The best submission we received to our new college literary journal came from my future sister in law. It was an essay about a time when she accidentally ran over a deer with a combine while living on a farm in South Dakota. It was painful to read, yet not gory. It made you ache for the author, who cradled in those pages more pain than a reader would think bearable. Reading it made you hope you never experienced anything like that, but also made you wish that maybe you would, if only so you could write about it the way that she did.

What I didn’t know then about the toll of cradling such pain.

The woman who would become my sister in law was a legend in my mind before I ever met her. She graduated from the literature department of my small Kansas college the year before I arrived, and from my very first course professors were invoking her name as star Christian college student, the embodiment of rare literary acumen combined with authentic religious devotion. My flirtation with her little sister seemed to actually bolster my academic credentials.

I didn’t meet her until the very end of that first year. She came back to campus with her parents for a worship service commissioning her brother for summer service in a traveling evangelistic rock band. I sat next to her in the front row and recall being too intimidated to speak. What could I say that wouldn’t sound ignorant or fake? The only interaction we had in that meeting was near the end of the service, when worshipers were urged to leave their seats and surround the band members, laying their hands on them in prayer. This kind of public expression of piety was new to me, but I was eager to participate (and to be seen participating, especially by the missionary family of the girl I was in love with). But my future sister in law didn’t move. As her parents and little sister strode to the front, she stayed in her seat.

I gave her a look like, “We should go, right?” She looked back at me only long enough to say, “You can go up there. I’m not,” and then she turned away and looked into the empty space in front of her.

I wobbled to the front. The legend was real, but also different.

Of all the humanity that swirls around you as you sip your free-with-the-price-of-admission pint on the fifth story observation deck of the Guinness storehouse in Dublin–the beautiful revelers crammed into the glass-walled bar above you; the devoted students studying the hops wall exhibit below you; the tired parents with kids clinging to center facing bar chairs on your right and your left–the interaction that catches most of your attention is the tall, broad shouldered man leaning over what must be his teenager daughter, urgently rubbing her shoulders with a strained look that combines grief and uncertainty while she stares blankly out over the ledge. Presently his wife joins him, and then their younger son. Those three confer with one another, not saying much, clearly pained and clearly torn about what to do. The daughter never moves.

What blow has been dealt her? Has someone died? Or is it less than that, some teenage drama to which parents are sympathetic but that will be forgotten in time, the slight of a friend or the rejection of a college? There is no evidence anywhere, and I want so badly to find out. The public suffering of strangers is excruciating to witness without feeling a need to help.

Her family leave her alone for several minutes, and when they return its clear they need her to move. They are weighed down with backpacks and gift bags, and it is late in the afternoon. But she won’t, and so they can’t. They stand there motionless for another minute, exchanging pained looks every few seconds. This seems to be how they will exist forever now.

Our pints are done and our kids are restless, so we collect our jackets and begin the descent to the gift shop. I turn and look one last time to see if anything in the tableaux has moved, hoping selfishly for some resolution, or at least some movement, some hope, some progress, but I know there is none of that to be had, at least not in this moment.

The first thing I saw when I got to my desk for the first time since my vacation was a Leuctthurm 1917 notebook, 249 blank pages, hardcover, dotted, colored anthracite.

I was sure I took it on vacation and lost it. I was certain why I took it, where I lost it, and how. I was upset with myself about it.

And yet here it is, staring me in the face on my desk, prompting a different memory than the one I’ve been living with for two weeks, the one in which I failed to take responsibility for something. In this memory I take the notebook out of my backpack before leaving my office, deciding that it’s unlikely I will actually use it on vacation and not to risk losing it.

Memory is weird. I mean, what other things am I walking around mad at myself about that I didn’t actually do?

A Leuctthurm 1917 notebook, 249 blank pages, hardcover, dotted, colored anthracite.

A waistband travel wallet with elastic strap and all its contents: drivers license, debit card, and 100 Euro in cash.

These are the things I lost on my vacation.

The notebook is gone for good. I took it thinking I might set up my next Bullet Journal during some slow afternoon, but there were no slow afternoons and it got left behind when we moved house the first time, when I failed to perform a final sweep of the room. I know just where I left it.

I also know just where I left the travel wallet: on the window ledge of the downstairs bathroom of the third place we stayed. We were three hours away (for good) before I realized that I’d left it, when I reached for it to pay admission at a castle.

