Meet the team

Seeing these men sitting in my backyard is stunning in just 9 months

We are almost 100% male, but we're trying to convince some ladies to get involved



Our team is multi-generational. we start at 1 and end at 81. I'm not sure which of them is the younger at heart

This picture shows tomorrow's leaders discussing the deep things of life. I'm not sure if it was hockey or football

Trivial Pursuits

"It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously" Oscar Wilde 

YLC St. Louis had our annual Trivia night on Saturday night and it was just awesome! My job usually means that I'm meant to be visible and vocal at fundraising events. Ironically, I am a rather shy person, with a big personality who scores really high as an extrovert in personality tests. My natural place at big events or parties is sitting in the kitchen in the middle of some metaphysical conversation about some arcane subject. I'm a natural nerd/dork. But my job often puts me center stage, among large groups of people and I've found the only way for me to do that successfully is to have a role to play that covers my shyness and allows my natural extroverted personality to take charge. The trivial pursuit of playing a role has been my security blanket for years now as I shyly interact with large groups of people. And so it was on Saturday night.....

I fell into a bed after midnight with a few thoughts from the evening.....The first and least surprising was that I may be the least gifted trivia player in the known universe. Perhaps even in the multi-verse. Fortunately no one was depending upon my ability to access the deep recesses of my mind to dredge up random pieces of information that were collected eons ago by accident and dumped in the back of my mind for future reference as I walked through life. At some point in my life the librarian in charge of bringing the information to the front of my mind quit and went to work for a tidier mind than mine. It has left me with a distinct disadvantage when playing trivia. I have to walk all the way into the back of my mind, dig around among the piles of random unreferenced information accumulated over 41 years and try to find that one random fact among so many. I can never find it in the time allotted.

The next awesome fact I allowed to scurry through my exhausted mind in the wee hours of Sunday morning was how much fun it is to just play. I was given the simple task of selling tickets for the Raffle. I had no idea what the prizes were; no clue how we would draw winners, and because I had never been to a trivia night before I had no idea what the night's schedule would look like. So armed with absolutely no sense of importance or competence I spent the evening being utterly trivial. I think I met every one of the 150+ people there and witnessed almost half of the people give $10 for 6 tickets. It is clear that I shine best when asked to do something trivial!


I quoted Oscar Wilde at the start because he is one of my great mentors. He has guided me into the depths, revealing how humanity strives for the shiny baubles of the ludicrous while ignoring the noble and laudable, all the while presenting a mask of seriousness to one another.

Too much of my life is focused seriously on the trivial, while I trivialize the serious things in life.

Hope you and your week are not taken too seriously.....

  

the silence of sickness

I've been ill for the past week after reacting badly to the anesthetic and post-surgery medications I received for a simple surgery to remove two kidney stones. That I didn't actually need the surgery was only discovered during the surgery just added insult to injury.

I can't blame anyone for the fact that my body has a total intolerance to medication and completely collapses after anesthetic. It seems the same body can crush a 5mm kidney stone without skipping a beat, but falls apart at being put to sleep and giving meds to help deal with pain and infection.

I'm sitting up, eating a Saltine cracker to ensure I have something in my stomach before taking the medication for the Stent that is still in my body. Fortunately, it will be removed tomorrow at 1pm. I'm praying fervently that there will be no surprises or complications.

I promise I'll write a real blog next week to fill the silence of this week.....

Hope your week has been less interesting than mine!

what we do......

We had a couple over for dinner last night. We reached a point in the evening where we were discussing Young Life College and it came out that they didn't know what I'd been doing for 6 months as they don't receive our monthly newsletter. When I mentioned the blog Michelle said it didn't talk about what happened with Young Life College but the blog was mostly concerned with what I was thinking about. So I'm on a quest this morning to find who else feels they don't really know what YLC does.....

