Category: Words and Rabble

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Cafes and Public Spaces

It is almost as if every great civilization in the world had taken a brief time-out from trying to kill one another to brainstorm what a perfect public space should look like. {Michael Idov}

A friend, Andrew Albers, passed along this Wall Street Journal story this morning. It hit a few chords for me.

I should offer this caveat: I take major issue with Idov’s jab at caramel frappuccinos (my favorite is actually java chip light), and slight issue with his side-swiping of laptoppers (I get his point, but there are virtues in working in public space, I think – though I wouldn’t want my coffee-haunts to become consumed with the solitary and the utilitarian).

Getting beyond those squabbles, I’m enchanted by Idov’s hopeful recasting of coffeehouses back to their original place as open, civic spaces where ideas and friendships and the latest news (along with a revolution or two) were on the daily menu. I mean, I’d love for one of my regular shops (here or here) to be a place like the one Idov mentioned, “where a sword fight once erupted over the correct pronunciation of a Greek word.” In fact, I think next week I may just sneak in a blade or musket and see if I can’t get one of the other regulars riled up (and I have just the word – only an hour or so ago Miska corrected my pronunciation of repartee. It’s French, not Greek, but it will do).

I love to write in cafes. My first book Restless Faith was written almost entirely in the Pendleton Cafe and Coffee Company. Chunks of my last two books, numerous articles and more than a few sermons have found their voice between sips of an Americano (hot shots, little room for cream). Some writers head to the secluded cabin to write. Usually, I head to the coffee shop on Main. The coffee shop is where I have meetings, where I meet new people, where I run into friends and where I learn new bits about what is happening in our town.

Still, I read Idov’s description – and I think he is on to something. I think our coffee house cultures often lack the same level of engagement as the older spaces, the expectation that you will meet and know others, the idea of the cafe as a civic space of ideas and shared communal practices. He says, “We’ve also used [the cafe] to balkanize ourselves…cafés here tend to draw specific crowds: a hipster café, a mom café, a student café…we use our coffeehouses to separate ourselves into tribes.” Whenever that is the case, it’s a shame.

Someday, I would love to help form (or participate in) a public space of the older sort, a place where I would read the paper, talk about the issues, write, expect to see old friends, welcome in new friends, share a sense of civic identity – and maybe even start a revolution or two. I have a measure of this now, but I want more.

I also wonder if it might be possible for the church to foster this sort of place (a guy can dream, can’t he?). We should be the first ones to carve out this kind of public space, but unfortunately, if anyone has balkanized itself…but I digress…

What might space like this look like for you? Do you have it now?

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Brokenness, the Genesis Project and a Table

Two weeks ago, I shared words from Barth that say better than I could the joy and the terror I find in preaching. Here are words from Henri Nouwen that say, again better than me, what has become a core conviction about leading and loving in God’s community:

I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.

Actually, I should say that on my best days, I believe this. Other days (most days, probably), I run from these words. I’m fairly addicted to people thinking I have my trash together. I like to have the answers. I like to be right. I like to be the leader everyone wants to listen to. I want to have the good ideas. I want to work out my own problems. And that soul-draining, mask-wearing way will kill a person, let me tell you.

I’ve found a small company of friends who help me to remember the truth: that what I have to offer really has very little to do with me. They help me believe in the good news that my story is not the ultimate story. A few of these friends work with me in a little grass roots collective known as the Genesis Project. I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned it here, but there you go – another little bit about my life. GP, as we insiders call it (and you’re welcome to be an insider too), has a good story, but ultimately it has grown out of friendships and a shared belief that we are a mess, that we need mercy and grace – and that Jesus meets us in community. Our official line, because every organization is supposed to have such a thing, is this: “the genesis project is a collection of friends with a heart for providing soul care for the leaders of developing churches.”

We are friends who, due to our own stories, are keenly aware of the soul-draining realities of vocational ministry – and particularly the version known as “church planting.” And we hope to spread our friendship around a bit (to spread the love, in other words).

So, I am eager to announce the Genesis Project’s spring gathering, The Table. This small communal experience is designed for those leading new churches who are intimately connected with their own brokenness and need for grace – and who desire for Jesus to speak into these places among a community of friends.

The applications are now available online, and we will receive them until January 15th. The Genesis Project is funding this gathering, and it will be offered as a gift. Space is extremely limited, but if all goes as we hope, we will host others in the future.

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Caption of the Week

In case you missed the story, this was Khadafi at the UN this week, who turned a 15 minute time slot into a 93 minute mostly-unintelligible tirade. Not that we need it, but this picture is dying for a witty caption. Whatcha got?


If we get good participation, maybe we’ll make this a regular installment.

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Culinary GameChangers

I can find my way around a kitchen. I may not be as fussy about cleaning up as Miska would like, but on the whole, I do alright.

Allow me to share with you three kitchen gadgets that have changed my world.

[1] Double-walled tea cup. I love tea cups without handles so I can cuddle with the warmth. However I do not like first-degree burns on my palms and fingers. With this cup, burns begone.

[2] Egg-Perfect Egg Timer. We eat lots of boiled eggs in our house. And everyone in the fam likes theirs cooked differently, which provides a problem for someone as haphazard and chaotic as me. This little beaut is a godsend. With lines inside indicating the various preparation levels (soft / medium / hard), all you have to do is drop the timer in the water with the eggs and watch it do its magic. As the timer heats up, the color changes in sync with the level to which it has cooked. I can not tell you how amazing this is.

