Haystacks by Monet

I love the rhythms of life, instituted by God for our sanity, memory, and bearings. Tides, lunar cycles, seasons, comets, birth and old age, festivals, harvests, weeks and years. Jesus, you have been good to us in 2006, we thank you for your mercy, grace, and love lavished on us without restraint. Thank you for the beauties large and small that have filled our hearts and senses. Enlarge our capacity to love and trust you. Teach us how to share your love.

Spotlight on Excellence: The Brown Coffee Co.

"Nothing is more powerful than beauty in a wicked world." - Amos Lee

When things are done with excellence, whether designing buildings, digging ditches, or roasting coffee; we enter into the realm of the sacred. Because we worship and are to reflect God, who does all things to perfection, it is our privelege to join Him in the pursuit of perfection. We will never achieve it here on earth, or possibly ever, but that knowledge, in some strange way, actually sets us free to pursue it that much harder, with giddy delight, free as children. I think of my son grunting and exerting with all his might as he "helps" me move a heavy object, delighted to be helping me, and me, my heart bursting with pride and love for my son, the hard worker. And so it is with us, our hearts full of God's love, seeking to bring little reflections of His light and love into the world through excellence. Because we live in a world that is full of mediocrity, and ourselves feel the pull of the siren song, "good enough", I believe we must shout aloud and champion the excellence that we do run across. With all the energy and vehemence usually reserved for protesting the shoddy, unjust and subpar, we who have tasted the eminent must cry out. This crying out starts with our very relationship with God and continues on down the line from transcendant art to exceptional service and yes to something as insignifigant as coffee. Now I want to make it clear that I am not trying to pull some cheap trick that devalues God by tying him to a product. However, I believe that when Jesus came to earth and humbled himself, "taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness", he elevated all of life. Jesus, who has given dignity and honor to shepherds, fishermen, and carpenters, has elevated every vocation to the realm of the sacred when they are done with excellence and as a gift for Him.

Having said that I would like to shout aloud that I have for the past seven months been drinking some of the finest coffee ever to wash down my thirsty gullet. But before I talk about the coffee, a bit of context is necessary to shed light on where I am coming from. I first started drinking coffee when I was fourteen in an attempt to be more like my grandfather. He was an incredible man worthy of imitation, always working on a cup somewhere, and when you hugged him you were enveloped in the wonderful aroma of coffee that surrounded him. So despite the horrific taste of coffee in those early years, I kept at it convinced that somehow in some small way it would make me more like him. Over the past twenty years I have evolved from a ton of cream and sugar in a styrofoam cup guy to a black and bitter in a styrofoam cup guy to a ritualistic black and bitter in very special mug with the occasional luxurious trip to Starbucks sort of guy. Then in June I met Aaron Blanco who supplies our church with coffee on Sunday mornings. That first cup didn't do much for me as I was conditioned to equate bitterness and a heavy roast with quality, however my wife went nuts over the coffee and week after week kept raving about how good it was. So we bought a pound from Aaron and let's just say, I haven't been the same since. He has ruined me. The amount of water that I must now drink to offset the enormous amounts of caffeine that I ingest is staggering and umm...inconvenient. As usual I went overboard, became a total coffee lush and am now seeking some form of balance in my day to day life.

Aaron Blanco recently celebrated the one year anniversary of The Brown Coffee Company that he owns and runs. I've said in these pages before that I love over the top people, those who go the extra mile, who go way beyond what would be acceptable or "good enough". Aaron is one of those people. After working his way up through Starbucks, he turned down a job as District Manager because it would have "taken [him] too far away from the coffee." So instead he went out on a limb and started his own coffee company. Aaron loves coffee, the entire process from the farm to the cup. He keeps an incredibly interesting and wide ranging blog about all things coffee that I have linked on the sidebar of this page. He recently organized and ran the Texas Barista Jam, a meeting of some of the finest coffee minds in Texas and is currently organizing a trip next month to the farm in Guatemala where they grow my favorite coffee, Guatemala Huehuetenango, Finca Vista Hermosa.

