Round The Ball: Lent – 2009

If you’re just tuning in, I’m listing some of my favorite things from 2008 by category.  Today’s is all about one of my addictions, er, hobbies — the wonderful world of coffee.  Here they are in no particular order:

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1) Intelligentsia (L.A.) –  Thanks to Mark Smith for turning me on to this one — its down the street from them, near Echo Park in Los Angeles.  Its always fun to find a quirky cafe run by people who are really serious about coffee.  These guys roast their own and then serve it up one cup at a time, to order.  You can choose which single-origin bean you want and then watch them make it with one of their fancy Clover machines.  Also a fun place to take in the urban hip-ness of Echo Park.

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2) Monmouth Coffee Company (London)- A recent discovery for me, though the folks at Ritual in San Francisco recommended it for about a year before I tried it.  I love the feel of their shop in Borough Market, near London Bridge.  It’s got a classic old-world market feel, and the coffee is great.  They use the same one-cup filter method I describe below.  Great place to go have a conversation or read a book.

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3) Nude Espresso (Spitalfields, London) –  These guys opened up two doors down from the office space I’m renting from our church.  That’s a very bad location for my pocket-book!  The staff are great, the coffee is excellent (they’re serving up Monmouth Coffee.)  This is the kind of neighborly coffee-shop experience you’d dream of — these guys are generous, kind, friendly to our kids, and just all around brilliant.  Here’s the proof: Richard closing down shop over Christmas but letting Jesse and I in for a hot cocoa on the house when he saw us passing by. 

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4) One Cup Filter Drip (@ Home) –  Lets say your wife is pregnant and can no longer stand even the smell of coffee.  That means you might as well only make one cup at a time, cause ain’t nobody else drinking with you.  Well, with a one-cup drip filter, you can make an amazingly good cup of coffee just for good ol’ you!  Bluebottle Coffee in San Francisco sells the equipment (but you can get it anywhere) and gives really good directions for perfection on their site.  Click here!

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5) Tea – That’s right — I’ve included tea on my coffee favorites list because nearly half the time this year I’ve opted for the leaf over the bean.  It’s just what we do here in England, and I’m actually learning to like the stuff.  It also helped that I voluntarily gave up coffee for a stretch while I was in prayer for a good friend battling cancer.  That fast, plus the prevalence of tea on this island we inhabit is turning me into a true convert! 

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So, any good coffee suggestions out there for me? 

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Well, the Advent blog was fun . . . and after taking a day off from the old blogging routine I thought I’d use the week between Christmas and New Years to share some of my favorites from 2008.  It’s a random collection — but I think you’ll enjoy it.  Or, at least, I’ll enjoy sharing it . . . Favorite Board Games to Play With the Kids

1. Fairy Snap – okay, don’t laugh . . . it’s a variation on the familiar card game “snap” — but with drawings of fairy princesses that you try to match to make a pair.  Luci loves it and asks to play it regularly.  We also created a variation of it with “spoons” where you grab a spoon from the middle if you make a match before anyone notices.
2. Mouse Trap - Jesse saw this over at another kid’s house and talked about it nonstop until we bought it for him (as an early Christmas present, mostly to get him to shut up about it!)  It’s all about creating a really crazy contraption that traps your opponent’s game piece.  More fun to set up than it actually is to play.
3. Candyland - okay, this is more of an honorable mention than anything else — we play it regularly, but it’s sometimes mind-numbingly simple.  I often find I want to rig the deck so one of the kids wins the ice-cream cone and gets to the end faster.  But its still great times with the kiddos.
4. Battleship - Jesse is pretty impressive with this game already.  We just got it for Christmas, mostly because we knew he wanted it and would be good at it.  Its a game that says its’ for seven year olds and older, but he’s already really good at it.  I like seeing how seriously he takes it too.
5. Settlers of Catan – Fair enough — this isn’t a kid game at all and I don’t play it with my kids.  But its a regular staple in the Prince household.  I play a weekly online game with a great friend back in the States, and we regularly have some of our local British friends from church over for a game.  One I’m counting the days until our kids can play!

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Merry Christmas to each of you!  Or Happy Christmas, if you’re here in England with us and so prefer.

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Instead of the usual scripture readings and reflections (which you can still find here if you’re interested), today I think I’ll just share a brief story that pretty much sums it all up for me.

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For a couple of weeks now we’ve planned on having the family from upstairs come down for a visit on Christmas Eve.  We knew it was a long shot, because we find that most Bengali families in our neighborhood really would rather host us in their homes than come be hosted in ours.  But Pam had reassurances that they intended to come over for Christmas Eve, and as incredible as that sounded, we planned accordingly.

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We didn’t go wildly out of our way to prepare – but we did sort of arrange the day around it, and refrained from making other plans.  The kids and Pam baked and decorated gingerbread cookies all afternoon.  I helped tidy up the living room, get some music going, and made a last minute trip to the shops for some candles and tea.  When the place was cleaned up, the music on, cookies baked and candles lit, Pam and the kids headed upstairs to invite the neighbors down.  I stayed behind to pop some popcorn for our guests.

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Just a few minutes later Pam was back at our door, explaining with a bit of disappointment in her voice that the neighbors wouldn’t be coming after all.  The older brother had explained, on behalf of the father, that he hadn’t been to visit any neighbors in all thirty years of living here.  (We haven’t quite understood the meaning of this, but we know it to be true – very many of our Bengali neighbors seem to only visit close family in the area, otherwise they tend to avoid going over to other people’s houses.  Ironically, though, they are very gracious hosts when you go visit them!)

