A Real Celebrity

I guess I have a bit of a celebrity problem. 

Worse than most, maybe, to the point where I've chased down work as an extra in film and television just to be near them (Lou Diamond Phillips, Jennifer Garner, Jason Momoa, et cetera).

I deflect my embarrassment over this problem by making a joke of it - by over-emphasizing it to the point of ludicrousness.

For example, a few days ago when I flew to California with my little boy, M, to visit my brother and his family for Thanksgiving, I insisted that every luxury vehicle I saw was driven by a celebrity - who I then named based on the demographic of the actual driver. 

Fifty year old Asian woman? 

Obviously Lucy Liu! 

Caucasian male with a handlebar mustache? 

Brad Pitt, headed to some cowboy set!

This irritated my brother, who insisted that Orange County (where he lives) isn't in Los Angeles and doesn't actually have any celebrities.

So yesterday morning, as I was driving my rental car back up to the LA airport, I remarked to my younger brother Jason (who was also in the car), "Wouldn't it be funny if I saw an actual celebrity at LAX and got a picture with them? I could send it to Jo-Ben and just say - Hey, brother: here's me with another of those celebrities I've been seeing."

We dropped off the car and took the shuttle to the airport.

M and I said goodbye to Jason as we went to check in at our respective airlines.

Tickets, baggage, shoes off, moving walkways...

And then, just before we got to our gate, who should I see zipping towards me in the other direction but... Nick Vujicic.

I'm embarrassed to admit that what actually caught my attention was his oddly-shaped foot.

I had heard him in a video call it his "little chicken drumstick," and when it caught my eye I thought, "Hey! There's that little chicken drumstick!"

Then, as he came closer in his motorized wheelchair, I thought, "Wait a minute... It's HIM!"

"Dude!" I yelled, "I saw your video online! It was great." 

He stopped and said "Hello," in that sweet Aussie accent of his. 

"Yeah, man," I went on, "I'm a high school art teacher and I showed it to all my classes."

At that point I felt a little awkward, so I started to turn away. He stopped me with a question: 

"Did it encourage them?"

"Yeah," I said, "It really did. Thank you." 

"Great!" he said. 

I turned and walked away, immediately thinking that that wasn't what I had meant to say at all, and wondering what it must be like to have strangers yelling at you all the time.

Down at our gate (which shared a cul-de-sac with about five others) M decided to run round and round in big, loopy circles as I followed behind, carrying our bags. 

After a dozen or so rounds of this I looked up, and who should be coming back our direction... but Nick! 

He and his friends (family... entourage?) parked themselves in some seats to eat the lunch they'd gone to buy, but after a while Nick disengaged and headed over to the window.

I saw a second chance, so I went over.

"Hey man," I said. "Sorry to ambush you there earlier."

"No worries, bud," he replied.

"I just didn't say before what I had really wanted to," I went on, "Which is that I first watched your video right after my ex-wife told me she was going to leave me".

He said something sympathetic, so I launched into the story of how his video had touched and inspired me. As I talked about my pain, I started to cry.

He was gently sympathetic, which of course made me cry harder. 

So there I was in a crowded corner of LAX, holding a two year-old (who for some reason was totally not squirming), a ukulele, a heavy backpack, and a hand-bag of baby stuff, ugly crying with a stranger.

When I'd finished my tale of woe he said, "Do you mind if I pray for you?".

This surprised me. The Youtube clip I'd seen had only been about five minutes long and gave no real indication that he was a man of any sort of faith whatsoever. But despite my surprise, and despite the fact that growing up as a missionary kid has left me wary of gung-ho, obnoxious people who sometimes use prayer as an excuse to spew a lot of irritating nonsense at people they don't know all that well, I said an enthusiastic, "Yes!"

From his video and from our interaction to that point, Nick Vujicic seemed to be a kind man. I instinctively knew it was going to be okay.

He prayed.

I cried some more.

The words were nothing different than countless prayers I'd heard before. 

Somehow, though, they felt right. 

He prayed encouragement. 

He prayed wisdom for me as I struggled to raise my son as a newly single father. 

He prayed, and a sense of rest and purpose seemed to hover over the moment. 

After his "Amen," we chatted a bit more. He was heading to Maryland to give a talk, then to Redding for some R&R, and he was flying on my same connecting flight through Houston.

We spoke in passing a couple more times... Then he was gone.

I went to LAX that day hoping to see a celebrity, but I ended up meeting someone better.

After all that, though, I still caught myself thinking, "Yeah, but wouldn't it have been something to see a real celebrity?" So this morning, when I told this story to one of my art classes, I pointed out that not only had I gotten some beautiful encouragement from the incident, but I'd also had the opportunity to take stock of my own mis-placed focus on celebrity. 

"I mean, that airport was just full of wonderful, intriguing people, but all I could think about was that one of my high school youth leaders had peed in an LAX urinal next to Sean Connery - so it could happen to me, too."

Immediately, a few guys in the class said, "Whoa! Sean Connery!?! Now that is off the hook!" 

When I pointed out the irony of their response, they said, "Yeah, but c'mon! Sean Connery!" and veered off into their best impressions of the lishping Shcottish actor.

I suppose we all have a bit of a celebrity problem. 

I mean, would anyone care about what had happened to me, if Nick wasn't a guy with his own Wikipedia page, who motivates a lot of people to stop crying for themselves and start living? 

This morning in art class, I told my students that while I get really suspicious when people start telling me they know exactly how God is monkeying around, micro-managing their business, I have to admit that my meeting with Nick had a real "something bigger" kinda vibe.

Life's a crazy mystery, and who knows... right?

What I can say for certain is that I'm grateful to have met a man I will forever after think of as a real celebrity.