Coffeehouse For Sale

My local coffeehouse, Moda, is for sale if you're interested in buying it. Unfortunately I'm several hundred thousand too short to buy it myself.

I hope it's taken on by someone who wants to keep it running as a coffeehouse. Despite times where I have begun to dislike the place (I've had some really bad lattes served to me - which I sent back) I do also quite like it (I've had some really good lattes - which I kept).

What I do particularly like is that it stays open late. Hopefully that will continue because Starbucks around here close at 8pm!

Wanting to be Celtic

Whenever people ask me where I am from I usually give a round about answer that starts with my birth in London an swiftly progresses around the world to stops across England, Wales, America and Ireland, where I am right now.

I like living in Ireland. I feel a sense of some sort of connection here although I'm not sure what I mean by that. Although born in England to an English father, my mother was from Northern Ireland. I don't know if she would have called herself Irish (she died when I was 12). My guess is, being a 'protestant' from Portadown more than likely persuaded her to be 'British'. However, my family name is from the Isle of Man and, according to the book I was reading this evening, having a Manx heritage gives me a connection with the Celtic heritage which I am growing to love.

The books I usually take to the coffeehouse are often about church or theology or contemporary Christian mission. This evening I took A Celtic Miscellany. It's a lovely book with extracts of(mostly ancient) Celtic writing from Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Breton and Manx authors. It was great for dipping in to and I'll be taking it for another trip to the coffeehouse again soon.

The writing is wonderfully descriptive making you wish you could place yourself in the scene that has been painted with such delicious words. Take for example this description of an Irish hermit's hut from 1000 years ago:

I have a hut in the wood, none knows it but my Lord;
an ash tree this side, a hazel on the other, a great tree on a mound encloses it.

Two heathery door-posts for support, and a lintel of honeysuckle;
around its close the wood sheds its nuts upon the fat swine...

Excellent fresh springs - a cup of water, splendid to drink - they gush forth abundantly;
yew berries, bird-cherries...

A clutch of eggs, honey, produce of heath peas, God has sent it;
sweet apples, red bog-berries, whortleberries.

Beer with herbs, a patch of strawberries, delicious abundance;
haws, yew berries, kernels of nuts.

A cup of mead from goodly hazel-bush, quickly served;
brown acorns, manes of briar, with fine blackberries.

In summer with its pleasant, abundant mantle, with good-tasting
savour, there are pignuts, wild marjoram, the cresses of the stream - green purity!

Swarms of bees, beetles, soft music of the world...

A beautiful pine makes music to me, it is not hired;
through Christ, I fare no worse at any time than you do.

Beautiful, just beautiful

I like to keep a pen and some paper in my car wherever I go. Mostly it just for leaving notes in my window to let the clampers know that the parking meter is not working (so please don't clamp me again!)

Sometimes I use the paper to jot down a thought that I have or the name of some music I just heard on the radio while driving. A couple of months ago, as I was driving one evening to do the grocery shopping, I heard a song on RTE2fm called Space Walk by a band called Lemon Jelly. The song samples a recording of an astronaut going on a spacewalk and watching the sunrise over Earth. Throughout is a refrain of the spacewalker describing the scene as, 'Beautiful, just beautiful'. I liked the sound of it so I jotted it down at the next red light.

Last week I signed up to emusic for some mp3 downloads. They're doing an offer where you can have a trial for two weeks and download and keep 25 tracks for free (regardless of whether you stay on a a member). I've been a bit disappointed by not being able to find some of the songs that I initially wanted so I may just take my freebies and run. However, they did have the Lemon Jelly song so I got that. It's great. I really recommend you getting a copy. It's one of those songs that make you nod your head in rhythm and smile.


Yesterday my wife and I got a babysitter and went to a movie. Before we went to the cinema we went for coffee and dessert in a cafe in the Italian quarter of Dublin. There's some nice looking cafes there that I'll go back to visit again. As it would happen, the name of the cafe we went to was Lemon Jelly.

Anyway, all of this is just to say to my wife that when we walk down the rain soaked streets of Dublin on a summer evening I can't help but nod my head, smile and think, 'beautiful, just beautiful.'

