The man in question was Chiwetel Ejiofor, the hugely acclaimed lead in the gut-wrenching 12 Years A Slave, winner of Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. The year was 2008, when he was still a rising star. I had been invited to his home by a mutual friend, another actor who was trying valiantly to help me launch my fledgling screenwriting career. He was a nice man: kind, courteous and interesting. The trouble started when I decided to make an impression on him.
Ejiofor’s home was jaw-dropping. He lived in a cool modern house on the side of a Hollywood Hill, fully equipped with gadgets, upmarket décor and a bathroom you could wash a horse in. As I entered and shook his hand, I noticed an unfamiliar sound coming from his every-room-surround- sound stereo. ‘I like this music,’ I said to him, with all the cultural nuance of a five year-old who’s just been woken in the night. ‘Oh, you like Coltrane?’ he enthused. I paused, nonplussed, then finally asked: ‘Er… Robbie Coltrane?’ (for the uneducated: John Coltrane is a seminal jazz saxophonist, Robbie Coltrane is an actor, known for roles such as Hagrid).
Then some much less gormless people arrived, and our conversation was over. And with a table-full of guests that would have kept the staff of Downton Abbey busy, another chance to speak to my host never naturally arose. I spent the evening on the edge of conversations, trying but failing to break in and connect with him; to repair the damage caused by my shocking knowledge of jazz. When it was time to go, I knew it was now or never. I had one opportunity to show this future superstar that I was exactly the sort of brilliant mind he’d be desperate to work with.
As I approached the door and went to shake his hand, I suppose I was imagining some sort of glorious ‘kairos’ moment, lasting only a few seconds but so heavy with meaning and significance that it would echo in eternity. So that’s when I looked him in the eyes and said: ‘My wife thinks you’re beautiful.’
This was wrong for many reasons, not least of all because it was entirely fabricated. It was also, not unreasonably, misinterpreted as very heavy flirting. When, almost inconceivably, I ran into him again the next day, the only thing he said to me was: ‘Aren’t you the guy who tried to hit on me last night?’
Are we ready for these kairos moments when they arrive in our youth work?
As I’ve reflected – no, agonised – on this meeting over the years, a couple of things have struck me. The first fits well into the Hollywood context, where the widely-held fantasy is that one day you’ll get to share an elevator with the studio exec who can make your dreams come true. Here’s the question: am I ready for opportunities when they come my way? In the film world that’s a chance meeting with a famous film star, but in youth ministry it could be all sorts of much more important things. A young person who has never opened up before, suddenly asking you that million-dollar question; a youth worker from another church approaching you about running a group, camp or activity together; a conversation with a council grant maker that could suddenly mean a huge injection of funds. Are we ready for these kairos moments when they arrive in our youth work?
My second reflection is linked, and apparently contradictory to the first. I didn’t need to force my conversation with the movie star. As it happened, I’d see him the very next day. Yet all evening, I was desperately trying to say something to him. Something. Anything. I guess I was hoping to make him laugh, or pique his interest; to make him like me enough to want to work together.
If you use social media, you may be familiar with my plight. The empty tweet or status box, beckoning you to say something; anything. The world is now full of people who are trying to say something, all the time. I wonder if we all stopped trying so hard to say something, we might actually find we turn into people with something to say.
How do we prepare for those kairos moments? How do we become people with something to say? By returning again, daily, to the one who is always ready for us; who always has something to say to us. If only I spoke a little less and listened a little more; If only I was more concerned about what comes into me than what comes out of me. Ironically, that would have made a much bigger impression on my movie star acquaintance.
