that I was a "Christian" College minister who was wanting to create a place for spiritual conversation with their students at their university. I think it helps that I was dressed correctly, spoke with an in-door voice, used civility in our conversations and recognized both their authority and ownership of the lecture hall and lastly was clearly interested in their view point.

I wonder if I should just wander around trying to be someone who is sans labels? The naked Irishman!

Just some thoughts on my American experience

We're not in Kansas any more

I spent a large portion of this week in Kansas City, Kansas. I was at the regional conference for the Gateway region of Young Life. 20+ fulltime staff representing three states. I'm the newbie and as such needed to be intentional to find my place in this new world. It's occasionally uncomfortable to be surprised by the strangeness of Oz, but with a clear yellow road to follow it loans a level of comfort to the strangeness.

I spent this morning unpacking a large number of boxes containing our books. They're now settling into their new home in my study. I love our books! They are like Toto, someone I can look to as a friendly face from what was familiar. We chose to sell or give away almost 100 of our friends when we moved. It was sad to say goodbye to friends who had been with us for years. So our friends who made the long dark journey across the Atlantic and then sat for months in boxes must be delighted to have finally arrived in their new home! It’s definitely not Kansas but at least we're meeting new and interesting people who are on the same quest of self discovery and redemption.


I finally finished the immigration process by receiving my Social Security Number and successfully being hired by Young Life. One more large stone to shift and the road is clear to proceed on the journey. I need to take and pass the MO driving test!

So that's been my week. Lots of starnge new things, people and facts coupled with big yelley roads, friendly books and the resources to keep walking the path before us.

Hope your week is unfolding as eventfully!

Shades of White

We bought this awesome antique dining table off of Craigslist last week. After sanding it down and cleaning it up, I then had the confounding job of finding the right shade of white to show Bethany for her approval to repaint it.

I was temporally stymied by just how many shades of white are available to a prospective painter! We finally settled on "Woodrow Wilson Putty." I wondered what the 28th President of the United States would make of becoming a part of the off white color scheme?  

You might be wondering how I have such free time to restore old dining tables and re-clothe them in shades of early 20th century progressive presidents. The great thing about my weird brain and awesome job is that I can prepare complex Bible studies and Banquet speeches while sanding wood and tracking down presidential sounding paint. I have friends who find they need to sit in a dark study and stare pensively at a book-lined wall of heavy tomes to suck inspiration from. While I need that room for the final prep I'm relieved that I can do almost all the heavy lifting while doing something diverting. Thank God! So part of this week was filled with creating something wonderful from something that was worth only a $100 on Craigslist. Much like my job…. Taking the time to show the potential in what seems old and worthless to many students. Christianity is like our dining table. It was once a valuable and intricate part of family life, it was a focal point for community and for young people to discover their identity and become inter-dependant and individuate into the adult community. Now it is anachronistic, left behind in the wake of surging TV dinners, internet and personal game consoles, all creating isolated individual living. But some time sanding down the ugly veneer the previous owner subjected beauty to, adding some updating with a trendy presidential paint scheme, and what was obsolete is now Shabby Chic and can again be relevant! It will be placed in pride of place in our new 1920’s duplex 2^nd story apartment. It too has been rehabbed and reborn.

I’m hoping Christianity is in the process of a much needed sanding and repainting so it can again become relevant and valued.

But it might take me longer to refurb my Faith than it will to refurb my dining room!


Another week in paradise!

Mixing old and new

I've been silent for a week due mostly to lethargy than anything else.

But I got a boost of new energy yesterday with the arrival of our stuff from Germany and the news that we had gotten the apartment we were praying for just 3 blocks from Wash-U!

I quickly unwrapped my mattress and Lattenrost (wooden slats the mattress rest on) and replaced the mattress I had been sleeping on at Bethany's parents' house. I can't even express how happy I am to be sleeping on my own mattress and I'll not even start with how happy I'll be when I can rebuild my awesome metal king size bed frame and have our own bedding again in our brand new bedroom!

We shipped our bed; mattresses and a handmade bookshelf along with 39 boxes of personal items (a third of which seem to be books!)

The new apartment is the second floor of a beautifully restored old duplex in Clayton with 1,500 sq ft of aesthetically pleasing 1930/40's architecture, wooden floors, stain-glass windows, subway tiles, modern kitchen and bathroom. All in all the perfect place!!!!

We sign the contract tomorrow evening and move in (DV) on the 10th September.

Now while I've been working on bringing the Old world of Europe to the New world of America I've also been working on bringing traditional Christianity and modern Christianity together in what I hope will be as harmonious a marriage as my furniture and housing clearly are. Matthew 13: 52 talks about the teacher who is influenced by the old and new bringing a double blessing from the storehouse. I feel like my friends and I are working on the same ambition of being both old fashioned and cutting edge simultaneously. I belong to the LCMS (Lutherans) and we're known as rather old fashioned yet among our number are some rather progressive Christians. I also work for Young Life which is often considered cutting edge in how we communicate Christianity to those outside the Church. I belong to a growing movement of traditional Christians who believe we need to bring "The Old, Old Story" to a new generation in a way they can comprehend it.

Mixing old with new is always a risky business. It will take time for our German things to become comfortable and natural in their new American setting. I think it will also take time for old Christian ways to become comfortable in a new world setting.

Sorry for the lapse in communication...... but old and new can often mean silent blogs!!!!

