coffeahouse

the grandpa

hovered around my table for a bit at Starbucks then sat down at the one next to me once it emptied. He pulled out a paper chess board and chess pieces and lay them out. Perhaps he was waiting for his friend to come play a game of chess with him— I went back to work.

Every 20 minutes or so I would look up and he’s just sitting there, leaning forward on his elbows on the table and hands folded. Either the friend was running late or now, perhaps there wasn’t anyone scheduled to come; he was just waiting for any strangers to sit down and accompany him for half an hour.

No one sat down for an hour. 

He looks like an elderly man from the Pacific islands or something.. Philippines? Malaysia? or just a tanned Chinese man? He looks sad, a bit jaded — no surprise in NYC.

Finally he scoops all his pieces into his messenger bag and rolls up the sheet. After sitting and staring around the cafe for a few minutes, he gets up and asks about an overly priced sandwich displayed in the refrigerated area next to the register. “This is $8??” Employee, “Oh, no— It’s like $6 or something..” I can’t really hear the dialogue with my earphones in place, but he makes his point about it basically coming out to be $8 with tax and puts the sandwich back down and walks out.

1. I should learn how to play chess one of these days.

2. I wish I was richer so I could just fan out dollar bills all over the city..

3. Thoughts are just thoughts.. sigh, ok back to my world..

Mr. Lewis’ wise words

“What I call ‘My wishes’ become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggested to me by devils… Propaganda will be the real origin of what I regard as my own personal political ideas….It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own… As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him… Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it… Give up yourself and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it… Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

“Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognisable: but others can be recognised. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognisable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of ‘religious people’ which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from…”

La Colombe Torrefaction

a coffee house project with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

My favorite actor + a good cause + coffee shop/ coffee imports = <3

note to self:

• finish Mere Christianity
• finish Pride & Prejudice
• learn Frankie J’s ‘More Than Words’ on the guitar
• start Yoga!!!!! -___- 
• take advantage of the city mornings

The people who were praising God for giving them a king had the wrong idea about Jesus.  They expected Him to be a national leader who would restore their nation to its former glory, and thus they were deaf to the words of their prophets and blind to Jesus’ real mission.  When it became apparent that Jesus was not going to fulfill their hopes, many people would turn against Him

In the same way.. while reading this I remembered a sermon/passage about seeing Jesus’ face in everyone we meet. Treating even the lowliest of people in society as a child of Christ.. as if he/she were Christ.. how much this would re-shape our thoughts and intentions. We will never fully know who someone is meant to be or what purpose God has for them, so how can we make any judgments. Walking with Christ is a multitude of paradoxes.. delighting in the riches of His love, at our poorest moments. “that to have nothing is to possess all.. finding light in our darkness, His life in our death.. His grace in our sin…” He is, afterall, a paradox himself; the lion & the lamb, the meek and the powerful.

prioritization. patience.  wisdom. God help me~ :)

kinda dreading work this week..and from here on until the end of my service. now for the initiatives that are to be implemented, jobs to be applied for, apps to be done..

I feel a bit stressed coming back from Turkey. -__- But, one thing’s good: Waking up early due to the time difference. Must try to maintain this as much as possible :)

off to Turkey tdy. 9PM EST.

While a lot of the Remnant Westside Church members will be at a church-wide retreat this weekend, I will be on my way to my own retreat— along with Sanghee.

• Books: Bible and Pride & Prejudice
• Clothes: winter gear, jeans, leggings, t-shirts, earmuffs, gloves
• Camera: iPhone
• Music: iPhone
• Emergency items: matches & a tea-light candle (loll), Emergen-C packets, iPhone
• Luxury items: sunglasses, swim suit (perhaps for the nice Turkish bathhouse/spas)

See you when I see you~

it’s amaze-ing & awe-some.. how our paths, our experiences, our struggles, our barriers and respective triumphs… shape us so individually, so uniquely. Our characters are so well thought out. God is so wise..