As if I could

If I could talk sense into someone, I wouldn't waste time on a random celebrity. That would be like trying to pick up the ocean between thumb and forefinger. I'd rather talk to someone who, in fact, wants to listen. That strikes out about ninety-eight percent of the customers who visit the drive-through Starbucks that employs me currently. I'm old enough (which is sad, considering I'm not yet 30) to remember when coffee shops were homey places that instigated conversation and quality over speed and quantity. If you're smart, you'll take the former over the latter, and make your to-go coffee at home (here's a hint: French press. Better coffee, every time. Google it).
I worked in a coffeeshop in Nevada where one could hold an actual conversation with a customer and learn something interesting. I don't vouch for the cultural depth of Nevada, because last I lived there, it didn't much exist (unless you like rocks. There's lots of rocks. And bull riding, and wind and fires and sage). However, into that little shop would walk some of the most interesting people. Some were drunk, stumbling in through the glass doors looking for something to kill the afternoon buzz they'd found in the bar two stores down the sidewalk strip mall. Not much culture out of them, unless the ferment in light beer counts for something.
Some were friends of the owners, who dropped by on occasion to admire the brown flagstone floor and the coyote mural painted across two walls, and drink a caramilla (pronounced cara-mee-ah) made to order by yours truly.
One of my favorite customers was a wiry, pepper-haired man from San Francisco, with a Van Dyke also peppered gray, tapering over his narrow chin. I have no recollection what he was doing in the desert when he could have stayed by the sea, but nevertheless. He introduced me to Coltrane, even brought his CDs in so I could listen to them while I worked. He knew his coffee, and I was just learning what riches lay below the corporate-glazed surface, so we had plenty to talk about. He came to the jazz nights, when we had live music playing and the whole store was a hum of bodies amidst the high walnut tables cast in the yellow glow of fan-shaped wall sconces. He liked lattes steamed extra hot with the shots poured in last: Upside-down. I began to drink my lattes upside-down, and I learned to appreciate the nutty bite of espresso, perfect tamped, hot and dark in the first sips, smoother and lighter with the last. I learned more from listening to that man than I ever would have debating brewing technique and music theory on a forum.

Comic part 2

I've worked on and off in the coffee industry for about five years. Stranger things have happened. This one hasn't yet, but I wouldn't be surprised.

When one visits a place so much it seems they live there, that place (in my case, a coffee shop with a drive-through) becomes so familiar that their own life and personal debris spill over into it. Convenience is abused by familiarity. It happens all over.

Because my job isn't stressful enough... (part 1)

This one is dedicated to those people emptying their bathroom wastebaskets into the drive-thru garbage can, and clogging it up (Click on the image to see it bigger). You're getting it in two parts because I'm obviously not a great drawer and because it takes me so dang long to get this much done. There's more though, much more.

We drink coffee so as to do stupid things quicker, and with more energy.

In Silence

When I was nine, I decided God was out there and I wanted to meet him. I had a vague notion I couldn't put into words at the time, that I wanted to meet him because he was out there and wanted to meet me too. It made sense (and it still does) that if he didn't exist I wouldn't feel the need to go looking for him. Since I started looking, I've found traces of him all over the place.

I went to my first Tenebrae service on Good Friday. I'm no stranger to the church and its various associated gatherings, but somehow missed this aspect of Easter. Much of the Tenebrae was spent in relative silence, surrounded by cool brick walls and shifting bodies of attendees, seated in stiff black folding chairs. The long rectangular room was chilled by wind that crept in around the windows along one wall, but I'm usually more aware of cold than most. A few hymns were sung as candles were extinguished, representing the death of Christ and the thieves crucified with him. Most were new to me, which was not bothersome. It's nice to hear and see something foreign once in a while.
There was nothing foreign about the children who could be heard banging about in a back room. We all pretended not to hear it; children have been banging about since the beginning of time, and I'm convinced will happily keep it up for all of eternity (God seems to have planned on this, and that's why children eventually grow up and quiet down. It's for the sake of sanity).
Between hymns and long bouts of relative silence, various people read aloud from the gospels, recounting the crucifixion and death of Christ. More silence, while a slideshow flickered constantly on small flat-screen TVs: Various depictions of Christ's final hour. Another candle extinguished.
The whole experience was aptly uncomfortable.
I do appreciate and respect that people have for so long, so ardently marked this event by gathering together. There's value to be had in gatherings. However, simply attending a service isn't enough for me. Application of virtue is too much talked about and too little practiced, as everyone knows.
So I won't go on about it.
In my life I've only begun to comprehend the sacrifice made on my behalf. I'm still coming to grips with it. No one likes to admit that all their efforts at decency don't cut it. I certainly don't. That sacrifice makes reconciliation possible. I have no hope without it.
Therefore I can't stand to cheapen it.
Sometimes a service just isn't enough.
Tears don't cut it.
An hour on Sunday doesn't do it justice.
In every relationship there comes a moment when words end. Life and fear and guilt and love sit down with you; they crack the world open in the other person's eyes. At that moment, you become bigger on the inside than you can stand. All ability to move or do abandons you, and you can do nothing but breathe.
There are places in my soul that are silent, in perpetual awe, since I first began to understand who Christ really is. What love means. How heavy it grows. At age twenty-six, I'm realizing how much I still don't know.

Someday I want to climb like this guy.

Real (now published on LIFEgeek)

I don’t know how I came to regard this book with such a sense of wonder. Perhaps because I’m the type who doesn’t just read stories–I live them. Perhaps this one had just enough fiction in its reality, with a rabbit who is alive inside of his cotton-stuffed skin, and a decent sense of wonder himself, that I recognized a kindred soul on the pages...  Read more on LIFEgeek