The French Bread Guy

"Hi Al, this is the bread guy..."

I receive this greeting every Monday evening from the French Bread Guy. He tells me the three varieties of bread that he is making and I place my order (so far I have bought, sourdough buns, a walnut loaf, a whole wheat loaf, and soon a oregano garlic loaf). The bread will arrive Tuesday night at the Commonplace Coffeehouse. I love Tuesday nights at work. One, because my bread is coming and two, because I am able to break bread with people who are in the shop at the same time I receive my bread. I become so overjoyed I must share this wonderful bread with two or three people.

There is something about this that has and is becoming quite clear to me. Is it that bread possesses these unnamed powers? or is it that there is something about food and The French Bread Guy that naturally excites and pulls people together?

There is a student whom I order a loaf of bread for too. She comes in and pays me for her bread. Next she sits on the couch and cuts slices of bread and passes it out to anyone in the vicinity of her seat. It is a delight to look around the shop and see people strangely connected through slices of bread. I absolutely love it.

The more that I sit and work at this shop the more my definition of community is being redefined. I have become sick of the word and yet cannot get it out of my head. This bread and this concept of delivering bread is outside the normalcy of how we live today in America. Yet there is something intriguing and quite pleasant about it's delivery. Maybe it's that his little daughter decorates each bag as he bakes or that all the ingredients are natural and posses no preservatives.

With all of this to say...I love bread and enjoy the fact that a man who lives in this community is willing to drive around Indiana, Pa and deliver bread to each person on his list. What if we lived like this daily? What if there were more French Bread Guys and what if...what if we honestly spent the money and time to serve and be apart of the places we live.

Just thinking of this makes me hungry.

Mittens

A lady came into the shop the other week. I complimented her mittens as I made her a nice warm hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. She was a small lady with short hair and a warm smile. She told me that she made these mittens. After she paid and she took them and had me feel how soft they were. They were soft.

I looked at her in shock....in shock that a human can actually make such beautiful mittens. She asked me what color I liked? I told her that I am a brown person (whatever that means?). She said she would make me a pair. I asked how much a pair would cost. She said that she just likes making mittens. As she walked down the hall I shouted that I would buy her a cup of coffee for such a lovely pair of mittens...I felt that this was all I could do, because she said she was going to make me mittens and charge me nothing.

Last weekend I found a box on the counter with my name inscribed on a yellow piece of paper. Inside were soft, nice, beautiful brown mittens. On the left mitten is a small threaded heart. I was told by another barista that this heart signifies the "left" hand because it is closest to your heart. What an amazing gift, all deriving from conversation and nothing that I deserved.


I love my mittens.

Maybe everyone was right....maybe.

How many times have I heard, "oh...your going through the book of Hebrews...umm..." As if I am about to go build my own pyramid in a day or cure cancer. I was frustrated by this response and gathered all my resources together...be it various translations, commentaries, and web resources. I spent a week on chapter 1:1-3....hmm. Yeah Hebrews is quite a difficult book of the bible.

I would like to think of it as rich and rewarding. However, right now, I have found myself groaning (literally) in aggravation. How do I express the beautiful message of Hebrews without boring students out of their minds with fact after fact? Let alone, discerning which direction to take the passage because there is so much information packed tightly into each word!

A letter that recognizes the rich history of the Jewish tradition and the heavy plee to not ignore the salvation of Christ. That He is greater than the law, and that He is the completion/fulfillment of the law itself. The persecution that was going on at the time and the groaning of the author for the readers of this letter is so emanate in the beginning of this book. The warnings and the longings to remain steadfast...

What can we take from this? What is so deeply embedded in this book that charges us to live faithfully and longingly? Maybe people were right, this is a difficult book to work through and warm up with. But something inside pushes me to keep on kneading the passage and to challenge my students to do the same.

No Time

Lots of thoughts are jumbled in my brain. It's been a looonng weekend and time is short as I have much planning in my midst. Yet here are some phrases/words to dwell upon. I hope to touch on them later, feel free to add your own thoughts/phrases/words....


Jubilee

Bread/Fresh Air

Mittens

The art of listening

Latte Art

Hebrews

Musak for the Ears

I have been fascinated by NPR's Song of the Day. By fascinated I mean addicted. You are able to read a review of the artist and then listen to a song of theirs.