So let me begin by saying that if you don't get an email the first week of each month that is from YLC St. Louis and you want to know what we're doing send me an email @ robert.millar74@gmail.com or befriend me on Twitter, Facebook or Googgle +. Each of these has a link to our newsletter.

Next, after last night I've decided that this blog needs to include more of the daily aspects of what is happening in our infant college ministry.

So let me start by introducing the team.

Myself, Ed Bowin, Drew Berson, Ben Harmon, Andrew Wilson, Aaron Adams, Ed Dubberke, Sito Sasieta, and Liz Phillips.

We range in age from 21 to 81 and vocationally from students to a retiree.

When people think of college ministry in general or discover what I do for a living I get a lot of divergent reactions. But the most common reaction is a version of the cartoon at the top of the blog. A kind of sleazy door-to-door salesman trying to offload a particularly difficult product. It is even worse in some aspects for my team-mates who volunteer their time to do this. "You do this for free!?!"

I love the caricatures of what we do.... the one below relfects what people imagine when they decide we're the "cooler" type of Christians. We'll be in a bar with a beer before we tell you that you're immoral!

But the truth is even more humorous at times than the cartoon version of what we do. The next cartoon captures the heart of what we actually aim for, which is being a part of the group who are helping students find their true self and then often helping them come to terms with the shock of that real person.

And as we are Christian there are always those deeply theological questions we get asked....

and finally one of the favorite aspects of my work.... the much quoted desire Christians have for a need for tolerance....

So if you ever wondered what a college ministry aspires to be..... now you know.....

if you are not connected to our many channels of communication pick one or all of them and find out more of our funny world....

Sacred Cows and burgers

“Sacred cows make the best hamburger” Mark Twain

“Christian Faith and Reason are Mutually exclusive.” This was the first premise that I saw refuted using clearly defined critical thinking. My friend Ed Bowen took Comparative and Contrastive thinking and refuted the premise that Reason excluded the Christian Faith and vice-versa. It gave names to how I already thought and also called me out on my dominant way of thinking.

I’m a naturally combative Contrastive thinker.  I’ll test the validity of someone’s beliefs and assertions by first seeking to find a weak spot that can be falsified. I’m considered and self-nominate as an open minded person only because I am unconditionally willing to embrace any new idea that can be proven to be reasonably sound, through repeated stress testing, even if that means a full 180 degree conversion to how I used to think or what I once held sacred. The downside for anyone trying to get me to embrace a new idea is that they must endure an intense battering of their idea.

 

I think one of the great gifts of being a high school drop-out is that formal education and the educational tools that follow in its wake came into my life at a comparatively late date. So as a 41 year old discovering the names Comparative and Contrastive Thinking, for the well worn tools within my intellectual toolkit, I relish the subtle nuances that are held within such delicate and delicious identities. It’s as if two old comfortable work colleagues unexpectedly decided to formally introduce themselves and their lineage.

In the next 4 weeks Ed will explain how these two darling thinking tools use Coherent Consistency; Corresponding Consistency, Compatible Consistency and Comprehensive Consistency in evaluating ideas.

The reason for the Mark Twain quote (that came to me via White Collar) at the start is that accepting Reason and it’s rather tawdry bedfellow Apologetics as a interwoven part of my Christian faith has sent a well loved sacred cow to the butcher. While I feel a lingering sense of nostalgic loyalty for the beast, I’m finding my intellect’s saliva-gland unusually stimulated by the idea of the new type of burger being prepared for lunch!

So my poorly used teachers of Apologetics finally have a new convert. I'm willing to accept their right to be part of the discussion on what constitutes a compelling world view or spiritual idea.

What sacred cows have you sent to the butcher lately?

Triple-braided Cord



Ecclesiastes 4:12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is
not easily broken.

I made a conscious decision when I began this blog to work hard to ensure it was not incomprehensible to those outside my own world-view of Christianity. I eschewed Christian insider language and the temptation to assume the beliefs and behaviors I hold dear are universally held. I have other venues and platforms to speak in the insider's language of Christianity and have places where those of my own world-view congregate to read or hear what I believe and how I behave because of my deeply held convictions stemming from my world-view.

