blahh.

A good friend and mentor sent this to me. quite bothersome actually. God help me never be like this. but face to face, eye to eye...to step towards others with passion.
j

Today I met a man
But not really.
Rather, our paths crossed.
The private paths of our own
separate worlds made a juncture
and we were there.
We told our impersonal names
and shook each other's hand
warmly and firmly – to convey
our interest
which wasn't there.
We shared our views
on the weather, politics,
the latest news,
and other foreign things
which were not there.
And when the conversation lagged,
we said:
“Well, glad to have met you”
“Same here”
We lied, smiled, and extended our hands
again, and parted -
glad to be on our separate ways
from our little meeting.
Today I met a man
But not really.
Anonymous

J. Grant Howard, The Trauma of Transparency, (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1979), p. 115, 120.

a coffee review...BONA COFFEE

He walked in. And in his hand? A bag of 'House Blend' Bona Coffee. He? Luis Gonzalez and his wife Candace. Wonderful friends of ours from the Philippines who have come to Canada to convince me that there IS good coffee grown in a country known for its fruit.

Luis and Candace own a coffee company called Bona Coffee. A brilliant couple with an incredible passion to change the world.
http://www.bonacoffeecompany.com/

And yes, of course they came here just for me. JUST KIDDING. But they should have. chuckle.

Now, it has been said I am a coffee snob...but lets set the record straight. I am passionate about the process of experiencing flavour. You follow?
So as we chatted we scooped out some Bona coffee beans(which they specially delivered from the Philippines to my doorstep), ground them, put the grounds in my french press, and poured boiling water over them. Although the task takes only a few minutes, we both approached the task almost reverently, like painters handling a treasured canvas full of colours. Over the next few days, the ritual was repeated: A porcelain mug filled with the freshly brewed coffee. In real time?

I let the steam and the aroma envelop my entire face. There is always the adding cream and sugar(sorry for you purists...i love strength, creaminess and a sweet punch). I take a small, tentative sip.
Whoa. I throw my head back, and my eyes shoot wide open. From a single sip, I can tell...again...i have captured something of heavens reality in my mouth.

The first time I had this cup of the divine, Luis saw my initial reactions and nervously said, 'what do you think?' I grinned and shook my head. Then I took another sip. This time I could taste more of the full flavours as they slipped over my tongue. By the third sip(cup...chuckle) I was hooked.

SO...my review? Here it is:

Sumatra is one of the world's most distinctive coffee origins. And it has curried my favour and whole hearted commitment from the first moment i tasted it...sometime in 1998. The reason I say this is that what struck me initially was Bona Coffee's assertion that their 'House Blend' was smoother than sumatra. Bold statement. It had BETTER be married with a brilliant coffee. chuckle.

To their credit, it is. Brilliant, I mean.

Bona's House Blend:
Full-bodied.
Resonant.
Low-toned and elegantly comfortable.
This coffee will be attractive(almost giving off pheromones...chuckle) to coffee drinkers who find the powerfully acidy coffees of Kenya and Central America too high-pitched and softer coffees like Konas, Mexicos and Brazils too delicate. Bona's relaxed power doesn't depend on acidity, rather on depth, weight and an echoing dimension. What is really incredible is that the they have successfully blended coffee beans to highlights the best parts of acidity, not remove it. In the process they have produced a blend that has greater breadth than any I have had! Wonderful.
They have created a richly ambiguous complex of flavor notes and the deep, rugged, pungent blends allows the coffee's intensity to linger in your mouth.
And the concentrated spicy, herbal notes and earthy flavour are sure to be the telltale signatures of this well-loved coffee.

So today, when you lift a cup of coffee and offer thanks to the Creator...curse your fate...cuz more than likely(unless you live in Manila) you are not drinking a beverage that is as good as the one I am drinking.

Bona Coffee's House Blend...heaven in my mouth.

Cheers.
Jonathan

success discussions...

the following are late night thoughts after incredible convos with incredible people: CnL...chuckle.