I started making a list (as if I do not have several thousands of those already) of the artists I am enjoying and hoping to hear more about to see if they are truly worth a cd purchase. Here is what I have thus far:


1. **Emily Haines & Soft Skeleton

2. Chris Garneau

3. Peter and the Wolf
(sort of creepy, he has played concerts in graveyards and deserted islands...)

4. Okkervil River

5. **Elvis Perkins
NPR sample

6. **M.Ward

7. Sera Cahoone

8. The Cold War Kids

9. **Soaked in Strings
NPR sample

10. Ron Sexsmith

11. **Alexi Murdoch

12. Final Fantasy
(member of arcade fire)
NPR sample

13. Gretchen Parlato

14. Jose Gonzalez

15. The Shins
(any thoughts on their new album!! I think it's pretty swell)
Trivia: what book is being held by the shins on the right hand side of the screen?

16. Joanna Newsom

17. Isobel Campbell
(former Belle and Sebastain singer)


These are NOT in any particular order
** = I really enjoy these ones!
Some of these artist I have already advocated for, but wanted to add them
The links are to the artists site, yet can also be found on NPR's!




If anyone has any thoughts on these artists let me know (like I said, I'm dwelling on these, and not completely sold on all of them). I hope you become as "fascinated" as I have. ENJOY!

Pieces of the Story

I'm trying new templates. Not sure if I like this or not..... It may get a bit experimental here in the next few days.


About those random slips of paper that I was talking about earlier. Is there a correlation there to to the way we run our lives. The pieces that are so important and yet also the piles of baggage that we stack up. The stories that create who we are, the ones that we hate and yet the ones we can never truly get rid of. Sometimes I hate my story, I hate the way I consistently do certain things or the way that I think, because this story/these experiences have shaped me. Not to shift blame, but to recognize that these pieces are a part of my thinking/feeling. I don't want to get rid of them, because they are so important; however, I want to organize them so I can utilize them properly...

Pieces

You know all those tiny pieces of paper that you need and yet, don't need all at the same time. Those papers that have important information on them. What do you do with them all?

I was cleaning up a bit today and have piles of random papers. They are all unrelated and yet equally important. I am unsure if I will look at any of them ever again, but if I throw them away I will definitely need them. Weird how that happens...

What do you do with your random important pieces of paper?
(I think there is a parallel here somewhere, a parallel to the way we live our lives...or at least insight to how I live mine.)

This and That in the News

A South American footballer playing in the English Premiership is spending his high salary not on fast cars and big houses, but on rebuilding an entire community where he grew up.

This is the subtitle to an article I read on BBC News' website. What an amazing example of someone 'well-known' doing something with his talents and abilities, rebuilding the city that he grew up in. Take a read.

_________________________________________________________

So we want gambling in Pittsburgh? There are problems elsewhere...that would be Russia, and their issues seem like a pretty good warning and example of what could become. I know it is not all these issues are not because of gambling, but the fact that gambling is one of the very main sources they are limiting and separating from the people at large, there must be some significance to this addiction.

__________________________________________________________

And this...this just makes me super angry. I would not want to work at a coffee shop that required me to be "beautiful" whatever that means. Obviously beauty in this world is defined by the amount of money you can provoke a customer to give you and lots of makeup, because a human being without the fake face is not worth anyone's time, or anyone's vanilla latte! Give me a break...

__________________________________________________________


I should read the news a lot more often, I get ecstatic about the rebuilding of community, scared at what the future holds for us, and absolutely ticked off at what we are living in.... It's a great time (yes, I'm being slightly sarcastic) !

New What?

New Urbanism. A friend of mine gave sent me this article the other week on New Urbanism. All throughout college I thought it was a well used and quite normal concept. Now that I have stepped out of Geneva and into another world I am recognizing that this type of Sociology is not as popular or well knowns as I had thought.

This article sparked a little light in me as I read it. It reminded me of Jane Jacobson "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" and her continual talk on sidewalks and the importance of. This article reminded me of the various communities I have studied and critiqued.

Is New Urbanism still a growing subject and actively being perused? I feel that in my investigation that all the attempts have ended up extremely political and money hoarding than beneficial to community living.

Where are their strong attempts/successes of New Urbanism?

Comments Below

I think the comment below NEEDS a discussion. Discussion about religion and the way "our" society thinks and acts upon others especially concerning religion...



Any thoughts??

Children

So I'm reading some children's books that Joel Daniel lent me. It is such a good escape from the consistent heaviness of thought that I place upon myself. Currently I am reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. It is a story about a boy who runs away from home and goes to live on his great grandfather's land. I wish I knew half that facts that this boy does as he survives in the wilderness and lives off of the land. Sometimes I feel we have lost our natural instincts and no longer see the possibility of being resourceful.

Apocalypto reminds me of these innate instincts as well. A people who have extended their hands too far and have managed to destroy their land and their own people. It is an intense movie that will give you some strange dreams, and I still don't know how I feel about it. But the natural instincts of survival are clearly present within this movie.