Homeless Guy

Returning a DVD (3 days late) to the rental shop in Ranelagh, I decided to stay in the area to go to a coffeehouse I hadn't been to for a while. On my way to Coffee Society I passed a homeless man bundled up and leaning against a postbox. Not an unusual sight and almost easy to ignore with a little inward justification.

I walked a few meters further along the road when I heard a voice (mine? God's?) tell me to go back and ask the guy if he wanted a cup of coffee. He said he'd like a cup of tea so I was happy to oblige.

We spent a while chatting, initially about the book he was reading - one of three weighty novels he had recently purchased from a charity shop for a fiver, and then got on to talking a little about his past, his present situation and future hopes of returning to Vancouver. Although P. is from Ireland he has spent a good deal of his life in Canada where his family (including a son) still live. Too proud to admit that a run of unfortunate circumstances has put him on the streets he keeps his homeless status a secret in his monthly trans-Atlantic phone calls.

I wouldn't say that my encounter with P. was anything special for either of us, but I was struck by the fact that his eyes were clear, his speech made sense and wasn't full of fanciful tales, and he hadn't actually been asking people for money as they passed - he admitted to getting so engrossed in a book that he didn't realise the time passing.

It is very easy (and convenient) for me to judge that the homeless guy I see ahead of me as I walk along a street is there because he is either a drunk or a junkie.

Later in the coffeehouse, drinking a latte and reading a book about the inclusive ideal of church, I notice a woman placing an order for a smoothie and bagel who is wearing a t-shirt that says, 'Guilty until proven innocent'.

Hurling

I'm pleased to say that they serve Fairtrade coffee at Croke Park.

I'm also pleased to say that I visited Croke Park today for the first time.

And now I'll be pleased to tell you about it.

A few weeks ago, while the rest of my family were in the States, I spent a few days at a monastery - Glenstal Abbey. While I was there I got to know another guest visiting who is a priest serving on the north side of Dublin. In our conversations I told J. that one day I'd like to go to see a hurling match at Croker.

I got a call from J. this week to say he had tickets for today's game and invited me along.

It was great. A fantastic atmosphere that only a large sporting event can give. Over 70,000 fans shouting, screaming, heckling and clapping. I haven't been to a sports event like this since watching the Cleveland Indians more than five years ago.

The game of hurling is great. It's a sport native to Ireland with its roots in Irish mythology/history. I guess I would describe it as a much more fast paced and exciting version of field hockey - only the ball is sent flying through the air and you can catch it with your hands before whacking it tremendous distances (80+ meters) between the goal posts (which are a cross between soccer goals and rugby posts.)

It's a very fast paced game where if you blink you can miss something vital. Within three seconds the action can shift from one end of the field to the other. Don't step out for coffee because by the time you're back several points have been scored.

J. said he would try to get tickets for the All Ireland final in a few weeks. Here's a video clip from the final two years ago. Brilliant.

Coffee and Donuts

A year or two ago I heard a radio interview with the manager of a Dublin cinema. (It was the Savoy which I am ashamed to say I have yet to visit.) Part of the discussion revealed that cinemas make as much money on the popcorn, drinks, sweets, etc that is bought at the snack bars than they do on movie tickets. I'm sure this won't surprise you when you think about how much you pay for a Coke. What did surprise me though was the manager's open confession that you are allowed to bring your own food and drinks into the cinema. For years I had assumed that this wasn't allowed and had to resort to stuffing bags of malteasers in my pockets in the hopes of sneaking them in. Not now. Things have changed and I openly flaunt my previously made purchases as I hand my ticket to the door person.

Anyway, all this to say that before going to a movie last night I bought and cup of coffee and a couple of Tim Hortons donuts (now available in Tesco Ireland - yum!) and proudly took my seat to consume them. The film? The Simpsons Movie, of course.

It was okay. Not as many laugh-out-loud moments as I would have hoped. I liked the fact that Homer asks at the beginning of the film why anyone would pay to watch something they can get for free on TV.


Here's a trailer.

Here's a review and a whole bunch of reviews in one place.