But in writing in that other place I sent out an idea that I feel belongs here as well despite the danger it may be incomprehensible to those outside Christianity. So if this sounds like gibberish to you, please excuse the lapse, but I hope I can transcend the sub-cultural linguistic and intellectual barriers between world-views and communicate a concept that I believe exists in many places under many guises.

I spend my life devoted to helping late adolescents become inter dependant adults. Many feel the largest challenge is helping them see that their spiritual identity in this journey to adulthood is as essential as the physical or emotional aspects of their growth. But in many ways I believe the greater challenge is the belief that their goal in becoming adults is to become independent not inter dependant.  Among those who believe my world-view there is a growing sense of individualism that is reaching pandemic proportions.

Ecclesiastes is one of the wisdom books in the Christian Bible and in the text I quoted it speaks of the benefits of community, of accepting the burden and the advantages of being inter dependent on others. It brings safety in numbers but also the constraining aspects of being responsible for others.

I confess it isn’t only the younger generation who reach for independence in our new age of self-orientation. I see in myself and my peers a growing trend to be self-reliant; to be wearied of waiting for others to catch up or to find myself unhealthily straining beyond my capacity rather than admit weakness or vulnerability by calling out for help from those beside me. I’m 41 and in that time I’ve too often accepted the need to look after me and mine rather than binding myself to community that may limit my own dreams or desires. Then I bemoan the fact that the young men and women I walk with are reluctant to tie themselves to communities of inter dependent adults!

 The sacred texts that I follow in my Christian world-view demand an approach of inter dependence and self-denial for the common good. Yet I find myself to be far too independent and far from willing to accept the limitations and vulnerabilities of being tied to other adults in a constraining community of diverse ideas and goals.

 I’m certain other world-views extoll the virtues of selfless giving to the communal good of humanity and the other inhabitants of this planet. But despite the many exhortations from a multitude of divergent world-views I’m shocked by the reluctance we in the western world have to give ourselves to others in inter dependent commitment.

 My old mentor and leader back in Northern Ireland repeatedly reminded me that a person can only lead and teach others to the limit of their own reach and place. Before I can extoll the virtues of inter dependence to young men and women perhaps I should revisit my own willingness to be tied by a triple braided cord!

don't just do something, stand there!

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a
  little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop
  their job when they dam'-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark
  and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's
  day may be long in the land. Rudyard Kipling

 This is an excerpt from Kipling's poem Sons of Martha. It normally reflects my personal philosophy of life. If something important needs done, then doing it is usually the best response, while sitting around staring at your navel means some other poor soul will need to actively pull your sorry self out of whatever hot water your inaction got you into.


But this morning I had my "son of Martha" mentality challenged by an unusual source. Normally credited to the white rabbit of Alice in Wonderland, the stupefying line, "don't just do something, stand there!" has been challenging me since I heard it quoted this morning on NPR.

I'm feeling a sense of white rabbit syndrome coming on.... "Late! Late!" Time and Task orientated solutions espoused by Mr. Rabbit and myself may not be the best response to some of the things that are in my life's inbox. But perhaps his confounding and confusing drivel of standing still is the most productive thing I can do to produce the desired outcomes for the issues at hand.....


Used by everyone who ever wanted to suggest that inaction can be as productive as action and that sometimes it is the only solution to vexing problems, it is also utterly frustrating advice for someone when they have several things in life that need done yesterday that normally should be solved by simply doing something about them, but seem to defy active solutions.

So I've decided that in response to NPR's subliminal messaging; Lewis' White Rabbit's "no steps to success" model of life management, and my own confounding inner voices I'm taking a whole day to practice inactivity.

I'll let you know how it went....
feel free to tell me what you thin of this weird experiment....



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