lenten journal: alive together

Last night I worked down at Fullsteam Brewery for their “Take a Pint Out of Crime” fundraiser to help replace the smoker someone stole a week or so ago. I was happy to help out because they are my neighbors and it is The Friendliest Room in Durham. I want to help make sure they are around for a long time. During the course of the evening, I got a text message from Leon, of Cocoa Cinnamon fame (they are $800 dollars away from $30K on their Kickstarter campaign that winds down at 2:45 EDT on Monday, in case you were wondering), asking if we were still in Waco. I wrote back and told him I was at Fullsteam until eleven; he showed up about 10:30 so we could have a beer together before I went home.

We are in the beginning stages of what I trust will become a friendship because of the resonance I feel with him even though I don’t know many of the stories that brought him to the stool next to me last night, nor does he know many of mine. But we did our best to tell at least a couple of them last night. As we talked about life and faith and coffee and beer and food and community, I said, “We do our best work when we start with what we share in common, with what bonds us to each other. Once there is trust and a relationship, we can talk about differences. We put up with a lot of crap from our friends we would never tolerate from strangers because they are our friends. We have already made the decision to stay.”

“You have that written down somewhere, don’t you?” he asked.

Well, I do now, Leon, I do now.

God didn’t roll away the stone on Easter morning so we could pick it up and throw it at each other. The gravity of faith pulls against the centrifugal force of most of the rest of life: we are called to be together, to include everyone, to love, love, love one another. The world doesn’t need any more self-appointed judges or experts, any more distributors of shame or guilt, any more zealots with clear consciences. We don’t need anymore fundamentalists, whether they are liberal or conservative. What the world needs are people committed to loving one another. The core message of the Resurrection is that Love conquers death. Not morality. Not orthodoxy. Not anything else. Love. Love. Love.

God is Love.

The point of our lives is not to be right or first or richest or more powerful. The point of our lives is to be together. To tell stories. To make memories. To drink beer and coffee and eat together. To feed and clothe one another. To make sure everyone is taken care of.

There you go, Leon – I wrote it down, my friend.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. – Over the next month my blog posting will be intermittent at best because I have to meet a manuscript deadline for a book on Communion that will be published in the fall. I will give more details as the time draws closer and, of course, will be happy to take preorders. Peace . . .

lenten journal: spice route

Last night as we were getting ready for the Cocoa Cinnamon tasting, Leon had a plastic bottle filled with sand from the Sahara he had brought home from time spent in Tunisia and Morocco. He poured some into a brass Turkish coffee pot and let us touch it. The sand was somehow fine and coarse at the same time and had a pinker hue than what I know as sand, bordering on rose. (Cue the Police: “Tea in the Sahara.”) At the same time, Areli was building little mounds of spices – cinnamon, cayenne, sea salt, hibiscus, curry, cacao nibs, raw cacao beans – for us to add to our Venezuelan drinking chocolate when they served it later in the evening. I sat the camera on the table at one end of board and took this picture. Here is where the picture took me.

spice route

something in the sand
shrinks me down to size
clothed in appropriate
insignificance I step into
the stories mounded up
in the spices on the board
in the middle of our table

standing in my dining room
I walk the stone streets
of Tunis and Marrakesh
surrounded by the laughter
and questions from the
caravan of friends and
adventurers sailing

around the room
tasting and talking
digesting dreams
inhaling hope
infusing our lives with
the trace minerals
of togetherness

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: here's another picture

Many years ago, I wrote a song that began, "Here's another picture of love . . . " Tonight, we added several more photographs to that album as Areli and Leon from Cocoa Cinnamon did a coffee, tea, and chocolate tasting at our house as a way of preparing us for the awesome coffee shop they are going to open in our neighborhood. They have a Kickstarter campaign going right now. Help them out and then come visit us in Durham and we'll take you for coffee -- or drinking chocolate. Believe me, it's worth the trip. We ended up with thirty-five people hanging out in our house for a couple of hours tasting, listening, talking, and generally having an awesome time and reminding one another of what it means to be together. So here's another picture -- or seven.

 
Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: encouragaing words

Durham is the most encouraging place I have ever lived.

This is a city full of people who pull for each other, which is good because it’s also a city full of people with dreams and things they want to see happen. In our town of about a quarter of a million people we had a Food Truck Rodeo this afternoon and there were twenty-nine trucks from around the area, each one a dream on wheels. One of vehicles in the bunch is not motorized: Bike Coffee.

That’s right. Coffee – hand ground, fresh poured, awesome coffee – served from a bike. The purveyors, Areli and Leon, are peddling their way to a dream of opening a brick and mortar shop right here in our neighborhood that will be called Cocoa Cinnamon because along with their coffees they have chocolate, spices, and teas.

More later about tour opportunities for you to come and visit Durham, but first I want to use my space tonight to offer encouragement of my own because I believe in what my neighbors are doing. They have begun a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money they need to open their shop. It will be in this building. It will be the neighborhood coffee shop we have been hoping for. It will be where you will be able to find Ginger writing sermons most any afternoon once it opens and where I stop on my way to work in the mornings. It will be awesome.

Here is how Areli and Leon describe what they do:

So What is Cocoa Cinnamon all about? Here's how we think of it: Craft. Create. Engage. Impact.

CRAFT - excellence in preparation of coffee, espresso, chocolate and tea.

CREATE - a creative nexus of people, places, and ideas; this includes making all sorts of people smile!

ENGAGE - a place for all people to be with family, friends, together or alone in diversity, health and relaxation.

IMPACT - a dynamic community space that strives towards and embodies sustainability, peace, democracy and human flourishing.

They have a great video on their Kickstarter page explaining more about what they want to do. What I hope you will do, if you can, is help them out.

And then come to Durham and I’ll take you to coffee.

Peace,
Milton