A lot has been written in recent years about the connection between The Simpsons and the Christian faith. I won't add to that, but for what its worth here's one view if your interested.

Coffee as Sacrament

The particular branch of Christianity with which I am aligned holds a radical stance in its non-observance of Sacraments in worship (Why?) In other words, we do not practice such institutions as water baptism or Eucharist/Communion/Lord's Supper, et al.

So I smiled when I came across one person's view of the sacred nature of drinking coffee:

'Coffee has a long history as spiritual substance. Frederick Wellman, in Coffee: Botany, Cultivation, and Utilization, describes an African blood-brother ceremony in which "blood of the two pledging parties is mixed and put between the twin seeds of a coffee fruit and the whole swallowed."
Coffee in its modern form, as a hot, black beverage, was first used as a medicine, next as an aid to prayer and meditation by Arabian monastics, much as green tea is used by Zen monks in Japan to celebrate and fortify. Pilgrims to Mecca carried coffee all over the Moslem world. It became secularized, but the religious association remained. Some Christians at first were wont to brand coffee as "that blacke bitter invention of Satan," as opposed to good Christian wine, but in the sixteenth century Pope Clement VIII is said to have sampled coffee and given it his official blessing.'

I wonder if people realise what they are taking part in when they stay for the after-service tea/coffee on a Sunday morning?

Songs for the Journey

I just wandered up to my computer with a cup of coffee in my hand to discover an email from my brother-in-law. He has just started blogging. Take a look:

Songs for the Journey

Wild Geese

Tonight over coffee I read Steve Chalke's newest book, Intelligent Church. I only read the first chapter as I was slightly distracted (see below). However, I was struck by a short passage in the book which is a paraphrase of a story of Soren Kierkegaard.

Sorenn Kierkegaard, the famous Danish Christian philosopher, grew up in the countryside surrounded by farms that reared geese (among other animals). Each spring he would watch as a new gaggle of goslings was hatched and began to be fattened for the table. Over the course of their short lives these geese would gorge themselves at constantly refilled troughs of grain until they were so fat they could hardly walk. He imagined that they believed their lives to be perfect, as every need they had was catered in abundance.

When autumn came, the truth became apparent. The wild geese that had spent the warm summer months in Denmark would gather in preparation for their southerly migration. As they assembled to fly south they would circle in the skies above the farms, calling out to any stragglers to join in their flight. At this point the farmed geese would lift their heads from the feeding troughs and look into the skies, heeding the call of their wild cousins. For the first time in their lives they would become animated, running as best they could around their enclosures and attempting to fly. Of course, their gluttonous diet and life of luxury meant that they were far too fat to get airborne - but still they would try. And then, as quickly as the commotion had started, the wild geese would fly off and the fattened farm geese would watch them briefly before returning to their grain to continue eating their way to their deaths.

Kierkegaard's parable poses a powerful challenge to our local churches. Are we farmed geese or wild geese?

Is That Made Up?

I went to Moda tonight - the first time in a couple of months, I think. It's an okay coffeehouse, but I'm too often disappointed by the burnt taste of the latte. There are other coffee shops in the area, but they don't stay open as late as Moda (past midnight).

Anyway, I took a book to read, (see above) but I got a bit distracted by two women talking across from me. I don't usually listen in on conversations, but, and I think you'll agree with me, sometimes you can't help it. For me it was when one of them ordered a creme banana capuchino with soy milk.

Is that a made up drink?

Apparently not as something in a mug arrived a few minutes later.

The two of them talked about college days, shared break-up stories and frustrations of weight control. Then one of them noticed a painting on the wall. It was a golden triangle on a red background. It possibly means something, but I don't know what.

Then the exotic coffee lady got excited and took a photo of the painting because, and I kid you not here, she said that she collects pictures of triangles.

Is that a made up hobby?

Apparently not as she then pointed out that she was wearing a top with a triangle on it.

Later in their conversations I heard a word being used (or at least I think I heard it): "Communiverse".

Is that a made up word?

I'm not sure, but unlike the coffee and painting I like it.

Communiverse. I've not decided what it means yet, but I think it could be profound. Once I'm satisfied with a definition I'll try and use it in conversation some time.