This all makes me want to run and play in the woods...go fishing or something.

distracting thoughts and learned moments

I often times think while my family is on the road to and from Pittsburgh over the holidays. Last night my father was driving, my sister as well as my mother and brother were all fast asleep and I sat with my thoughts. I tried to put some music in my ears to distract me but that only works as a catalyst sometimes.

My thoughts on memories and perfect moments in time are not all that perfect. That my pedestal that I have placed people on is really just my way of dealing with the brokenness in the world and is quite unhealthy. I'm learning how to be confident and decisive. Too many choices to make one decision drives me crazy and it happens consistently, especially now. Thoughts on what the New Year will be as I enter a new season where I need to learn to be bold and a truly a leader, as I end my first semester as a campus minister and enter into another.

Either way. I'm excited about these things: I received my favorite book "Five Smooth Stones" for Christmas and I had the ability to copy all my brothers music (with it being in the family I feel it is OK to give a listen and a copy....but not to hand out. Justification? maybe.).


ps. what do you think about Modest Mouse and their new CD?

Favorite Christmas Movie???

Thirsty

I'm sitting in a place where people come in and out of daily. Here I am attempting to do "ministry" I'm attempting to "network" and utilize the Third Place atmosphere and create something more.

I've recognized the relationships and the simple hellos that come in and out day to day from the counter to the tables. People are fascinating creatures. We process and strive to think about things, sometimes pointless drama and deep seeking for truths. HOW do I utilize a small local business to challenge leader, raise up doers, and point the seekers in a direction that answers the deep question that lays in each of us--why are we here?

Coffee anyone?

More on coffee and bias documentaries

This is going to be a quick post...Yet there are so many thoughts running around this brain of mine that must be updated here.

First, I saw Black Gold...The documentary that I mentioned right below. They are showing it again today in Pittsburgh. It ran for about 80 minutes and went into Ethiopia, Europe and America. Definitely a bias documentary, but aren't they all?? The people the produced the video, I believe, are from Europe. At first Europe was the good guy with some faults and America was viewed as consumer whores. Which is true, to an extent. But take a trip into inner city Chicago or New York, we cannot take care of our own poor and oppressed. We act like we have wealth upon wealth yet cannot distribute it properly in the confined of our own country. Yes though I do agree the Africa is not getting paid properly for it's raw product and in, some sense, they are almost forced to sell Chat, a narcotic, in order to provide for their families.

One part of me wants to go over there and set up a boycott in order to receive justice for these people, and yet the other half of me knows there is more to this issue than just raising the price of coffee. I have yet to figure that out. Once the price for the raw product rises, then the price of everything else will rise...It is like a double edged sword that can never be dulled. However, I do not think that we can only accept that fact and ignore the issue.

On the other hand I don't know if Fair Trade is really fair trade anymore. Are we dividing up community by creating a huge income gap among villages? And is fair trade just a label now adays and not so much what everyone has hyped it up to be? Also, are we willing to buy fairly traded coffee from these corporations or companies that are in far away states and ignoring the local business, right next door, that is trying to pull community together and roast coffee properly to give the best to their customers ?

There are a lot of angles.

I was going to say more but I'll stick to the first.

BlackGold

Does anyone know about the documentary BlackGold? The documentary is being shown at CMU on the 2nd and 10th of December. Rumor has it that after the showing there will be some prominent people presenting the counter argument of the documentary and how it is a false representation of the coffee market/trade. I could be wrong on that, and have not found proof. Here is a blog that talks more about the festival that will be going on.

If anyone is interested or has any further information please let me know.

O' The Joys of Giving

I went to Church this Sunday, one of the many Sundays where I continue to search for a place to settle into to find some community, only to be slightly disappointed. Now, to set the record straight (even if it's for my own benefit), I have seen and been in some pretty "healthy" churches. Places, despite their failures, where I have seen their ultimate goal and direction and I desire to be apart of the community. I have seen churches also fall apart and set out for the worst.

Now on this particular Sunday I found myself sitting in the church pew and gratefully greeted by an elderly women that sat next to me. In this moment I settled contently into the church pew. Now granted there was a special speaker, a man who actually grew up in the church. He told story after story about the "hilarity" of giving. About how it is a blessing/hilarious to give an offering to the church. He told good stories...

He went into a story about a family in Africa who was pushing the plow by hand, when most families use an ox. A missionary family, watching them turn up the soil, asked why they did not have an ox to do this labor. The interpreter informed them that the family belonged to the local church and as an offering they recognized they had nothing to give, so they gave their only ox as a tithe to the church that year. The missionary couple said to the family, "what a sacrifice this must have been for you" and the family said " it was not a sacrifice but a blessing!"

