Grind It Out
This morning I was grinding up some coffee beans for the morning brew. It got my mind churning (what doesn't?)
I have come a long way from instant coffee. Yesterday, I had about the worst coffee in years at a restaurant in York where I meet with my buddy John for accountability and fellowship. I couldn't shake the taste all day...truly, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Not sure if they have started buying an even worse brand than before. At least it used to be drinkable.
I would rather delay drinking coffee at all if it is bad, unless there is no prospect of getting anything better all day. If no other coffee is within drinking distance; then I will drink under protest. If I can get to a better cup of coffee, I will pass the two cups now in hand for one in the bush. Wherever it may be. One way to find that good coffee in the bush? The I-Phone App. that will locate the nearest Starbucks and give you directions there (accounting for your present location). Lina and I used it several times in California.
I generally don't drink Starbucks Coffee as it is hard to find the blend that I like--a Fair Trade and Organic Sumatran or Ethiopian. My present favorite brand is Green Mountain Roasters. I do like Starbucks roasting technique. Some people think it tastes burnt...I like to call it well done. But, I will drink Starbucks as my default brand on the road. It is kind of a Yuengling Lager. It is a good go to. Although I can't be too much of a coffee snob, as I don't use a conical grinder yet. Once I do that, I have become regal and aristocratic with my coffee life.
We have decided to go Free Trade and Organic for coffee (as well as other products): one reason is for equity to the workers of coffee growers and producers (the Free Trade piece). Anyone who thinks that a coffee grower can leverage a Starbucks or a Wal-Mart to not drive prices down to the bone is a fool. Starbucks seems to have a corporate conscience about this issue to some degree (not all evidence is favorable). As far as I am concerned, Wal-Mart is souless. America's doom and demise and China's ascendancy, brought to you by Wal-Mart. Corporate Hegemons. Do poor people realize that by buying Wal-Mart it is cutting their own jobs' jugular? Terrible and tragic irony. Or, they could work for Wal-Mart in one of its dead end jobs with no health care.
The other (Organic) piece is that it is not a good idea to heat coffee beans with boiling water that were grown with pesticides and other chemicals. From my extensive high school chemistry class training, that seems to be an ideal method to release toxins into the brew. Organic coffee costs more but I think that the science, in due time, will show that using anything deadly on living things (bugs and weeds) will generally be bad for anything else living. Call me a wacko. Our understanding of nutrition has just not caught up to the causes of our modern-day self-created pathologies. Modern-day farming, with its dependence on "kill-technology" will be shown, I surmise, to have more detrimental costs (health and financial) than we could have ever imagined.
I trust Green Mountain Roasters to police their producers. Since their FTO brand is defined by its Free Trade and Organic character, it would be fatal to their business model if non-Fair Traded and Organic beans got into their supply.
Back the grinding piece. In my grinder, I have to fill it up almost to the top in order for the grinder to effectively do what it is supposed to do. Too little beans creates a pinball like effect with the coffee beans and they bounce all around, non-finely grounded. However, too many coffee beans in the grinding cup, causes our Cuisinart grinder to smoke as it strains the motor. Some space at the top is needed, but not a lot. Reminds me of the Sabbath.
Working full-time up until this year since 1993 and being a difficult Ph.D. program (not in any way designed for full-time educators) has been a terrible grind at times. One thing I have always held onto is that I would press hard for 6 days, literally as many hours as it took, so that on Sunday I could chill. Like the coffee grinder, I could be full but not too full.
Now that I am on Sabbatical (kind of an oxymoron), I am working on completing my Dissertation. It is an oxymoron because I am hardly resting. Yet, at least I am not a full-time high school counselor now. I shudder to think how hard it would be to both work and be a student. God has graced me with a very-industrious wife who has created the financial space for us to be able to keep me out of the school counselor role this year.
The Dissertation work is not going well. I am encountering a lot non-engagement in my students and parents in getting their participation to take a 15 minute on-line survey about college preparation, an assessment that will help them, and not just me. Because I believe in this work, I push on. Nothing good ever happens by accident. Life is never easy. It is a grind.
Once, I had a tape of "The Church" (the band) in my car's tape deck for months (I could never figure out why they called themselves "The Church" as they seemed to have no theological bearings in an orthodox sense). But, there was one song on the album called Grind that was spot on theologically. I used to listen to the song all of the time as it seems my life has been one hard grind. It ain't fun being a human coffee bean. But we are not meant to be whole in the jar, we are to be ground-up and drunk in the cup by a needy world.
On one Sunday after a Church service where my pastor talked about the hardness and harshness of life, but how God gives us hope and even healing by His Grace, I played this song for a friend. The pastor, walking back to the parsonage, also stopped by to listen.
Here are the lyrics to the song...
"The wine in your hand is worth two at the bar
And everybody knows what you've been drinking
Disgraceful sky flecked with a nightmare of stars
And everybody knows how you've been sinking
Long distance century buzzes and fades
I wonder why you've not resigned
Previews processions and parades
You've got to grind, grind it out
Line up the arrows, push off the top
This can cause sustain forever
And once it's started up, it cannot be stopped
At least it's holding us together
Long distance century buzzes and fades
An automatic charge on your mind
The glittering minutes, jangled decades
We've got to grind, grind it out
A vortex appears, unleashed by the crash
A moment marred by hesitation
Bedazzled surgeon chases the gash
But we don't need that operation
Long distance century buzzes and fades
Elysian Fields not far behind
Find me a witness amongst these shades
They've got to grind, grind it out
Long distance century buzzes and fades
I hope the deaf can lead the blind
Lift me up into those whirling blades
I've got to grind, grind it out."