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We were told, however, that we were welcome to come upstairs and visit with the neighbors in their place instead.  So with some disappointment but resolve, I blew out the candles and turned off the music while Pam arranged the cookies on a plate to take back upstairs.  This was how it would be, then: we would venture up the stairway yet again—our Christmas goodies in hand—to visit the family we’ve visited countless times before but never had over to ours.

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Hadn’t we come far enough?  Our family sold nearly everything, packed up and moved thousands of miles to uproot from one country to the next.  We moved into this cold, government-built home in an unfamiliar neighborhood, put our kids in new schools to make all new friends.  We’ve learned new ways to eat and adapted to new ways of being with people.  We’ve even forsaken being with our own families during the holidays, choosing to be here instead.  All so we could be here, in this moment, to engage with and share life with our neighbors, the forgotten poor, the immigrant outcasts of our day.  Hadn’t we done enough to be with this family?  Moving from California to live downstairs?  Couldn’t they meet us part way and at least come down, risk a little discomfort and sit with us in our own home?

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And I thought to myself, halfway up the stairway to their flat, that while it would be tempting to be disappointed or even angry, it was fitting.  In the end, this is the essence of Christmas.  We follow a God who came to us because we could not get to him any other way.  Incapacitated by our sin, our fears, our cultural trappings – we could not encounter Us-With-God . . . it had to be God-With-Us, which meant Jesus giving up everything to dwell among us.  He moved in downstairs and we couldn’t even be bothered to visit at his place; he had to take the extra step to bring the cookies and popcorn upstairs to us.

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This is Christmas.  Jesus took the extra step to come all this way and walk our streets, live on our soil.  Creator stooping to visit his creation.  Immanuel.

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As a happy finish to the story, this morning – Christmas morning – three of the kids from upstairs, plus the mother – showed up at our door for a visit.  The kids played with ours, who happily shared their new toys with glee.  And the mother orchestrated a cooking-lesson for Pam, making Bengali aloo-potatoes right in our own kitchen using her broken English.  This was the surprise of our Christmas morning – a visit from upstairs which delighted our children and warmed our kitchen.

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Merry Christmas to each of you.  Thank you for reading with me during this season.

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Readings:

2 Samuel 7:1-16

Psalm 89

Luke 1:67-79

 

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It’s fitting that Christmas is one of the busiest travel seasons of the entire year.  In the States, Thanksgiving usually ends up clocking in as the busiest – but Christmas is right up there.  People just have to get “home” for Christmas . . . it’s that longing in our hearts to be together with our closest family and friends. 

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Our family is staying put this year – our second year in London.  Having traveled to see family in July and August, we just couldn’t afford the trip again for the four of us.  Its sad . . . we’d love to be at the grandparents’ for Christmas morning.  (Though, even that would be a challenge, with family on opposite ends of the country.)  We will miss them though – and our hearts will still be near.

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There’s one thing to say about all the Christmas travel though: it’s biblical.  The whole Nativity narrative starts with a journey back to hometowns.  Mary goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth.  Joseph heads into Bethlehem to be counted for the census.  There’s a strange echo of the actual bible story when we all arrive safely at our destinations, drop our bags, catch our breath and settle in for a visit.

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But there’s another journey that trumps all others: the One for whom the season is about.  Zechariah’s song in today’s passage from Luke captures it best:

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“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel – for he has visited his people, he has come their rescue.” (Luke 1:67-68)

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Christmas is the story of God coming for a visit.  At the height of the holiday travel season.  In the midst of the blizzards and blackouts of our own sinfulness.  At the great expense of his one and only Son – God makes a visit to his people to bless, encourage, save and sanctify.

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For those of us traveling to see others this season – go with a sense of God’s blessing up on those whom you visit.  For those of us receiving travelers – welcome them with a sense of greeting Christ himself at the door.  God coming for a visit.  Immanuel – Christ with us.

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Readings:

Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24

Psalm 25

Luke 1:57-66

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If Advent is about anything, it’s about preparation.  “Let every heart prepare him room!” the familiar carol says.  And though it often gets forgotten, the hustle and bustle of Christmas is very often merely about the preparation for the big day, isn’t it.  Making a list and checking it twice.  Preparing favorite foods.  Wrapping up gifts and placing them under the tree.  Its all one big exercise in preparation.  In fact, the challenge becomes making sure the preparation doesn’t take the place of the actual celebration!

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As we near Christmas Day, things get even busier, don’t they?  The scripture readings echo that as well – the pace and the volume seem to pick up just before Chrismas.  And in them, we see a God who is just as busy preparing for Christmas as we are: carefully creating a way, charting a course, honoring his portion of the covenant.

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“I am going to send my messenger to prepare a way before me,” the Lord God says in Malachi.  “Know that I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before my day comes.”

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And again, in the gospel narrative, “ ‘What will this child turn out to be?’” the people of Judea ask about John the Baptist as an infant.  “And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.”

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This is God, readying the world for the birth of its Savior King.  In our baking and wrapping, our decking the halls and dashing through the snow, lets remember the many ways God himself prepared for this day – the birth of his Son.  Announced by prophets.  Heralded by angels.  Signaled by stars and speechless sold men.  This is the story that never grows old; one that even God made sure the preparations had been made.

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