Time Warp Tuesday --- The Princess Spoke

When I first moved to Pittsburgh, I moved into an efficiency apartment in a complex located in the North Hills. I lived there for a year before Steve and I found a place to be roommates a little closer to the city. That first year I had a family from India living next door. I had only met the father a few times, but he was very intelligent and worked in some type of product development field and was on work trips more often than not. His wife stayed at home and rarely came out of their apartment. She did not speak English at all. They had 2 kids..."Guy" and "Princess". I don't remember what their real names were, but that is what they always told people to call them.

Guy was 9-years-old and Princess was three. Guy talked a mile-a-minute, but Princess never uttered a sound. She also had a blanket she carried with her everywhere. It was a bit long, so about 2 feet of it would always be dragging on the ground behind her as she walked. They would both knock on my door several times a day (sometimes together, sometimes just Guy, and sometimes just Princess). Guy would always want to go out and play catch, watch TV with me, etc. Princess (since she never talked) would just walk straight in (dragging that blanket behind her), hop up on my couch, and just lay there until either I would have to leave or Guy would come and get her.

As time went on, Guy and Princess would want to go with me wherever I went. If I said I was going to the mall, Guy would say, "Let me ask if we can go too"...and it didn't matter where I was going the mom would always say "Yes". I only had a truck back then so we would load in with Princess in the middle and guy in the passanger side (who knows how many laws I broke without a child-seat for Princess, but back then I thought they were only for newborns). So we would walk through the mall, grocery store, church, wherever with Guy talking his mile-a-minute, and Princess lagging a few feet behind dragging her blanket.

Must be a cultural thing, but this soon turned into, "Mom told us to come stay with you while she goes to the store" or "Mom said to leave Princess with you while she takes me to get my haircut". Not that I ever really minded as Guy was a great kid, and Princess was like watching a cat that just sits there and never makes a peep. About a month before I moved, Guy, Princess, and their family bought a house. As they loaded up the truck to move, they were both crying thinking they would never see me again.

Four years later as I was teaching at North Hills we had a Open House for the 7th-graders. Guy would now be in 7th grade and as I was walking down the hall that night I heard, "Mr. Mike, Mr. Mike!" and turned to see Princess (who I was used to seeing lagging behind everyone) now running ahead to give me a hug. The Princess had spoken! And although I didn't have Guy in class, he would come by my office to say hello and chat throughout the year.

Magical Monday --- Tighty Whities

Above is a video of one of my newer tricks which creates the illusion that I am stealing someone's underwear (sorry for the bad quality...the lighting at this show was really bad and I had to brighten the video 5X just to see it). I went through many creative ideas of how to best utilize this trick...and currently it is used as the finale to end my show. I tie it in with another one of my tricks (rope thru the body). After cutting myself in half with a rope, I call on a volunteer to be cut in half in the same way using a scarf. But the kicker is, instead of being cut in half, their underwear (which happens to be tighty whities) comes off.

So I was ending my show recently at the county fair with this trick. Normally I use someone that is at least a teenager (as you can imagine how embarrassing this could be for a child), but there was a little boy about 8-years-old that was sitting up front the entire show that I knew would be perfect for the trick. So after he watched me cut myself in half with the rope, he did volunteer to come up and let me attempt the same to him with the rope. When the underwear came flying out there was the funniest look of shock on this kids face which made the audience erupt in laughter. As I turned to put the trick away, I heard everyone burst out in even more laughter...but didn't see what happened. What could it have been?

Turns out the little kid pulled out his waistband and took a peek to see whether or not it was really his underwear!

Family/Friend Friday --- A Long Trip

Back in the summer of 2003 we went on a week-long trip with all of Jen's family to Kentucky to see the Corvette museum, Louisville Slugger plant, Churchill Downs, etc. It was about an 8-hour drive from where we were living in Pittsburgh, and we decided to carpool with Jen's sister Joni (the birthday girl this week!) and her boyfriend (now husband) Ron (pictured above).

Joni and Ron like to pick on each other back then and Jen thought 8-hours of bickering back and forth would put her over the edge. I told her not to worry as I would keep one eye on the road and one eye on them. Unfortunately the night before our trip I got wet sand kicked in my eye playing beach volleyball and ended up with an abrasion and infection and only one good eye (which I figured I had better keep on the road).

So we implemented one rule for our trip...It was known as "Rule #1"...NO FIGHTING! It worked out pretty well on the way down. As Ron would try to badger Joni, we would just say "Rule #1" and that would be the end of it. It is kind of like saying to the kids, "I'm going to count to 3...", but hey whatever works.

We made it all the way to Louisville, KY without any major fighting or bickering. We needed to eat dinner and stopped at a local Shoney's (now Joni's favorite restaurant). Our highlights from our 11:00pm pit stop was our waitress with only 3 teeth, the nice long hair in my ranch dressing, and the blood that came pouring out of Ron's chicken when he started to cut it. The favorite part for Joni was the women's restroom in which someone obviously had some issues in there that was never cleaned up. All said and done we got 10% off our bill (yeah, that was worth it!).

Hope you had a great birthday Joni, and hope Ron was able to take you back to your favorite restaurant!

Theological Thursday --- Me Church (Part 1)

'People are so often caught up in their activities that they tend to worship their work, work at their play and play at their worship'. --- Charles Swindoll

In the Hebrew, worship is literally translated as "bowing low before in reverence". As Chuck Swindoll notes in his quote above, many have turned their worship into their play time and have lost the aspect of reverence for their King. Biblically, there is definitely a time to work, a time to play, and a time to worship...but certainly not a time to get the three of them confused.

In this two-part post about the "Me Church" (where people attempt to make their personal preferences absolute truths...such as the church should only sing hymns) one of the first areas that take people down a road they shouldn't be going is the music part of worship. The point of any worship is to bring glory to God, not to give you an emotional feeling, make you have fun, etc (although these things are not wrong...it should not be your purpose or goal). You should be able to worship with a 20-piece band or with no instruments at all. The point is bringing praises to the one who paid our debt and taking your focus off of yourself.

But it can get worse....we can get into a habit of making the church all about us in all aspects (not just the music). More about that next week. In the meantime, if you are one of the people who prefers to make worship more about you then about God, here is a product you might enjoy...

What's Up Wednesday --- September 24th

1) This week (Monday) was Jen's sister Joni's birthday. I'll be sure to add a story on Family/Friend Friday this week.
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2) The "Intro to Theological Education" class I am an instructor for at the seminary is wrapping up this week. Tonight is our final regular class and then I meet individually with each student over the next week.
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3) The show at the county fair went great...there was a decent sized crowd and the kids were really into it.
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4) The outreach show I did on Sunday also went very well. The head pastor (who also works at the seminary) called yesterday to let me know the kids and adults are still talking about it and want me to come back ASAP. The check they gave me was $250 more than I asked for, so that is a good thing too!
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5) Friday night is our staff party for Grace Brethren Church. I attend all the staff meetings on Tuesdays and am considered a pastor there so Jen and I will be going. We look forward to playing some FRICKET!
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6) Saturday night we are attempting to go to the fall "barn dance" at Malabar Farm. It is a square dance (Jen's idea) and we have to coax 3 other couples from our building to go.
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7) I kicked some butt in fantasy football this week! (I thought I would add this and rub it in a little since it was my brother I beat, and I know he checks this blog every once in a while).