Camping country

I'm just back from Potosi, MO where I visited the YMCA camp. I'm impressed! Here's the link http://www.ymcaoftheozarks.org/welcome

Great cabins, awesome views, great staff..... I'm a camping snob and I'm utterly open about my intolerances! :) So often these small town camps are less than delightful; so it was with profound relief that I found the YMCA's camp so awesome.....

I'm a huge believer in taking people out of their comfort zones and planting them in an alien world with nothing familiar and ask them to do things they may never have tried and to think things they may never have thought. While it will be quite some time before we have enough interest and numbers to warrant an extended stay at somewhere like Trout Lodge I'm excited such places exist.

So my day was filled with dreaming about how we could use Trout Lodge and trying not to freak out after eating a Bison Burger..... My first Bison! I must confess I feel very much like dances with wolves..... Now I've had Bison I feel like I've finally tasted America!!!! Yeah!!!!

I know the life of an Irishman in the Midwest may seem strange..... but then the life of an American in rural Ireland would also seem strange!!!!

Mohawks and Root Canals

This is my Father-in-law Steven Schmich. He is a retired phys-ed teacher who helps run outdoor education camps for middle schoolers in St. Louis. During his most recent camp he shaved his head into a Mohawk. Obviously the kids loved him for it. The truly awesome thing about Steven is he kept it after he got home. He took his 87 year old mother to church on Saturday night and said hello to the pastor without ever mentioning the Mohawk! Then off he goes to the supermarket to pick up the weekly groceries. There an older man mentioned the Mohawk and how odd it was for a man Steven's age. Steven told him he was trying out for a role in a play "The Last of the Mohicans!" It starts a whole discussion between the man; Steven and the check out guy about how cool Last of the Mohicans is!!! I truly admire my Father-in-law! He is one of the most impressive men I've ever met yet he also keeps a Mohawk just to get a rise out of his normal world! People are so concerned about what others' think... Steven cares about other people but he could care less about "looking" impressive to other people! So I want to be Steven when I grow up!

I also had a root canal today.... I love American dentists! Dr. Mears from Arnold, MO, numbs my gums before injecting me to numb my gums! Yes, No pain means American dentists! I hurt more now from having my mouth open for two hours!!!!

So another day another few dozen dollars and I've a swollen mouth and a super cool father-in-law! Hope your week has started as well!

80's music and a day alone

I've spent the day alone writing drafts for a newsletter; support letters, strategic and tactical planning proposals and sending plain old fashioned emails. Alongside that I've been listening to 80's hits.

I doubt there has been another era so utterly stuffed with fluff! The hair was huge, the lyrics embarrassingly overblown and the clothes were just horrific. But I'm delighted to confess I'm an 80's kid! The denim jackets covered in Adam Ant badges and patches gave way to Kizz and Black Sabbath. My hair was outrageously tangled. We heavy metal types defined grungy long before it was cool to look like you slept in a gutter. Getting high on glue and dating girls with short haircuts and florescent orange socks, seems to be all I remember of the 80's. Perhaps that may be a mercy?!?

I've also been invited to an 80's party this month. I'm torn between wearing my torn Levi's; a tight black T-shirt and topping it all by discovering if it is possible to rent a huge wig of curly dark hair that looks like it was last brushed in 1971! Alternatively I could scour the Thrift stores of St. Louis to see if there is an old spangled suit laying around with the turn up sleeves. :)

My poor wife is a 90's kid who just smiles when her old husband plays his 80's hits.....

Another day in paradise

It's a very comfortable 75 this Monday morning and I'm sitting in the suburbs of St. Louis listening to Phil Collins sing "Another day in paradise."

I'm still trying to settle into this new world we've entered. In my head I have the knowledge of what it takes to become comfortable in a new culture. I've read the books, sat in the seminars and even helped other people in their own journey of settling into life in Germany. But my emotions still tumble around trying to find solid ground.

I'm almost swamped by the potential I see all around me. This truly is the land of possibilities. Then I'm floored by the heartbreaking sight of a homeless lady in her 50's begging on the side of an intersection. Hoping against hope that one of the many drivers in their beautiful cars that are stopped in the grinding traffic snarl up that is St. Louis would press the button of their electric window and give a few dollars to allow her to have some of the hope that is all around her.

I’ll be spending today in comfortably air-conditioned offices and coffee shops discussing our dream of creating a safe place for students to explore their spirituality. While I’m busy weaving webs of words describing the insubstantial world of the spiritual, that dear old lady will be at some junction breathing in fumes trying to use her facial expression and eyes to communicate need. And hundreds of people will miss that communication and fail to press the button that would lower their window and force them to leave their guarded world and join her in the stink of too many cars sitting too long at an intersection.

Paradise is hard to get used to.

The promised land for an Irishman

This afternoon the lady at Macy's cologne counter explained that she and her husband were Irish, when I asked where in Ireland it became clear she meant that at some point in history someone in her family's past came from Ireland. Unlike my many times removed country woman at Macy's I'm actually a real Irish legal alien in St. Louis. Unlike many immigrants I began life here with a new car; a safe place to live and a good job.



I spent 8 years; 4 months and 2 weeks living in Munich, Germany. I left that city certain that no matter how long I lived there I would always remain an alien. I've been in America for 18 days and I've been constantly welcomed home. Despite an accent that is thicker than molasses my many American friends have converted me into an American prodigal son who has finally returned to the farm and the fatted calf is on the BBQ!

 This is my first thoughts on being an immigrant in the promised land of America.

 Robert