And the Lord said, “Go.” (Genesis 12:1)

The pilgrim said, “Go where?”

Lord: “Go.”

Pilgrim: “How will I know the way?”

Lord: “Do you trust me? Go.”

Pilgrim: “How will I know when I get there?”

Lord: “Will you trust me? Go.”

Explorers ventured out on strange seas to unknown places and, in so doing, re-made their world. Buy a book or take a course on history and you can read about about Vasco de Gamma(Portuguese explorer who established the first the trade route from Europe to India), Columbus (You know Chris...opened the Americas to European exploration), and Jacques Cartier(discovered Canada and sailed down the St. Lawrence to where Montreal would be born)...totally inspiring stuff. Then there is Ferdinand Magellan...left his homeland in Portugal to join the Spanish court in search of a king to sponsor his mad dream of sailing west to discover Spice Islands that lay to the East. So bold...so crazy...so imaginative for his day! I read an article that was an overview of a book based on this first circumnavigation of the world by the stubborn, determined, amazing navigator, Magellan. Laurence Bergreen’s book, Over the Edge of the World described how almost no one believed in the possibility of Magellan’s dream.

"Few would risk such madness. Magellan spent years forging alliances with brilliant and odd friends who brought the skills and resources to his venture. Finally, Magellan had the resources and people for the adventure. But the maps of the world in those days were piteously inadequate. Maps were the equivalent of the secrets to making nuclear weapons. No country would share them with another. They were kept locked in vaults and viewed as the most important of state secrets. Magellan, therefore, had few maps with which to work with and those he had were terribly inaccurate. They represented the Atlantic as a huge body of water but the Pacific as a tiny pond surrounded by a huge land mass. With such maps, a deeply suspicious crew and co-captain, he set sail down the coast of Africa then made a mad dash across the south Atlantic on the Trade Winds landing on the coast of South America several hundreds of miles from the terrible waters which later came to be named the Straights of Magellan. A little band of people, with all their venality, pride, power, needs and shortsightedness sailed the winds of an uncharted world in tiny boats and changed the face of the earth."

Alex Roxburgh writes, "There are times when ventures are waiting to be birthed. There are tides and winds which, if risked, bear us to places and worlds our imaginations could not comprehend from this shore."

My heart burns when I allow myself to feel through this...
So...some ramblings as I 'burn' tonight:

Life does not come with a clearly defined road map.

We take one step after another.

We move forward without the ability to forecast the results of each step or decision.

Plans change. Situations morph. Life throws us curve balls. Things seldom turn out according to our wish, plan or anticipation.

No one really knows what is going on.

I am often asked, “Does God have a specific plan for my life?”

Yes, God does have a plan. God’s plan is that we might become the deep, fully alive, loving human beings we were created to be. We exist to manifest in the visible realm that invisible beauty that is our true nature created in the image of God. As William Blake wrote in “Songs of Innocence,”

And we are put on earth a little space
That we may learn to bear the beams of love

That is the only plan I know of. The specifics of how that plan works out in our lives are basically irrelevant.

The beauty of God’s plan is that you can fulfill it anywhere, doing anything. It does not matter what the external circumstances of your life may be. Anything and everything can be used to help you become radiant with the life of Jesus that is your true destiny.

You don’t need an academic degree, a particular career, or a special relationship. You only need a heart that is open to the Spirit and willingness to grow.

The wonderfully unique detail about God’s plan that usually spins us right out is that it works best when we don’t know what is going on.

God’s plan is most effective when we don’t understand.

When we cannot make sense of what is happening.

Because the essential requirement for God’s plan to be all that He intended is: trust. Trust grows in the soil of uncertainty; it thrives in the land of doubt and confusion.

The prophet Jeremiah says,

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
And its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7,8)

We do not know where the journey of our lives will lead. All we can know for sure is that there will be times when we feel nourished and sustained AND there will be times when life seems barren and dry. If our roots go down deep, we will pass through times of feast without attachment and survive famine without fear. The wind will blow; but the life with deep roots withstands and even THRIVES in the storms.