That sinking feeling when you’re standing in a medieval castle and you realize you’ve left your wallet behind and there’s no retrieving it . . .

I only just replaced my drivers license too.

So I phoned the owner of the house from the second floor of the castle’s great hall, fully aware of the human juxtaposition inherent in using a cell phone in a castle. I left a message: I’ve left my wallet, can you please mail it to this address, where I will be in four days. Here’s my phone. Here’s my email. Cheers.

Two hours later I called again, and this time he picked up. The wallet was already sent. My message was a bit garbled, so he looked up the address himself. He’s only just posted it. He won’t hear my offer of compensation.

You lose things on vacation. Some of them you get back.

An American woman I saw in the gift shop of Trinity College in Dublin was not so lucky. While others sized up sweatshirts and Book of Kells souvenirs, I watched her enlist security staff to look for something. I don’t know what it was, but at one point she turned to me, a complete stranger, and announced in a sort of half-plea-half-apology, “I’ve lost something.”

The next day I saw her at the airport, just behind us in line at US customs, and I know she never found it. She said to her two kids in shaky breaths, “I don’t even know what I lost.” When we passed one another in the zig-zagging line, I looked away.

 

I got in to see a doctor in about 30 minutes, then was examined, diagnosed, and prescribed in about 10. A very brief stroll to the chemist’s procured my antibiotics, and a call to the b&b owner got me a ride back to my room, where I could begin taking my medicine and try to make up for some of last night’s lost sleep.

That was my Thursday morning in Headstrom, Ireland, a tiny town in County Galway on the shores of Lough Corrib where my family and some friends were spending a few days exploring Connemara and Galway. Well, they were exploring Galway. I was being seen for a screamer of a sore throat that followed me from Scotland to Giant’s Causeway and then out west. Last night was intolerable; swallowing was torture. Serious antibiotics were called for.

It’s a joke how kind and helpful the Irish are, especially to strangers. The owner of this b&b told me just where to go and to call her once I was done so she could collect me. The doctor called ahead to the chemist to let them know that “an American gentleman” was on the way to pick up 21 tablets of Augmentin. He even pronounced my last name correctly; nobody does that on the first try. The chemist came out from the back to deliver my prescription personally and wish me better health.

Those few hours arrested a slide into misery and set me up to enjoy my last few days of holiday. Also, it doesn’t hurt that Ireland has a healthcare system that allows a person to be promptly seen by a primary care physician without an appointment and for modest cost. The visit and medication cost me 70 Euro.

Helpful, welcoming people and access to affordable, effective healthcare: more than Guinness or Aran Wool, these are the important things I got on my Irish vacation.

 

 

 

Write first. Read second.

I’ve been doing it backwards my whole life, reading first and then writing–writing about the reading, writing in the style of the reading. Now the reading is a reward for doing the writing first.

The discipline of blogging helps here. So does journaling, I figure, though I have not been a disciplined journaler for years and years. First thing: write. Then read the paper, or your blogs, or your book, or Twitter.

We need to hear what you have to say more than we need you to know what everyone else is saying. Get to the reading though, please; we need you to know what you’re talking about.

But write first.

When the manager of the Budget Rent-A-Car told me that my two passengers vans may be an hour late for pickup on Saturday morning, I started thinking of doing something drastic. This reservation was made back in November. They are taking 16 people to North Carolina, people who have been instructed to arrive promptly so that we can begin (and, thus, end) our day-long drive on time. So when the Budget manager nonchalantly stated, “Oh, they may be an hour late,” my mind started spinning.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “My reservation is for an 8:00 pickup. That has always been my reservation.”

“I know,” he answered. “But if the vans don’t get here on Friday night, nobody starts working before 8:00, so it’ll be closer to 9:00 before they get here.”

Silence.

I pressed the question. “Can you give me any assurance that they’ll get there on time?”

“I’ll try.”

Nope. Done. I’m out.

This isn’t the first spot of trouble I’ve had with Budget. Just the day before I’d called to confirm the reservation and was told by a junior staffer that, sure, my reservation is in the system, but he can’t really confirm I’ll have the vans. That requires a call back the next day to speak to the manager. So I have to speak directly to a manager to confirm that the reservation I made eight months ago is actually a thing? The ground was already very shaky.

I make these calls to Budget to confirm reservations because they burned me once before, badly.