[3] Pampered Chef Butter Softener. First off, two words: Pampered Chef. ‘Nuff said. You are welcome to invite me to your party anytime. I love butter, real butter, like the stuff that actually traces its roots back to cows. I love soft butter, the kind that doesn’t require a hacksaw to spread evenly on your bread. However, I do not like margarine or anything that surprised me that it is not butter. In other words, I do not like to eat plastic. This little culinary marvel allows you to drop your (real) butter inside, pour a little water in the lid (don’t ask me how this works) – and sit this technological miracle on the cabinet (yes, cabinet – it doesn’t even need to be refrigerated). Then, sweet mary! whenever you have a late night hankering for toast, you are one happy little chef.

Any marvels you care to share? And if you know a way to salvage the train wreck that happens every time I try to peel the shell off our boiled eggs, I will rise up and call you blessed.

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Review: There is a God by Anthony Flew

There Is a God: How The World's Most Notorius Atheist Changed His Mind {from Goodreads}

There Is a God: How The World’s Most Notorius Atheist Changed His Mind by Anthony Flew

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had heard bits of Professor Flew’s fabled change of mind, from atheism to theism. The book purchase was an impulse buy, though, when I saw it at one of our local bookshops.

I was eager to read Flew’s story. After the introduction, I was eager to gobble the pages. Unfortunately, about midway, I realized I was going to be disappointed. I expected an emphasis on narrative, the story of Flew’s wrestling. I wanted to hear the angst and hear him tell the stories of what it was like to be a headliner in so many well known philosophical debates. I wanted to know why he had changed his mind, for sure, but I wanted it set in the context of his life, who he was as a man.

Flew, however, wrote a book that skimmed the surface of his philosophical change of heart. He quotes a lot of people (too many for my taste), and he gives a broad sketch for why, after more than half a decade leading the charge in one direction, he did an about face. It’s interesting, even helpful (though I doubt it beefy enough to change many people’s mind). It just wasn’t worth $22.

Flew describes his journey in words that explain why I found little resonance with this book (and, truthfully, little resonance with his overarching bent in religious matters): “In short, my discovery of the Divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith.” When speaking of belief in God, I’m (for the most part) happy however one happens to get there. However, some paths are more beautiful (to me) than others.

Rather, I wish Flew would have sunk more deeply into the words he quoted from Frederick Copleston: “I do not think that it can be justifiably demanded of the human mind that it should be able to pin down God like a butterfly in a showcase.”

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A Few of the People…

I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn’t like. {Will Rogers}

Here are a few of the interesting people I’ve encountered today:

A courier standing in line with me at the bank. As we talked about his job, I asked him if he had ever transported something really weird. “A body chopped up into parts,” he said.

A friend at breakfast. I discovered he likes peanut butter omelets.

A guy waiting, as I was, for the bus. He calls himself “turtle man” because, as he told me, he moves slow – but always forward.

Everywhere we turn, we encounter people with stories and hopes and fears and interesting names. We discover people who will help us see our world with more richness and texture. We find people like us, people different from us. We find strangers who may turn into friends.

Tell me, brother, how do you see the sun standing from where you are today. {Michael Houser}

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Dave Matthews is My Farmer

Well, actually Dave is our friends Evan and Missy Hansen’s farmer, but the Hansens share their extra eggs with us, so it’s essentially the same thing. Essentially.

Dave Matthews (a local icon who got his start bartending and playing at Miller’s downtown) and his wife Ashley Harper purchased several adjoining farms a few years ago and named their venture (appropriately), “Best of What’s Around.” The farm is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, where individuals buy seasonal shares or trade working on the farm for receiving the farm’s bounty.

I don’t know how much time Dave actually spends on his farm, but I love to imagine him in overalls, with a straw hat and chewing on a long piece of golden wheat, gently caressing a turnip while he tries to read the weather. Not that I think about this stuff often, not at all.

Miska and I actually purchased a share of produce from Horse and Buggy, another local food cooperative. Horse and Buggy food comes from a local Mennonite community. So, while the Hansens have a rock idol on their side. We like to think that we have God on ours.

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Shalom

sirens wail
mother sobs
iron clinks
Shalom

stomach gnawing
nightmare haunting
refugee slumping
Shalom

tires squeal
dad disappears
again, again
Shalom

moonless night
sunless soul
forever alone
Shalom

violence
poverty
anarchy
here

goodness
well-being
feasting
everywhere

Shalom.

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Dance.

I saw this tonight, and I’m not ashamed to say I cried. Since Buechner says to pay attention to our tears, I will. I pray that all my family and friends, my community, my city and neighbors – myself – will know this kind of free joy, celebration, such reckless eruption of undeniable life. And I love that this was at a wedding, a moment of beginnings and beauty and goodness.

May you dance. Free. Me too.

Oh – and I love how the (slightly elder) pastor/priest was getting her groove on too. Joy is infectious.

peace – and dance.

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I’m a Homeboy

I’m now legit.

This morning, biking toward downtown and around the first corner from our house, I passed the bus stop where one of my neighbors sat waiting for the 10:52. I hadn’t seen him in a while and stopped to say hi.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “Just the other day, I was thinking, where’s my homeboy?“

L – E – G – I – T.

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