To Feine, or Not to Feine

...as in to drink lots of caffeine, or not. That is the dilemma as we approach Holy Week. Between leading two different services in the community that week and trying to get the word out about our own 4 services from Thursday through Sunday, what will I do to keep from a trip to the ER for exhaustion? This has never happened in all my years of ministry and all its stresses. I usually do a good job and it's usually more stressful approaching and thinking about things more than anything else. But caffeine would help even though I am trying to stay away from it.

But one other thing gets in the way here, and I am having problems with this new admission in my life. I am a coffee snob. Yes, I said it. As I opened up the other day, the cupboard in our kitchen specifically packed with shelves full of coffees, teas, and their different paraphernalia, I was looking for a good decaf that had been requested. As I stumbled through, I noticed the two small plastic containers of brand name consumer grade coffee. On the cans was the "F" word of coffee drinkers. I actually thought for a moment, 'I can't believe this stuff exists in my coffee cupboard.' In fact I was taught recently that this stuff isn't even coffee. As remarked by a local barista friend I frequently visit, "I make and serve coffee, other people serve Folgers." We both laughed that better than thou ha-ha-ha that sounds like a cross between Lurch from the Aaddams Family and the millionaire on Gilligan's Island. And this thought regressed into other conversations that have made me silently reel with disgust in my mind, while politely listening with smile to others applaud certain brands of coffee served in the dives and restaurants, and gas stations. My stomach has always churned at the thought of a fancy named brand that is served at the local jiffy mart and gas mall. Or even worse, when I have witnessed people actually drinking out of those machines that spit, gurgle, and steam some brown liquid into cups. Not only does the product look disgusting, but I have a rule about drinking anything from something that sounds like my grandmother nagging at me - eeennnnnnnn - plplpl - eeennnnnnn - gurgle - zerbert.

SO. There you have it. I am a coffee snob, who by the way, refuses to also drink Starbucks for ethical reasons. If it's not tasty without cream and sugar, doesn't have a spirit-lifting aroma, isn't brewed in conventional way, can be purchased at a gas station or even some certain fast food chains who are claiming to have "premium" coffee, and does not excite the palliate and call for conversation about it, I don't want it. So what's this have to do with me trying to stay away from caffeine? Why do you drink coffee, anyway? Duh.

Excuses, Excuses...

I am so unbelievably behind on this posting stuff. Believe me, lots of interesting and noteworthy things have happened recently - dinner with Jimmy, the snow angle saving me and my family and Jimmy from a nearly stupid drive North (thanks, April), and church in the fellowship hall because of the new "weather policy" defining when and when not to use the sanctuary in order to save money on heat. I will note that no matter hwo theologically or ecclesiologically wrong said policy sounds, I will say that it does lend to creativity in the worship space and is gracious to the opportunity to try new things that might become staple in the "big room."

But recently, and today is no exclusion, I have been studying like no other time in my life as pastor and preacher. Instead of preaching the lectionary for Lent, I arranged a new sermon series. It has been over a year and a half since I had done a non-lectionary based sermon series, and I have forgotten how ridiculously difficult it is for a variety of reasons. Most prominent of those reasons is the task of isolating yourself from the word that needs to emerge from the texts and the focus of the theme. Preparing these sermons has almost like doing weekly research papers all over again, and strangely enough that has been exilerating to the soul. Don't get me wrong. The lectionary demands it's own amount of study and isolation all the same, but not near this much. And where the lectionary has gotten so repetitive and dry (even in all the commentary and updated dialogue resources), the sermon series has given me excuse to interview and talk to people in new and deeper ways that have been renewing and revealing, challenging and deepening faith experiences, and I have had to take time to read old "stuff" again, and discover new "stuff."

Don't worry. I can't do this forever. I am sure that by Holy Week, the winter relief of the sermon series will have run its course, and I will be bitching and begging for lectionary summer to come again. I have to go study some more before the library sells my bookbag.

Some excuse, huh? Take time out from writing, so and go write...