Things I Love: Cc

Coffee

I am a wannabe hipster.  I have this picture in my head of what cool is (my brother, Nate crush from high school, Mercedes friend from high school) and I'm just in awe of it.  I'm not really brave enough to embrace hipster clothes and hipster lifestyles completely.  But the thing I can do?  Is drink coffee.

I mean, I like the taste of coffee fine.  But it's the process of coffee, the meaning of coffee that I really enjoy.  I like heating up water in a kettle, then pouring it over coffee grounds in my french press.  I like waiting four minutes, then filling a mug that says, "Guten morgen" with coffee, creamer, and sugar.

I like buying coffee in shops, sipping on disposable lids or clutching massive ceramic mugs with designed latte foam.  I like smelling coffee, feeling its warmth.  I like the consistency of starting my day with the same beverage, and I like the spontaneity of getting a frappachino or latte in the afternoon just because.

Am I pretentious enough yet?  I JUST LIKE COFFEE, ALRIGHT?


C. S. Lewis

This man.  He has influenced my brand of Christianity more than anyone else outside the Bible.  For awhile, I even wanted to start a petition to get some of his essays added to canon (okay, so maybe I still like that idea).  I haven't read everything he's written, but I'm pretty close.  I've read his children's fantasy, his adult science fiction, his apologetics, his semi-biography, and even a few of his critical literature essays.

He is utterly brilliant.  He was utterly flawed.  My love for him only grew when I took a class about him at Union and learned that he'd likely had an affair with an older woman.  He was a real person with sins and stuff!  But then he became a Christian, and he still struggled, but he fiercely pursued a knowledge of God through the beauty of the world He created.  Someone who finds God in imagination and joy?  Yes, of course he is my hero.

Lewis didn't want Christians to write Christian books.  He didn't want followers of Jesus to form an insulated community.  He wanted Christians to use their God-given creativity to create really fantastic art (books, movies, paintings, advertisements, architecture) for the world at large.  He wanted the love and the righteousness that the Holy Spirit instills in us to spill into our creations, but not overwhelm them.  We are whole beings.  We speak to a world that is not yet whole.  We are to live among them, create for them and for us, engage in debate and conversation, and live a life that exemplifies the Lord we serve.

Feelings.  I have them.  I'm going to spend a solid century either talking to Lewis or following him around starstruck.


City Museum

I may or may not be a little scared of heights and scared of close spaces (I am).  So technically, the City Museum in St. Louis, which is a chaotic playground of junk pieces formed into tunnels, trees, slides, and mazes, should have absolutely terrified me.  And it did, until I realized how awesome it was to drag myself through a two foot high tunnel dangling ten feet above the floor by the force of my arms alone.  Or to lower myself through a hole in a bench into a completely dark tunnel, walking along a floor that steadily rises while the ceiling stays the same.

Basically, it made me feel like a superhero.  And it was so pretty.

Community

I first watched this show because Stephanie's roommates were watching it, but the Dead Poet's Society spoof episode had us saying "day seized!" for weeks afterward, and I was hooked.  The show is full of hilarious throw away lines, and I am guaranteed at least four laugh-out-loud moments each episode.  It's very meta, very tongue-in-cheek, and very self-aware.  Which means I love it, obvs.

Pierce:  By the way, Jeff, I think your shirt's trying to get out of your pants.

And I cannot mention Community without highlighting my favorite character, Troy, and his epic bromance with Abed.  I want to put them in my pocket and bring them out when I am feeling down.

Civil Wars

They make my ears so happy.