On the concourse...

This is the Chicago airport...ridiculous! There are soooooo many people here today. I am on my way to Winnipeg, MB to share at a YWAM Discipleship Training school. But I have to wait here for about 2 more hours. I've been here about 2 already. I knew this and was ready for it. So I settled in for a 4 hour haul. I found my distant, other terminal gate, found an ok Chicago "kinda" pizza place called Uno's and called Amie while I was eating. After I hung up, I hear, "Passenger Whitler, your flight is leaving in 1 minute, if you are not on board...blah, blah, blah". I freaked. I downed my soda, throwing it in the recycle container on my way to the gate...I know I made it in under a minute but the plane was pulling away. I interrupted the clerk helping another customer, "I'm sorry to interrupt but did you just call my name? I'm Whitler and I'm booked for the 6:25 flight!"

She barely looked at me, "oh" nonchalantly (is it possible to do something "chalantly"?)..."it's gone", still not looking at me.

"Well, am I still booked on the later flight?" I say intently...possibly chalantly.

"I wouldn't worry about it..." She says, trailing off. Service these days...cheesh. I won't say what airline but I will say I wish this worker had been more UNITED with my idea of customer service. Well, I went to the customer service desk where I guess they specialize in this sort of thing and found that everything was worked out. Yay! I have 3 hours to wait.

Oh, my in-flight movie was "Stranger Than Fiction" with Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson. Mind you, I saw the "edited for content" version but it was very good. Not at all like the trailers made it look. While funny, it is not mainly a comedy but a nice and thoughtful look at life, connection and the things that make it all worth it.

I'm sad that I missed our first St. Patrick meal at New Hope this morning. But Amie and I started our new St. Patty tradition. We bought Irish soda bread and if you haven't had it...go get some now! With real imported Irish butter, then we ate the whole thing. So yummy!

When Amie and I were in Ireland, the Irish liked to remind us "mutt" Americans that it's because of Patrick that we were all Christians...I don't think the logic works but I do know that we serve a scheming God that likes to make strange connections. Long story short, Patrick evangelized Ireland and inspired the celtic monastic movement, who in turn evangelized Europe and that is the way my ancestors received the gospel. It's not the only way they could have but it is the way it happened. Patrick's life and obedience to go to his former enslavers with Christ's love can be an example to us all. Suddenly, it's not so tough to walk downtown or across the street with the same stuff that enabled such forgiveness and devotion in Patrick.

And the soda bread doesn't hurt either.