The Lighter Side of Life

A poor, dear fellow Texan living in Brisbane contacted me by e-mail this weekend. Like me, she had begun an increasingly desperate search for life's staple food, pinto beans, and like me discovered that Australian supermarkets simply do not carry them in any form anywhere. When she searched the internet for pinto beans in Australia she found my blog entry of some months ago in which I announced that Emmy had found a local source for pinto beans. The blog entry didn't say what the source was though, so my desperate fellow Texan e-mailed me to ask where the wonderful, compassionate magic store might be found. It was nice to be the hero and supply a basic human need in this poor, culinarily unenlightened land. I did break the news to her that I still have not found a local source for masa or turnip greens, mustard greens or collard greens.

This morning I preached at the Capalaba Church of the Nazarene here in Brisbane. It was my first time to preach to an Australian audience other than our little NewStart-RiverCity group which is largely Roland's extended family at this point. I was a little more nervous than normal, worrying I'd say something offensive to anyone who may ever have misunderstood Roland's methods or goals, worrying that I'd use some Americanism that miscommunicates ( a hoagie in the states is a sandwich, for instance, while in Australia it's a dirty diaper. Bubba means brother in the states and baby in Australia.). And the message just never felt like it was coming together adequately in my head as I prepared it during the week. I wanted it to be a message of hope and encouragement and affirmation to a good group of folks who have reason to feel beaten down and discouraged, and I wasn't sure I was up to the task.

When I actually preached it, however, the people understood and seemed to enthusiastically embrace what I was saying. Roland, his mother and Karen all said it was perfect, and Emmy said it was the best message I'd ever preached. So that was a relief. And of course, it's always a joy to recognize that God has answered my prayers to use a sermon to deliver his message rather than my own, to open my spirit to communicate his heart clearly, and to open the group's spirit to see his heart clearly.

And to dispel any doubt that we were really in Australia, on the way from the church to the pastor's house for lunch after the service, we saw two dead kangaroos on the roadside and four live ones in a vineyard.

An otherwise good, interesting weekend was only dimmed slightly by our weekly family movie night. We watched a DVD together tonight called “The Good Shepherd”. It had a whole raft of big names and was about the CIA. It sounded like a thriller. It wound up being long, slow and virtually incomprehensible. I do not recommend it. But when that's the low point of your weekend, it's been a great weekend.