These contrary and painful life experiences are gifts given to us to help us develop the muscles of trust. If life were all smooth and the skies always sunny, we would never develop the inner resilience of faith that can stand firm no matter what circumstances we face. Men and Women of character are forged on the anvil of trust...taking the repeated blows of life.

With trust we are able to step into the unknown, confident that only good can come.

The good may not look the way we had hoped.

The good may lay on the other side of great pain.

But it will be good because it gives us an opportunity to open more deeply to that inner reality that is the imprint of Christ at the core of our being. Our attachment to Him, rather than to any particular outcome or plan, is the crux that allows us to journey in joy and freedom.

The beauty of trust is that no one can take it from me. I may lose my career. My family may abandon me. My investments may tank or evaporate. My health may be gone...my strength will fade.

But I can always choose to trust. I can always give myself to the reality of Jesus...who is holding my life, sustaining my heart and enabling me to grow and deepen in my ability to love.

No one knows the future.

We never really understand the past.

We move forward with courage because we trust that whatever we encounter, it will be another opportunity partner with Jesus in the plan of redemption. And in the process He will call us to "Come further up and further in…"

And I love the ongoing discovery that "the further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.”

So stop stressing about living a successful life.

Sometimes you have to the roll the dice and go all in...and not worry about 'what now?????". Success is not in the accomplishment of something.

Success is in the going. Or as my brotha Luis said last night, 'Success is in the obedience.'

It's in the growing.

J

iphone considerations...

These are personal reflections based on my own experience...chuckle:

Oh stop, you’re embarrassing both of us.

Let’s be honest, we both know you’re not using your iPhone strictly to look up Bible verses during the sermon. It might have started that way, but it never stays that way.

You started by taking a few quick notes during the “margin moments” of church. You know those, the few minutes while the people on stage are magically changing whatever is on stage or they’re preparing for a baptism or going through the list of announcements....

Those are perfect little chunks of time to do some “worship multitasking,” because the truth is that the easiest place to write a to-do list is church. Something about prayer makes us all think of a million things we need to do. So you begin to make a few notes.

But you have to look up one of them online, so you open Safari and next thing you know, you’re searching the Internet in the middle of church. O and wait, it makes you wonder what so and so is doing...SOOOO ya gotta open facebook! right? I mean come on!

Pull it back together. Get your head in the game. Gotta get your head in the game...getcha getcha getcha head in the game. (movie anyone? ok, i will tell ya, High School Musical...shut up)

But wait...i need my phone to follow the flow of the message...it is has my bible app. I’m only going to look at Youversion, the Bible app or Biblegateway.com, this is serious business. This is church.

BUT I wish iPhone Bibles had a little jingle that let people around you know that you’re looking up a Bible verse. I wish they quietly whispered when you opened the online Bible and would say, “Reading the Bible, we’re reading the Bible.” It’s bad enough these punks don’t know I direct deposit my tithe and think I stiff arming the offering every Sunday.

But that’s me, you? You’re playing Civ Revolution right now on your iPhone. Or maybe popping bubbles. Or Tap tap revolution or All Recipies or Sally’s Spa or Cooking Dash or HarborMaster. Ridiculous! And if I hear the sound of Bejeweled 2, I might come across the aisle and hurt you.

Did you really just shazam a hymn? Did that happen?

That’s when you know you’re a sweaty heathen, when you have to try to use a service that can identify and name of a song. (87% of songs sung at church are “Blessed Be the Name” by Matt Redmon, there’s really no need to look them up.) Plus, you should know by now, only about 17 Christian songs are loaded into the shazam service. I swear, I could play a Lady Gaga song on a washboard and it would identify it, but it never knows Christian songs.

Put your iPhone away, no one, and I mean no one, has the moral fortitude to only look up Bible verses on an iPhone during church. That’s what Paul was talking about when he said “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”

That was about using the iPhone at church.
Seriously, google it.
Just not right now.
Wait until church is over.