Rick Beeman

(Im venting here...so if negativity upsets you...skip this entry please).  It’s like a Swiss watch…precision clockwork.   X seems to stir up something every three weeks.   Some sort of conflict.   Im not really sure of the reason why, Yes, I think I know the reason, its something to remind herself that I need to be the “bad” guy.   Three weeks ago when I was making plans to visit my kids in the U.S. she would not allow me to see them on my planned visit of May 21, because that, according to the decree was her weekend, and that I couldn’t visit them the week after because that was the start of summer vacation and thus not my weekend either.   So she said I could have the third weekend so I rearranged my plane reservations to visit on the third weekend.   X knew full well that the kids had plans to visit with new hubby’s parents that weekend something they told me they had planned for months   So X knowingly set up the conflict to make me out to be the “bad” guy.   The kids didn’t want...

Im in between acting classes at the moment.   I’m waiting for the adults to arrive.   Normally I go upstairs and take a 20 minute nap in the make up room between the classes.   It really refreshes me.   But some security guard locked the door so I can’t access it.   So I’m writing you instead trying to maximize the use of my time.   I had breakfast today with the Music Man..or Russ.   Russ is my good friend and accountability partner.   I’ve never really had an accountability partner before but I can see so many benefits to it.   I help him stay strong spiritually and he helps me stay strong.   We talk about everything.   He’s also from the Bay Area.   He was asking about my blog when I told him about the Czech.   I was describing some of the character names I have used in the past to protect people’s identity.   He asked what his character name was…and I just said Russ.   I think he was a little disappointed that he didn’t have a character name, but didn’t mind me sharing informatio...

It was a strange day all around.   I think I realized the reason for my funk, was a spiritual attack.   I don’t want to give the enemy too much credit or too little credit.   I think it hit me while I was watching Terminator: Salvation last night.   I think there is indeed a war being waged spiritually that we can’t see.   The visualization of that metaphor in my mind on the screen was powerful.      If I take that point of view, I can handle the crappy stuff that comes my way a little easier.   It helps me put it into perspective.   I told you that I hadn’t really done my devotions for about two weeks, so spiritually I was unfit and prone to more attacks.   Its like I became the spiritual 98 lb weakling again and the enemy was the hulk.   Well…I did find my Bible and I’m trying to get back on track again.   It wasn’t something that happened all of a sudden, it was a slow drift.   But since I’m doing God’s work over here, there is more of a giant target on my back.   I guess that is ...

I’ve been in kind of a funk all week.   Only semi-productive at work.   I feel like my spirit has been drained.   I had nine months of near euphoria being in Bahrain, but emotionally I feel like Im out of gas.   As I write this, the Lord is impressing upon me, that my spiritual life is out of whack.   With all the traveling that I’ve been doing I haven’t really been as diligent in my devotional life or spiritual life as I should be.   No wonder I’m in a funk.   I think that has a lot do with it.   Before my trip, I was so passionate about my morning devotion and Bible study.   Now that I’m back, Im not even really sure where my Bible is.   I usually leave it in the car but I brought it up to the flat for some reason and haven’t brought it back down.   Out of sight out of mind I guess.   In fact, now Im kind of bothered.   I just walked around looking for my Bible and I can’t find it.   I thought it was in the house somewhere.   I’ll have to double check the car.   This Bible has grea...

What a difference a day makes.   I was pretty tired…the jetlag kind of hit me last night after two normal days.   Im not sure why.   So I wanted to make sure I had all my energy for the acting classes today.   So instead of lunch, I came home for a quick power nap.   Its so cool that being on the island, I can come home from work like that even though I live so far away by Bahrain standards.   It worked.   I was very refreshed.   The kids all seemed excited to see me, even though I was away for a week.   I had my Saudi friend Khaled teach the Saturday class and Marloes, my dutch friend teach the Wednesday classes.   I think they both did great.   Now Im not racist by calling out the nationalities where these friends come from.   I just think its cool that this is such a melting pot of cultures where I’ve literally met over 50 people from different parts of the world.   Its an amazing cultural experience.   America is so vast that sometimes there is an America perception that there is...

I think I‘m over my jetlag.   Its pretty amazing, I guess Im getting better at it, to kick it after a day.   Sometimes I wonder about writing this blog.   I wonder if Im doing more harm than good.   A lot of people have told me in the past not to be too outgoing with certain emotional information.   I guess in a way they are absolutely correct.   My mouth has always gotten me in trouble.   Let me state, that the more that I’m away from the Czech…the more I like her.   My family is certainly lobbying on her behalf.   But she was bothered, and rightfully so about me thinking outloud about my emotional state.   She has every right to be concerned about it.   Im not sure if I’m entirely emotionally stable.   But I do know that I care about her very much and don’t want to do anything that would potentially jeopardize a relationship with her.   So I guess airing my feelings and emotions out there while beneificial for some, is kind of self-defeating for me personally. I should say…I do m...

Wow…A lot has went on the last 36 hours, and that how long it seems like I’ve been awake.   I actually didn’t really want my flight to end going to Dubai.   I was enjoying Business class so much.   Time really did fly by, pun intended.   I got to Dubai and had a five hour layover.   I was able to spend it in the business class lounge which was enormous.   I took a shower, got on wireless internet, posted my blog and ate and ate and ate.   It was delicious.   It’s a shame im not much of a drinker because they had all the free alcohol you could ever want.   My friend loaned me the first three seasons of LOST on DVD so Im kind of addicted to them right now.   That sure helps pass the time speedily.   This way I don’t have to wait til next week to figure out what is happening.   The flight from Dubai to Bahrain was only 50 minutes, just barely enough time to scarf down the first class meal.   They had me in first class in the smaller plane, because there was no business class section.   ...

