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….