Earlier this month, Aaron invited me over to his house for a coffee tasting, called cupping, where we pitted four of the world's finest coffee's against two of his. It was gourmand heaven for this newbie to the world of exceptional coffees. One of the coffees we tried sells for 30 dollars a pound! Coffee cupping as they call it is an unusual way to experience the essence of what a coffee is all about. It is the process the buyer for a coffee company goes through as he pits various coffee beans against each other to determine their worth. Rather than going into a detailed explanation I will give you the laymans' version now and post photos along with an interview some time next month. Hot water is poured into small cups directly over the ground coffee where it sits for four minutes and develops a crust. You break the crust with a spoon while your nose is as close to the cup as possible and inhale the "essence" of the coffee in it's rawest form. This essence contains smells ranging from chocolate to tomatoes, strawberries, and cinnamon. I now believe those stuffy wine guys, you really can taste and smell some of these things. After inhaling the essence, you taste the coffee by sucking a spoonful into your mouth. The goal is to take it in with such force that it becomes a fine mist and coats the back of your throat with coffee. I never really got this part down despite my best efforts. As you are doing all of this you are taking down copious notes detailing everything from acidity, to flavor, fragrance and aftertaste. Then you score everything on a pretty simple scale in six categories and voila, you have a winner. Despite talking very little, Aaron and I both discovered many of the same flavors and scored five out of the six coffees very close. The coffees from the Brown Coffee Company going head to head against four of the best coffees in the world scored 3rd and 5th on my sheet. And no, I won't say who scored first because I'm partial to Brown, although just to show you what a standup guy Aaron is, he freely praises all four of the other coffee companies on his blog. Aaron believes in roasting the beans very lightly to allow all the complexities and flavors of the bean to come through. You can actually suppress and overpower the bean by roasting it too long, but that is how the majority of the coffee we drink in America is roasted. Because of his light touch in the roasting process, Brown's coffee is unusually clean, more sweet than bitter, and doesn't leave you with an aftertaste that has you scrambling for the breath mints. I want to honor Aaron for his pursuit of perfection. I hope you will give his coffee a try and come back here to post a review.

The Brown Coffee Company can be found online at www.browncoffeeco.com

Christmas in Baghdad

(I received this e-mail from my buddy Scott the other day and am reprinting it with his permission. I met Scott and his wife Gina at our church in San Antonio while Scott was attending physical therapy school. A former tank commander, Scott always felt uneasy about attending school far from the action while his fomer tankmates were in harm's way. Despite having two young girls, one born just this summer, Scott was eager to do his part. Scott's selflessness and optimism are wonderful to be around. This Christmas let's remember Scott, his wife Gina and their two little girls in our prayers as well as the hundreds of thousands of families just like theirs.)

Merry Christmas!

It's hard to believe that I've been away from home for more than four months already. I have experienced a great number of things that I could probably never see at home. Some of these experiences, I could do without. Others have been amazing. Through the whole time, my wife has been fantastic. I cannot imagine a finer woman with whom to share this time. She has constantly kept me aware of the things that are happening with our girls. She sends daily reminders of my family by email and with her numerous care packages. And I get to live vicariously through the adventures of Flat Daddy. For those who don't know of Flat Daddy, check out the website that Gina has been keeping: http://web.mac.com/carow2n/iWeb/Site

I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of American people this Christmas. This month I have received packages and Christmas cards from strangers almost on a daily basis. Of course, I have received much from friends and family as well, but it is great to know that there are people at home who appreciate what we're doing here.