I imagine Im somewhere over the North Pole right now. I keep trying to spot Santa’s workshop but im in the aisle and have to look over the next seat to look out.   Im not sure if reindeer fly this high either.     I feel incredibly spoiled flying in Business Class.   I can’t believe I was able to upgrade after only 1.5 trips.   The only downside to this, is when I fly coach, it’ll be crashing back to reality.   Once you go upgrade, I guess you can’t go back.   I think being up here is all a part of God’s favor.   I remember one sermon Joel preached about finding the favor of God.   People will do good things for you and many times they won’t even know why they are being compelled to do it.   That is the favor of God.   Its all a part of Deuteronomy 28, if you heed the voice of the Lord you shall be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.   God’s favor will overtake you.   I am experiencing a life of that, and Im so grateful.   When I got to the airline Counter today, I had an...

Woke up really early today, 5:30 A, and headed down to CrossWinds church to meet up with my old Friday morning men’s group.   This group is led by my great friend James.   It is a group that I had gone to faithfully the year I lived in California right before moving to Bahrain.   When I say faithfully, I meant every other week, for when I lived in California, I always flew back to Houston for the 1 st , 3 rd , and 5 th weekend visitation.   I only missed one weekend, and that was because I had to close on buying my house on a non-visitation weekend, and surprise surprise X didn’t want to switch.   I have made an extreme effort to stay in my kids lives even across the world but it seems like the harder I try to worse it becomes.   You’d think any ex-spouse would realize that the relationship with the birth parent is so important to support.   Unfortunately, I don’t have that relationship.   That is why I need your prayers.   It seems like my relationship with my children gets worse a...

I was able to sleep in today.   That is a good thing on vacation right?   The longer I go away from work, the less I think about it.   Which is a good thing.   I was reminded of my needed presence with a few desperate emails that most likely can be handled upon my return.   I have this thing that I used to do every morning while I lived in the U.S. I would get up early, go to Jack in the Box and read the sports page.   Its quite a routine.   Now that I’m in Bahrain, there isn’t much of a sports page, so I read the Bible.   That is better for me anyway.   But today it was the sports page.   I ran across several homeless people.   Its amazing, Im certain that we have homeless in Bahrain, I just don’t notice them like I do here.   Somehow they remain in the background.   Taiwan was a lot like that too.   In the year I lived there I didn’t see one homeless person, except for the one crazy guy…that everyone knew was crazy.   I think he was considered the town kook.   So Im not sure if h...

Whoa….I missed yesterday’s blog.   Sorry about that.   I was in Lake Tahoe, and they didn’t have any internet access.   Buh-mer.   Its been a pretty good week considering everything.   I think the Czech and I are connecting.   It will be interesting to see how many puns I can put in the headlines about her.   She just told me she’s attracted to me and the more she’s getting to know me, the more she’s learning about my different sides…So that is a good thing.   We are getting along very well.   We were supposed to be seeing my little sis and her fiancée but sis changed the plans, surprise, surprise, so instead we went up to Lake Tahoe.   The Czech had never been further west than Alabama so we got in the whole sightseeing stuff.   She was taking pictures of everything.   Lake Tahoe was beautiful as always, but pretty dead.   I imagine that the recession has hurt it quite a bit.   When we were eating in the restaurant at Harrah’s there was nothing but 80 year olds in there.   It was ...

Ok…I guess I can fess up now.   I’m writing to you from the U.S.   I had a dispute with my former employer in California and didn’t want to write too much about it. I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t show up to mediation thinking, there’s no way Rick would fly from the Middle East to this.   But they did show up.   It was strange but cool.   Here we were in front of a mediator trying to settle an old dispute so you think we would have been adversarial, right?   Wrong.   It was really nice to see them again.   We got caught up on all the things that were happening.   We met with the mediator and we settled…which is a good thing for all parties involved.   Now that this is settled, hopefully we can go back to being really good friends again.   That’s the issue when the line between business and friendships become blurred.   One of the former employers said something that made me feel really great today.   I mentioned that a certain person reads the blog everyday, and he mentioned that ...

Im a little bit emotional right now, so I’m not even sure Im going to post this.   God speaks to me.   I’ve talked about it with whomever might listen to me.   He has always spoken to me, I just never really took the time to stop and hear or recognize his voice.   But I just felt it was a relationship that was uncommon to most, but available to all.    It took devastating loss for me to fall to my knees and embrace Him.   Even since then, we have regular conversations.   Now I know that might make me sound like Im a candidate for the looney bin, but He speaks in specifics to me, that actually come to pass.   I could give you about 50 specific examples.   The thing with God is that he wants to speak to all of us in that same manner.   I think my position in life at this point is to tell as many people as I can about this.   Not necessarily to lead people to Christ, though that is a natural byproduct, but rather, I believed I’m called to enhance other people’s relationship with Christ....

I slept in today and it felt great.   With church on Friday at 10 am, I really only have one day to sleep in, and that is Saturday.   I can’t totally lounge all day, since I have the acting class to prepare for later in the day.   I’m learning how to pace myself for that class. It does indeed take a lot out of me mentally.   So I have a 30 minute break between classes.   There is a small make up room in the upstairs of the studio, near the control booth.   This tiny little room has a bench with a cushion.   So I’ve found if I can sneak ina   15 minute nap between the sessions that really recharges my batteries.   I really like doing that.   The classes are nearing an end.   We only have three more weeks for this session, and another 6 weeks for the sessions that started later at St. Christopher.   I’ve mentioned before that it is so satisfying to see my students grow.   I think Im going to take a hiatus off of teaching for the summer.   With my responsibilities as GM and the teachi...