Grind it out. Grind it out. Grind it "F-in" out.
I have come a long way from instant coffee. Yesterday, I had about the worst coffee in years at a restaurant in York where I meet with my buddy John for accountability and fellowship. I couldn't shake the taste all day...truly, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Not sure if they have started buying an even worse brand than before. At least it used to be drinkable.
I would rather delay drinking coffee at all if it is bad, unless there is no prospect of getting anything better all day. If no other coffee is within drinking distance; then I will drink under protest. If I can get to a better cup of coffee, I will pass the two cups now in hand for one in the bush. Wherever it may be. One way to find that good coffee in the bush? The I-Phone App. that will locate the nearest Starbucks and give you directions there (accounting for your present location). Lina and I used it several times in California.
I generally don't drink Starbucks Coffee as it is hard to find the blend that I like--a Fair Trade and Organic Sumatran or Ethiopian. My present favorite brand is Green Mountain Roasters. I do like Starbucks roasting technique. Some people think it tastes burnt...I like to call it well done. But, I will drink Starbucks as my default brand on the road. It is kind of a Yuengling Lager. It is a good go to. Although I can't be too much of a coffee snob, as I don't use a conical grinder yet. Once I do that, I have become regal and aristocratic with my coffee life.
We have decided to go Free Trade and Organic for coffee (as well as other products): one reason is for equity to the workers of coffee growers and producers (the Free Trade piece). Anyone who thinks that a coffee grower can leverage a Starbucks or a Wal-Mart to not drive prices down to the bone is a fool. Starbucks seems to have a corporate conscience about this issue to some degree (not all evidence is favorable). As far as I am concerned, Wal-Mart is souless. America's doom and demise and China's ascendancy, brought to you by Wal-Mart. Corporate Hegemons. Do poor people realize that by buying Wal-Mart it is cutting their own jobs' jugular? Terrible and tragic irony. Or, they could work for Wal-Mart in one of its dead end jobs with no health care.
The other (Organic) piece is that it is not a good idea to heat coffee beans with boiling water that were grown with pesticides and other chemicals. From my extensive high school chemistry class training, that seems to be an ideal method to release toxins into the brew. Organic coffee costs more but I think that the science, in due time, will show that using anything deadly on living things (bugs and weeds) will generally be bad for anything else living. Call me a wacko. Our understanding of nutrition has just not caught up to the causes of our modern-day self-created pathologies. Modern-day farming, with its dependence on "kill-technology" will be shown, I surmise, to have more detrimental costs (health and financial) than we could have ever imagined.
I trust Green Mountain Roasters to police their producers. Since their FTO brand is defined by its Free Trade and Organic character, it would be fatal to their business model if non-Fair Traded and Organic beans got into their supply.
Back the grinding piece. In my grinder, I have to fill it up almost to the top in order for the grinder to effectively do what it is supposed to do. Too little beans creates a pinball like effect with the coffee beans and they bounce all around, non-finely grounded. However, too many coffee beans in the grinding cup, causes our Cuisinart grinder to smoke as it strains the motor. Some space at the top is needed, but not a lot. Reminds me of the Sabbath.
Working full-time up until this year since 1993 and being a difficult Ph.D. program (not in any way designed for full-time educators) has been a terrible grind at times. One thing I have always held onto is that I would press hard for 6 days, literally as many hours as it took, so that on Sunday I could chill. Like the coffee grinder, I could be full but not too full.
Now that I am on Sabbatical (kind of an oxymoron), I am working on completing my Dissertation. It is an oxymoron because I am hardly resting. Yet, at least I am not a full-time high school counselor now. I shudder to think how hard it would be to both work and be a student. God has graced me with a very-industrious wife who has created the financial space for us to be able to keep me out of the school counselor role this year.
The Dissertation work is not going well. I am encountering a lot non-engagement in my students and parents in getting their participation to take a 15 minute on-line survey about college preparation, an assessment that will help them, and not just me. Because I believe in this work, I push on. Nothing good ever happens by accident. Life is never easy. It is a grind.
Once, I had a tape of "The Church" (the band) in my car's tape deck for months (I could never figure out why they called themselves "The Church" as they seemed to have no theological bearings in an orthodox sense). But, there was one song on the album called Grind that was spot on theologically. I used to listen to the song all of the time as it seems my life has been one hard grind. It ain't fun being a human coffee bean. But we are not meant to be whole in the jar, we are to be ground-up and drunk in the cup by a needy world.
On one Sunday after a Church service where my pastor talked about the hardness and harshness of life, but how God gives us hope and even healing by His Grace, I played this song for a friend. The pastor, walking back to the parsonage, also stopped by to listen.
Here are the lyrics to the song...
"The wine in your hand is worth two at the bar
And everybody knows what you've been drinking
Disgraceful sky flecked with a nightmare of stars
And everybody knows how you've been sinking
Long distance century buzzes and fades
I wonder why you've not resigned
Previews processions and parades
You've got to grind, grind it out
Line up the arrows, push off the top
This can cause sustain forever
And once it's started up, it cannot be stopped
At least it's holding us together
Long distance century buzzes and fades
An automatic charge on your mind
The glittering minutes, jangled decades
We've got to grind, grind it out
A vortex appears, unleashed by the crash
A moment marred by hesitation
Bedazzled surgeon chases the gash
But we don't need that operation
Long distance century buzzes and fades
Elysian Fields not far behind
Find me a witness amongst these shades
They've got to grind, grind it out
Long distance century buzzes and fades
I hope the deaf can lead the blind
Lift me up into those whirling blades
I've got to grind, grind it out."
Grind it out. Grind it out. Grind it "F-in" out.
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