Seeing a Bigger Picture

I had a great evening the other day. I met up for coffee, talk and chess with a friend of mine, C. I really enjoy getting together with C because he sees things from a different angle to me which I find refreshing, stimulating and challenging.

For instance, one of the subjects we touched on was talking about the geological way the earth was formed. I'm not sure how we got there, but we did and it was interesting. Oh wait, I think I do remember, but it was quite a path of tangents so don't worry about it. Anyway, C was telling me about the way the Mediterranean Sea was possibly formed which involved a fairly considerable portion of the Atlantic Ocean breaking through the point between southern Spain and northern Morocco and filling up the low ground in the Med. While I pondered the creation of beautiful new coastlines, warm waters and a property developers dream, C saw a bigger picture and reflected on the devastating effect on people living in that area. Just imagine your village being approached by such a huge amount of water. What would you do?

On a lighter note, we think we might have come up with a plan for radically altering people's perception of the Church in a positive way. It involved taking Jesus seriously when he told people to see a bigger picture, leave behind material possessions and follow him. It also involved the Catholic Church selling off St Peter's in Rome. All of it. Every brick, every painting, every gold chalice, every silver plate, every everything!.........and then use it to make a huge dent in the problem of world poverty. Can you imagine the knock on effect? Other church traditions would have to respond likewise. The Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Salvationists, Anglicans, Evangelicals, Presbyterians, et al. And then, surely, other world religions would have to get involved too. Maybe even the you. Maybe even me. What would you do?



I've not played chess for ages. I thought maybe I was ok at it. Oh, man I am not! I must have been thinking about when I played against kids. Thankfully C gave me some sound advice, strategy and ideas. You can't just focus on one piece and one move at a time. You've got to see the bigger picture.

Coming Soon...

I can't believe it has been nearly a month since I last made a blog posting. Actually, I did try last week, but our computer is suffering from old age and decides to crash every few minutes. (I think it may have something to do with still using Windows 98 and not enough memory for media rich sites - Coming soon...a new computer I hope!)

I was excited to see that there is another coffeeshop coming to our area of Dublin. I, unlike some others, am not bothered in the slightest if more coffeeshops open up on every corner. There is going to be a new Insomnia Coffee Company...coming soon.

The outcome of this will hopefully mean more coffee to drink and inspiration to write.

Coming soon...more blogs!


Hey look, I got to the end without the computer cra

Toast

Another study day today. I decided that in order to get a decent amount of my latest essay written I should get out of the house and study elsewhere.

I started the morning of at my usual coffeehouse - Moda. Then after lunch I went to the library, but that didn't last too long because the battery in my laptop computer ran out. I felt embarrassed to ask if I could plug in to the mains. They already let you read books for free so I didn't want to take advantage and use their electricity for free too. (By the way, here's my favourite library from the town where my wife and I first lived when we got married - 7 years ago!)

So I decided to break with tradition and go to another coffee house. Ironically it's right next door to my usual and both are opposite the library. I didn't travel far today.

I found a seat with a table that was by a mains supply so I could plug my computer in. I figured if I was paying for coffee it would be alright to literally recharge my batteries. I decided I would leave a tip anyway.

In my studies I came across the early North African Christian theologian, Augustine. I'm not sure how I feel about him. On the one hand he is known by a great name - Augustine of Hippo (see what I mean?), but on the other he sanctioned the violent persecution of believers that were deemed heretical because they questioned the integrity of leaders in the Church. But then again he has some great quotes. Of speaking of God he says,

You have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.



I think I might return to this coffeehouse again. I quite like it. The only problem is that it's actually a cafe bar which means there is a kind of funky smell around. (Since the introduction of the smoking ban you'd be amazed at the smell that smoke used to cover up. I wouldn't change it though).

What I liked best about the place was that the building used to be a church. I didn't realise that until today, but looking at it now it makes sense. I'm not sure what kind of church it was. I'll let you know when I find out. It started to get me thinking about how you could creatively "do" church in this space again. I'll let you know about that too.

I asked for a cookie to go with my latte, but they don't serve cookies. I'm not sure if they serve toast there either even though that's the name of the cafe.