baby you'll freeze out there

the church i'm visiting has their own coffee shop, the speckled bird cafe. it's really cute, i hadn't been in before. i like the idea of a place where the church can gather and hang out... but also a place out in the community where people can get to know each other.


there are several cute, independent coffee shops near me. i think i need to start patronizing them more, as opposed to those owned by "the man." :)

i'm reading this book lent to me by a friend, called Three Cups of Tea. this guy is a mountain climber that falls in love with a village in Pakistan and, upon discovering they have no school, decides to make that happen. it's pretty good, i'm enjoying reading about the way the village finds a place in his heart, the discouragement, the rewards, the lessons... he quotes mountain climbers that have experienced this village:

"'We breathed an air of utter satisfaction, of eternal peace,' he continued. 'All this gives rise to a question. Isn't it better to live in ignorance of everything- asphalt and macadam, vehicles, telephones, television- to live in bliss without knowing it?'"

and then again,

"'I used to assume that the direction of 'progress' was somehow inevitable, not to be questioned,' she writes. 'I passively accepted a new road through the middle of the park, a steel-and-glass bank where a 200-year-old church had stood...and the fact that life seemed to go harder and faster with each day. I do not anymore. In Ladakh I have learned that there is more than one path into the future and I have had the privilege to witness another, saner, way of life-a pattern of existence based on the coevolution between human beings and the earth.'"