Seconds after hanging up the they-may-be-late call I dialed my X Factor, the piece of the puzzle I did not have the last time Budget burned me. It’s a local place that only rents these vans and moving trucks. I tried them out for our Detroit mission trip in June and thought they were great (their vans have TV’s in them, which I don’t love, but whatever). They cost a smidge more, but they call me to confirm reservations. They. Call. Me. I explain my situation and the dates I need. The guy asks, “So you need, like, a backup plan?” No. If you have the vans I’ll take them. He has them. Done.

This is my rental company going forward, full stop.

Cancelling the Budget reservation will cost me $50. That’s the best money I’ve ever paid Budget.

What’s the next thing you need to get good at? If you plan your work around a school calendar like many of us in youth ministry, then a new year is only weeks away. My calendar and invite letter all got mailed out yesterday. But in addition to the youth group schedule, the Confirmation curriculum, and the lock-ins and retreats, I need a plan for getting better at a few things.

Supporting volunteer leaders is one. Learning from parents is another. I have some strategies in mind for improving in these areas, but I could really use a group of peers in ministry to suggest still more strategies and help me evaluate the work.

One of the best experiences of such a peer group I’ve ever had was the Youth Ministry Coaching Program cohort I did in 2011-2012. There were 10 of us from different denominations and church contexts. We learned both practical and theoretical tools for our ministries, some from the facilitator and some from one another. It was one of the most useful professional development experiences I have had in ministry.

I should get in another one of those.

In the meantime I’m organizing one. It will be in Chicago, at the church I serve, and it’s launching this fall. The Synod of Lincoln Trails is behind it, so it will cost less. And it will be led by the same skilled facilitator who led mine seven years ago, the always-learning Mark Oestreicher. It’s open to people working in youth ministry in Presbyterian contexts, and so far it has people from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. There are still spots open.

Click here to read more about it and sign up.

Whether it’s a cohort or something else, we all need people to help us get better. The time is now.

Lice.

Head Lice, man.

We found it after 9:00 on Sunday night. We’d checked on Saturday. Nothing. Checked again Sunday? Lice. One solitary lice.

In elementary school it was the worst thing you could level against a person, that they had lice. The associations with grossness and deformity were direct. Lice was leprosy for the suburban third graders in the 80’s. I never got it, which means that my social marginalization was entirely self-imposed, the result of persisting in short-sighted fashion choices, like the shoes emblazoned with the Road Runner and plastic batting helmets for hats.

Still, lice. Now I know it’s not so gross. It’s a parasite. Kids get it all the time.

That it took until she was 10 to contract it is a minor miracle, given three schools and countless summer camps, ballet, gymnastics, and now cheer. And that hair; girl is giving Rapunzel a run.

You know Rapunzel had lice.

It’s fine. Everybody needs the late night Walgreen’s run in their life, and this wasn’t the first. When you’re striding the aisles of the 24 hour pharmacy after dark, whatever you’re there for will be the defining element of your day. There’s no dissembling here, either. At this hour those fluorescent lights lay bare your life for the checker to see quite clearly. But who is he to judge? What is he, 12?

The lice removal kit is like the pregnancy test: nobody needs to ask you how your day is when you’re buying it.

We didn’t find but the one Pidiculus humanus capitis on her the rest of the night. Still, we booked an appointment the next morning for the lice removal place (yes, there is such a place. In fact, it’s a chain of places). So Daughter spent the first day of her new summer camp sitting in a barber chair for over two hours having her hair combed over with the finest of fine-toothed numbers. Mom had told her she could take her phone (relax: it’s not really a phone; okay, it’s a phone but it doesn’t have a SIM card; it can only use wifi), but I vetoed that; I couldn’t stomach the visual of somebody carefully attending to my kid while she completely ignored them to watch YouTube or play Geometry Dash. They learn this stuff young, man.

It’s fine if you don’t bring a phone, though, because they offer you an iPad. Unprompted, Daughter turned it down. Then she sat silently and stared ahead at her compatriot in the opposite chair whose eyes positively bulged at the dinging tablet in her hands. Envy? Maybe. But maybe (hopefully?) judgment.

The haul was minor. Relatively few active crawlers and about 20 eggs. Not contagious. Come back for a final check on Friday. Change her bedding every night until then. Take solace in the availability now of the ultimate comeback to all of her digs at your baldness.

Lice!