Expletives included

You've been warned.

To quote Incubus, the country sky "resembles a backlit canopy with holes punched in it." A lot of holes, constellations I've never seen, like spilled salt across a black table, converging into warriors, ladles, beasts.

I get the nickname Spiderman because Ryan lets it slip to the Rhodes that, while we were sardine-packed in a Cork bar weeks ago for Patrick's birthday, a dude hits on me and says, "You should've been in Spiderman!" I pretend, as I have done in Dupont Circle, that I have no idea of what he's doing, and proceed to discuss web-slinging with the dude. Graciously, Monnica mentions something about my girlfriend back home, but it does no good. Phil, Ben, and Chris find this hilarious.

Weeks later, Ryan goes to the kitchen at the wrong time. He deposits his plate in the sink and comes back into the living room when he pauses, realizes he's forgotten something, and kind of turns back toward the food room. Phil says, in jolly vulgarity, "C'mon, Fat Fuck, get some more." So Ryan is Fat Fuck, despite his being the slenderest male on the farm apart from Dusty, the greyhound. Of course, all of this vulgarity is done with much good hearted joking and back-and-forth wittiness, so humorous that I think I hear Major––the most ornery of our billygoats––chuckling through his mouthful of hay and goat profanities.

Phil and Chris are incredible. When they lived in England, they took in foster kids, many of whom cried their heavy hearts away into the warm, absorbent coat of a loving wolfhound. When several goats are born––and Anglo Nubian goats can have anywhere from one to five kids––some are kept, some are sold, and several more are donated to an animals-instead-of-cash program similar to the Heifer Project; we watch a Discovery Channel program on Tanzania, and play "Where's Waldo" with the Anglo Nubian goats, seeing if any bear the Rhodes surname (though the one we spot isn't theirs). They are critical of military involvement we all should be critical of, saying "What right did [the US] have to be in Vietnam... The Brits [and UN] to be in Korea... England to be in the Falkland Islands?" Indeed, why did we try to play parent to these areas? Anyone with kids knows that kids don't always do what we want them to do (even when we think it's best for them). And they tend to diverge from some opportunities we set up by virtue of the parent setting it up. To make it worse, the U.S. and U.K. are not the most beloved of parents.

They are incredible because they make us a part of their family and never ask us to do something that they wouldn't do right beside us or in our place. Phil says what he means with a colorful honesty that is both blunt and endearing and, often, hilarious. Hence our admiration when he puts his foot down on bladder cancer and says, "I'm gonna fucking beat it," because the alternative is unlivable. Hence the humility when he says to Ryan, "Usually, when it comes to Christians, I don't give a fuck. But you and Adam, you're okay."

Our ministry is to love people where they are and share our joy, planting seeds and watering them and realizing God is the only one who can make things grow. Too often, we forget in ministry that we are all human, that we have common truths to our common lives. We love, we touch, we hope, we are impassioned... These are the truths of our common lives, which every being can relate to, even if they sound different in the vernacular.

Thanksgiving

Kate asks us yesterday, “Isn’t tomorrow your Thanksgiving?” We say yes, and proceed to talk about wonderful foods that we don’t know how to cook, Squanto and Pancake Day (a UK Fat Tuesday that sounds awesome).

The day starts as any other, though, for the first time, the “bus scoile” rolls past us and our little neighbors wave at us from the window in their chipper uniforms. We describe to Phil the concept of okra and he says, “Your Thanksgiving dinner must be like our Christmas dinner.” We tell him no, that though the two meals are similar, we Americans actually have two big eating holidays only a month apart. That’s why we’re fat, I said––that and the fact that, in describing okra and so many other Southern dishes, we use the word “fried”. The English, for Christmas dinner, have a fruitcake-like Christmas pudding, which looks exciting not because of the pastry itself, but rather the fact that, to be proper, it is lit on fire.

We are cut off from home and the ability to call, and it makes us a little wistful. We are surprised, then, that Phil will not tell us what is for dinner, even though he keeps dipping into the cottage to smell it (and I’ll vouch for him, it smells savory and delicious; thick, full scent like a pea soup fog). It unfolds: turkey, mash, gravy, roasted potatoes (one of my favorites here), roasted parsnips, carrots, celery & stilton soup, and dipping bread. Soon afterward, Chris confesses that she has been looking for a whole turkey, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie everywhere, but we had to settle for turkey breast, apple pie & cream, and bread & butter pudding. We tell Chris we may need to be rolled to our caravan after a meal like this, or maybe we can just butter up the sides of the doors and squeeze in.

So what are we thankful for? Your support, prayers, and everything else. A great English family in Ireland. Drinking Potcheen (Irish moonshine) with Doney, Phil & Chris’ son-in-law, who is so Irish we can’t understand anything he is saying; and rapping a song written by his twelve year-old son.

And Phil, two days off surgery for bladder cancer, is working and receiving “a right bollocksing” for it from his wife. He says, in Phil fashion, “I’m going to [expletive deleted] beat it!” He’s full of life, and determined to stay so as long as he can, and I’m so thankful to have been around that for these past three weeks.