cafe de salc

 

 

 

 

so I got an espresso machine for my birthday.   because what I’ve worked out is that not so much a fan of coffee but a latte, that’s my drink.   so this little machine steams my milk too since my drink is mostly milk.   Quite pleased with myself this morning, I finally conquered the machine and am sitting in my office, having a latte as I work. 

the best part of this latte:

• it’s fair-trade espresso (better for the farmers around the world)
• it’s in my new mug (better for the environment - didn’t use a paper cup)
• I didn’t spend $4 on it (better on the pocketbook).

Taste and See …  God is good … and so is my latte!

sacraments.

I read this morning that this world - creation, itself, is God’s biggest sacrament.   

Today I offered another sacrament in celebration of me - of my birthday.    I’ve been doing them all week: jumping off diving boards, reading, resting, swimming, gathering around tables, riding on jet ski’s, walking, returning lost cell phone’s, hanging with friends, eating cake,  downing breadsticks and salad at Olive Garden.  

But today seemed to wrap them all up - to be the great summary.  I participate in a community of faith that loves the “sacraments” and practices them regularly.   But even being the liturgical girl that I am — today encompassed all the big “official” ones and all the little ones in between - today literally knocked them out of the water. 

We went to Burgess Falls to picnic together, stand in the gorge, walk on the trails and listen to the rushing water.  

A sacrament: something we do outwardly to mark something inwardly.   Something physical that points to something spiritual.   or the textbook definition: an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.  

above is me: standing in that living sacrament.  
above is me: covered in that grace.

state of the world.

 I was walking bugs this evening like I always do.   the same place, the same direction, roughly the same time.    Had my music on, had my cell phone tucked away (just in case) - Bugs was leaving his address as I was walking when I had to step over something.   Someone must have dropped their cell phone because the battery lay beside it.    I stopped for a moment and then kept on walking.   Then I stopped again and walked back looking at the cellphone.   I seriously stood there looking at the phone, thinking to myself: do I really want to deal with a lost cell phone this evening? 

I looked some more and finally stooped down to pick it up and put it back together again.  It powered up and so I tried to figure out who to call from the recent calls (keep in mind that for the introvert, calling random strangers is not necessarily the most comfortable thing in the entire world).   So I stood there moving through the contacts trying to mystically discern who would know exactly whose this phone is thus only requiring me to move out of “introvert zone” once.    

“Mom”  … perfect, I’ll call “mom.”   Well, mom didn’t pick up.   Back to the contact list –  ok lots of contacts for “amy”  …. amy didn’t pick up either.   then yay for “dad”  and good news sort of - mom picked up dad’s phone.   Ends up mom and dad live just down the road, so I said I’d just keep walking Bugs around the car park if they wanted to come pick this up.   

so as we walked and waited, I decided that this was my parable come to life … so it wasn’t an injured man I snubbed and walked on by, but a phone in several pieces - and it wasn’t a lost son but the son’s lost phone – phones are a real pain (no pun intended)on multiple levels to loose.        Because this was my parable come to life … it taught me one of those quintessential truths that make you realize what life is really all about and what living … living a life with God … living life in the way of Jesus is really about.   Sure I do nice things for people I know, I do nice things for the world in which I live … but for a stranger?  

and it’s not even really about being nice.   it’s about perspective … the perspective that we are in this world together - whether I know you or not… we are on this journey together through this life  - even if together means we are just human beings living across town not friends sitting across a table.    It’s the perspective that we need to look out for each other … not just for our “own.”    

So when mom and dad pulled up in their mini van - they were so thankful.   And then something strange happened.   They tried to pay me.  Give me a reward, I suppose.    I  refused the rolled cash, dad tried to fuss at me and insist.   But I just said, “we’re in this world together, there’s no need to pay me for returning what was lost.”

So this is the state of the world:   
1.   that I would actually have to think about whether I wanted to “deal” with returning a lost phone.
2.   that mom and dad would actually think they should pay me for returning their son’s lost phone. 

Bring the parables alive, good Lord … we still have so much to learn and this world has so far to go; so as to be all that you have created and redeemed and restoring us to be.  

 

 

 

 

 

m

growing young.

so I turned 30 again this week. 

I actually feel younger than I did last year.   I actually feel fitter and better than a year ago.   I find it amusing, too that it also feels like life is just about to begin.   

I was walking Bugs the morning of my actual birthday and my neighbor stopped me and said, “sally, you look like a child this morning.  maybe it’s the hair cut.”    Now in all truth,  I did cut my hair off the day before (and got all those lovely gray’s covered).  That morning, it was still straight from the occasion as well.   So maybe it was the hair.  But maybe it was more.  