So, what are we doing? I have found myself traveling a lot more than I ever thought I would. I am the physical therapist serving a brigade, which consists of about 3500 of the finest Soldiers in the Army. They are spread across a fairly large area Southwest of Baghdad. I travel on a weekly basis to see our guys who are located at different Forward Operating Bases. I have really enjoyed getting out and seeing different people and places here. The main thing I notice when we drive around our area is that there are children playing outside everywhere. For the most part, they have nothing to play with, but they are always playing. Inevitably, this reminds me of my own children who are playing without me these days. Lexi says we are here because there are little girls in Iraq who aren't allowed to be happy. Unfortunately, there is a little more to it than that, but seeing these children has made me realize that these kids deserve a chance to experience freedom and to pursue their dreams just like my kids do.

We had church this morning and it was great. It was a nice break from our routine which has been pretty busy lately. It was also a good time to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. As I find myself far from home this Christmas, I still have much to be thankful for. I am thankful for an opportunity to serve our country, especially in this time of conflict. I am thankful for my beautiful wife and daughters. Mostly, I am thankful for a baby in a manger, and I am thankful that the same God who I trust in Iraq is watching my family at home.

There are brave Soldiers putting their lives at risk every day over here. In return, we only ask for your prayers for our safety. Have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

sdc

West Texas

Went out to west Texas this week to do a little work. It is a beautiful part of the state, full of lonely highways, rugged mountains and flat deserts. The people are both tough and friendly. I love it. This picture was taken at our work site off of Highway 17 halfway between Pecos and Balmorhea. Shortly after I took it, a coyote peeked out from behind that little mound of dirt in the foreground and then ran off to the west.

Statistical Daydream

My thoughts about Heaven fall primarily into one of two categories, transcendant moments of inspiration that leave me panting with anticipation and escapist flights of fancy that are utterly worthless beyond their ability to entertain me for hours. One such recurring daydream revolves around a tiny book that I would like to receive upon my arrival. I would love to be handed a book outlining all my personal records, a Guinness Book of Jeremy's Achievements. Not because I'm narcistic, but because I am fascinated with statistics, and anything that can be quantified, measured or compared. My brother Jared and I once kept a notebook filled with hole by hole stats on our weekly trips to Lava Links, the local putt putt course near our dorm in Minnesota. I am thankful that I have only known about Excel Spreadsheets for the past four years, rather than my whole life, as it has helped limit the damage. Seriously, give me an Excel Spreadsheet and any form of data and I turn into Rainman. My apologies to anyone negatively affected by my quest for stats.
So, back to the topic at hand, there are things I want to know about human life in general and my life in specific that I think you would also enjoy finding out about yourself. For example, in the category of Food, wouldn't it be interesting to see how many pounds of meat you have consumed in your life and then compare it side by side with people from other countries, decades, and milleniums?

So here are but a few of the categories of interest:

Sports

• Lifetime batting average (every time you have ever swung a bat at a ball)
• Lifetime shooting percentage (every time you have ever tossed a ball towards a hoop or a piece of paper at a waste basket.
• How many miles you have swum / biked / run / walked and how far that would take you. Example; you swam 40 miles total in your life, enough to swim the Strait of Dover and back.
• Total vertical gain while hiking

Food

• A pie chart showing what percentage each food group represented in your total intake
• How many gallons of water consumed, single day record, weekly record, monthly record, etc..
• What was the longest you went without food
• What food did you eat the most of.

Misc.

• What song did you listen to the most times in your life
• What were the top 10 words you used in your life (non articles and prepositions)
• How many times did you say "I love you" vs. the average for your gender and similar lifespan
• What bible verse did you read the most times. Percentage breakdown per book
• How many words did you say / read / hear in your life
• Miles driven / flown Records for most of either in one sitting
• Did the same coin or dollar ever pass through your pocket more than once
  
• Percentage of negative thoughts vs. positive thoughts, definitively answering once and for all whether you were a pessimist or an optimist.
  

Body

• Volume of sweat
• Longest sleep
  
• Largest 24 hour disparity between intake and outflow
• Longest duration of urinary outflow, single event (sounds gross but you know there have been times where you felt like it just went on and on and you mumbled to yourself as you flushed, "that had to be a record." Well, wouldn't it be nice to know if it was or not?
  

