landscaping lives

Every so often I reach the point when my hair begins to feel unkempt and in need of a trim. I've been feeling that these past few days, so today I returned to the barber.

Niko's not there these days, of course, the older Italian guy who started the business off who knows how long ago. He's not often there, at any rate - a bit of a shame in many ways, since he's always good for a laugh.

His son now runs the shop. And he does a good job, does Paul. I mean, he's good at cutting your hair and good with the staff and good at running the shop. I'm always glad when it's him I get. But today, I got someone else.

I hadn't seen the guy before, though he's been there, he said, for the past six months. Likes it there, he said, because the place is always busy and the chat is always good. I knew what he meant.

The guy was just out of school - or so it seemed. In fact, I think he'd maybe had as much as three years' worth of working life since leaving school. And in that time he'd moved from working as a landscape gardener on to this job, cutting people's hair.

They're not that very different, I guess, these two jobs that he's had. Landscaping gardens and then going on to be effectively 'landscaping' heads.

He asked me what I did. Now, I'm slowly learning not to respond to questions along those lines by saying what my job is called: I'm learning to answer the question and tell folk what I do. So I didn't say I'm a minister - that's a bit of a switch-off, apart from anything else.

So I told him what I do. Landscaping lives. And, down the line, I hope, landscaping whole communities.

He chatted a bit about how he'd got into the business of cutting hair. It came, he said, quite naturally to him. His pal had needed a haircut for an interview - and all the barber shops were closed. Would he do it?

The guy who needed the haircut had said to try things out on his younger brother first. Which he did. And then, I presume to make sure it wasn't a fluke (for the haircut had turned out quite well), he said to try it again on his next brother up. Which, once again, he did. Nothing like using your younger brothers as your guinea-pigs!

I guess there's a lesson in that for me as well. For I, too, am having to learn these days a rather different form of 'landscape gardening' in the cause of Jesus Christ. And I guess I also need to have a people who are willing to embrace the risks involved.

In some ways, I see, I've gone myself for just this 'younger-brother-first' approach. Trying things out and bit by bit establishing that, yes, there isn't going to be a huge disaster as I minister this way.

Landscaping lives. I rather like the phrase! Somewhat more suggestive than the bland and tired old title of 'a minister'!