I had another friend in the last month or so, who hadn’t seen me in almost a year, say I looked really young.   I didn’t think much of it at the time but maybe all this wanting to kayak, thinking about tents, pining for a bicycle … maybe all this longing for adventure has more roots than just my graying hair.   Maybe something new really has been reborn on the inside  and that’s why I feel like life is beginning again.  

maybe I’m defying age and actually growing young not old.   A bit wierd to think about but yet sensical too.

Growing young or growing old, I am still certainly growing gray.   

So maybe it realy was the hair.  

as a little addendum … Bill Cosby said that “gray hair is God’s graffitti” …  that’s cool  - I’m a big fan of God’s art but I confess that this year, right now , turning 30 again… I like my hair dresser’s take on God’s graffitti.  

Moving on up…

 Last summer.

this summer!  A thrilling birthday gift, to say the least!

The doc speaks.

Goals are things we can have control of.
Desires are things we can only pray for. 

That friend of mine she’s such a smart cookie.   Not sure where she finds all the books she reads.   I have this goal to read this stack of books on my desk this fall.   My desire? be able to read as fast (with high rentention) as the doc.   

how often we confuse the things we can control and the things we can only pursue through prayer and various indirect means.   how much pain we induce - in ourselves and those around us - when we try to control what our hearts desire.

gotta go.

Nature is not primarily functional.   It is primarily beautiful… 
Beauty is essential.  

- John and Stasi Eldredge.

Things inside are just not appealing right now … I want to be outside, bathed in beauty.  

the R.E.I. Life.

so I have a new favorite past-time: wander around REI.   I don’t buy much, just look.   Look and dream.   Kayaks.  Bicycles.  Even a tent - who would have thought I’d be looking at tents and contemplating camping.    I think about if I could get a rack for my car and be able to cart a kayak to and from places.  I get stuck on where to keep it when it’s not on my car and on the lovely poisonous inhabitants that frequent the rivers around here.    But then I switch and I get on the bicyle kick.  I imagine the little basket I’ll have to put all the fruit, cheese and veggies I bought at the market.   Then I imagine how I might pull off riding my bicycle to work.    The camping thing?  I don’t get much further yet than looking at the cool little tents - maybe I should start in my back yard?

I also have this list on my fridge.   It’s my adventure list.   Probably not very exciting to those who really “do” adventure - keep in mind I’m still somewhat dreaming of adventure and just getting my toes wet.   Things like various state parks in the area, banana boats, roller coasters, waterfalls, hire a sailboat, go to the Memphis Zoo, see the Mississippi river, walk around Cheekwood, swing dance and Centennial Park.    I confess I haven’t done too many of them yet this summer.   But I suppose that’s one plus to living in the south, summer lasts until Thanksgiving.  

Blame it on Scotland I think — or we could a get bit more specific - blame it on my old friend from the 5th century, Columba and his island home of Iona — all of a sudden the sky, the trees, the water, the sun are calling me to adventure…

Today though I realized something about adventure.   I have this tendency to like to have things planned out, at least loosely.   That being said, I have days that I don’t like to plan anything (i.e. Fridays) but mostly, I like a plan.  I like to know what’s gonna happen.  

God may say to me “I know the plans I have for you… plans for hope and a future.”   That’s fine and dandy but I want to know at least the basic gist of the plans.   And some times I get the feeling that this part of me works against the call to adventure.   Afterall how do you answer the call to adventure, into the great “unknown” if you like to know everything ahead of time?  

I’m not sure adventure is always supposed to work that way.    I have a friend who has also been trying to pursue a life of adventure - he wants to go fly-fishing with his dad - and about a month ago now, all the plans for the next three years were toppled.   This week the door was shut completely on what had been the plan for the last three years.    I said to him this morning, “I know it’s not much consolation but it sounds like much more of an adventure when you have no set plans - when you have no idea what the next month holds let alone the next three years.  Here’s to the life of adventure,”  with a half-smile.  

Maybe he should stick with fly-fishing and I with my list?

“To infinity and beyond.”
- Buzz Lightening, Toy Story.

boxes again.

So when you’re in a box and really like the box that you’re in,  it’s really hard to see outside of the box and even harder to hear (really hear) those who challenge the whole concept of boxes - or at least the box that they just stepped out of.  

For some reason I’ve never been so aware of how the box within which we reside shapes so definitively what we hear, what we see, what we say and how we live.

clearer!

so I’ve got a much better idea - instead of trying to figure out, make sense of exactly what’s happening in the “Dark Knight” … deconstruction? reality? true heroes? no heroes? … I’ve got a much better idea.  and a far less disturbing one, too.   

Go see Wall-E.