Okay, I have fully exposed myself as a geek, but I know this will resonate with someone, somewhere.

And Now For Something Completely Different

A quick holiday decorating tip before I get to the main topic: It is not acceptable to mix colored and white lights in front yard displays. Pick one or the other and stick with it. Also taboo is the mixing of blinking lights set at different speeds. Thank you.

I Feel it Coming On

Recently, while dining out I got the distinct impression that I was enjoying a luxury that at some point in the near future would no longer be available for me to enjoy. Ditto on recent trips to Starbucks, the movies, and the iTunes music store. There is a storm brewing on the horizon, the thunder of which we can all hear, whose lightning flashes we can all see increasing in frequency and proximity. What is clear is that the storm is headed our way, what is not clear is the exact intensity of the storm or for how long it will last. The storm of which I am speaking of is the rapidly increasing cooperation and unity amongst several diverse nations whose common bond is a desire to see us either subdued or destroyed. I feel as though we are on the verge (next 4-6 yrs.) of a major change in the way that life is lived here in America. And now some minor observations minus the requisite factual support, on account of the busy holiday season.

Who

China. As their economy grows, their need for oil grows, reason enough to cozy up to certain Middle Eastern entities. As their population grows, their need for other limited natural resources grows as well. With the world's largest standing army, and roughly 120 men per every 100 women, they have the might and incentive to flex some serious muscle. I can't see them attacking us outright but rather picture them pulling strings to weaken our economy. I can see them doing this independently and/or helping or waiting for another nation or entity to attack us and then exploiting. They could bring us to our knees without even firing a shot.

N. Korea. Crazed dictator with nukes. Nuff said. With a wink and a nod China could start the scenario mentioned above. Okay, maybe not quite that easily, but you get the picture, any one of these countries by themselves does not scare me but as a team they do.

Russia. Run by Putin whom I do not trust, a major economic partner with Iran, has given (is giving?) them military hardware and know how. Probably wouldn't mind being a big dog on the block again.

Venezuala. Spending a conspicuous amount of money on modernizing and increasing the size of their army. Venezuelan President Chavez and Iranian president Ahmadinejad are buddy-buddy as are Chavez and Fidel Castro who coincidently runs a small country 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

Iran. Calling their shot right now.

Extremist Islam, both here and abroad, like the crocodile in the mud hole creeping closer and closer to the feeding herd, waiting...waiting...

What

Increased cooperation and possible collusion to precipitate our demise. Or even just several of them waiting to opportunistically exploit events set in motion by another.

Worst case: nuclear detonation followed by extreme economic hard times. Best case: extreme economic hard times

Why

A lean, hungry dog will easily take the bone away from a much larger dog who is satiated by a life of ease and plenty. And if said hungry dog loves death more than life, the results could certainly be brutal.

Hope

I remember late August nights on the Jersey Shore in my teen years and the dread I felt knowing that winter was right around the corner and that the sun and salt water would soon be replaced with snow and salt trucks. I kind of feel that way now, only a lot happier. My heart is full of love and that gives the strength and reason to defend. I feel safe, not physically or circumstancially, but still safe nonetheless, "sheltered in the shadow of His wings" and that gives me joy. And after working around some of the greatest men in America for three years at the factory in Kansas City and here in Texas in the rock quarries, I know that these men and countless others just like them will rise to any challenge and meet it head on, with vim and courage.

Plans

I'm tossing around the idea of learning how to hunt. I don't need or even want venison right now but I might need it in the future. Maybe, still thinking about it, I'm not a nut, I just don't want to bury my head in the sand.
Beyond that no real plans, I figure letting God do His thing on us will prepare the family emotionally for potential stresses that may lay ahead. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfullness, gentleness, and self control. I think generous stores of those in our inner man will help us to rise up and act with honor, purpose, and clarity if and when we are called upon.