The preacher pulled out the verse from 2 Corinthians stating that " God loveth a cheerful giver." In this he mentioned that the original root meaning of "cheerful" is hilarity/hilarious. How are we to be hilarious givers today...?

After this they set two huge metal jugs at the bottom of the podium and asked people to come up to the front of the church with their extra "stewardly" offering as we closed with a hymn. (understand that the offering plate was already passed around early in the service).

Is this manipulative? Is it wrong to use a story to touch the heart and give people one verse from the bible and capture the hilarity of giving?

First off, I believe that using a story from Africa, as such, is way off base. We are not from Africa and we do not have an ox in our family. We live in a culture that shoves materialism in our face everyday and we accept it! What about stripping this passage down and recognizing that HERE in America, all this "stuff" that we have is not ours to begin with. To recognize there is a deeper context here than just being a hilarious giver but being a deep giver. A person that understands the bigger picture of life, rather than just giving your extra stewardly offering that day/week/month. I think the stories were good and touching, but yet I believe one word in 2 Corinthians should not be the only hard truth that I walk away with on a Sunday. Where are we developing a people to understand the depths of scripture, to get more out of the text and it's surrounding than what we can find in our daily devotionals that we buy at the local Christian book store. How are we changing and shaping a community in the context of where they are at, and causing transformation and action?

I was a little upset, as you can tell, especially the more I talk about it and marinate on the whole situation. Finding a church is really hard, which is strange in a town that dominates in churches and bars.

(granted, if you gave me a church, I would not be able to develop what I long for. It is not that I am looking for the perfect church, but a church that amidst its imperfections it is directed toward pushing its congregation to see the bigger picture and not settle into the familiarity of how things are)

Today in History

On this date in:

1889
Montana became the 41st state.

1892
Former President Grover Cleveland beat incumbent Benjamin Harrison, becoming the only president to win non-consecutive terms in the White House.

1923
Adolf Hitler launched his first attempt to seize power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the Beer-Hall Putsch.

1932
New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover for the presidency.

1933
President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civil Works Administration, designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.

1942
American and British forces landed in French North Africa during World War II.

1960
Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon for the presidency.
President-elect John F. Kennedy

1966
Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts became the first black to be elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote.

1971
The rock band Led Zeppelin released its album ''Led Zeppelin IV.''

1987
A bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army exploded as crowds gathered in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, for a ceremony honoring Britain's war dead, killing 11 people.

1988
Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidential election, defeating Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

1994
Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years and won a majority in the Senate in midterm elections.

1997
Chinese engineers diverted the Yangtze River to make way for the Three Gorges Dam.

2000
A statewide recount of presidential election ballots began in Florida. Vice President Al Gore telephoned Texas Gov. George W. Bush to concede the election, but called back about an hour later to retract his concession.

2000
Waco special counsel John C. Danforth released his final report absolving the government of wrongdoing in the 1993 siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Texas.

2004
Thousands of U.S. troops attacked the toughest strongholds of Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, launching a long-awaited offensive aimed at putting an end to guerrilla control of the city.

2005
French President Jacques Chirac declared a 12-day state of emergency to halt France's worst civil unrest in nearly four decades.

2005
Gunmen assassinated a second lawyer in the Saddam Hussein trial in Baghdad.

Dreaming Dreams

We spoke about the gifts tonight...spiritual gifts that is. The question was posed: are the gifts used in the same capacity that they were in the early church.

Paul talks about them in Corinthians, as we know, and John in Revelation talks about the two prophets who will go prophesize and then be destroyed...and after three days have air breathed back into them by God and ascend to heaven.

Can tongues still exist in full? Does speaking in tongues mean a different language, one language where all understand, or is it a prayer language? Maybe those are all different and very real.

I wonder most about dreams. About what Joel the Old Testament prophet states, and Peter restates in Acts 2 to the people that men will dream dreams and see vision. I dream...lots of dreams and I love them. They are beautiful as much as they are significant. Colors that have never existed before and parallels that are obviously more than my midnight pizza talking. Do I snub this off as my vivid imagination or do I recognize and discern what God is and has done?

There is much more to be stated here about cultural barriers to these truths and the actual "evil" power at work. Often times I believe that our nation (America) is sitting in front of a big TV and slowly forgetting what else is happening around us. Why would the enemy tear the army from the TV ceasing any action? Sounds like a good plan.

Anyway, these are undigested and un-thorough thoughts at this moment.

Interesting Fragments

Things that have been interesting to me over the course of these past months...

...and so much more...