Today I got tested for COVID-19 and, while I had planned to bring a book to read while I waited, I forgot my book at home. Being too prideful to be one of those people who stares at their phone the whole time they’re in a line, I forced myself to stand for an hour and a half, noticing the things around me. (Phones have become our crutches; they help us avoid conversations with strangers in lines who could potentially become friends! They keep us from being in the here and now. Well, perhaps they keep us in the now, but not in the here. And while the elsewhere and now is also important, the here and now is vital. But that’s another topic for another post, another day.)
Continue readingHospitality
What? There’s Emotion in Deuteronomy?
Tonight, I read Deuteronomy 6, not expecting anything but a detailed account of the Israelites’ finally coming to their promised land, Canaan. But I was so moved by it emotionally. Who knew Deuteronomy could have so much emotion? (If you did, just don’t tell me; feign some ignorance, please. Thanks.)
Palm Sunday 2015
Praise God for warmer weather.
Praise God for good education.
Praise God for friends.
Praise God for family.
Praise God for music.
Praise God for story.
Praise God for being humble when we, His creation, are not.
Praise God for sewing.
Praise God for new discoveries.
Praise God for teaching us through hard circumstances.
Praise God for health insurance.
Praise God for blue skies.
Praise God for caring people.
Praise God for loving us when we do not deserve it.
Praise God for eye-opening experiences.
Praise God for happier days.
Praise God for bearing our burdens.
Praise God for rain.
Praise God for flowers.
Praise God for redeeming us.
Praise God for feeling pretty without makeup for the first time in my life.
Praise God for rest.
Praise God for colors.
Praise God for lifting our heads from despair.
Praise God for role models.
Praise God for sending His long-expected Son.
Praise God for His Son’s unexpected humility, poverty, humanity, and love.
Praise God for doing what many of us will be remembering through this Holy Week.
Read from the beginning: soarwithlaughter.com/soar-cloud-high
The One in the Window Seat
Where the doors are moaning all day long,
Where the stairs are leaning dusk to dawn,
Where the windows are breathing in the light,
Where the rooms are a collection of our lives:
This is a place where I don’t feel alone.
This is a place that I call my home.
– “That Home” by The Cinematic Orchestra
I’m sitting here looking at all this delicious food I just made. And eating it. I was feeling lonely and depressed today… well, really for the past few days… and the audiobook of Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I had checked out was due tomorrow, so I drove around quite a bit listening to the end of the book. I went to the grocery store, and when I came back from returning the audiobook and checking out a new one, I had planned to make a chicken vegetable soup. I started cooking frantically. I boiled the chicken, then started to cook sweet potatoes and carrots in the water as I tore up the chicken. Then my cooking plans changed completely. I ended up making a sweet potato/carrot/almond/peanut soup and stir-frying chicken and vegetables on the side. There wasn’t enough space in the pot for everything at once and the puréed smooth carby vegetable and nut soup just sounded too good to pass by. When I cook, I often end up making something completely different than what I planned on making. I will plan to use a recipe to try something new, and then change half of it around by the time I get to the end of my cooking endeavors, completely forgetting that I even had a recipe to follow in the first place. Now I sit here with two delicious dishes, and I feel much better. I cooked today more than I have in a long while. I took out my anger and frustration and sadness on the sweet potatoes, listened to Mumford & Sons, and felt very stylish with a nice hairdo and a cute apron. The only thing I’m missing are people with whom to share all this good food. Then my house would feel like home.
Artists Everywhere
I came to Blackberry Farm nearly six months ago to get experience in the hospitality industry with the idea of someday opening a Bed and Breakfast of my own. At Blackberry Farm, I hoped to learn from one of the most prestigious places in the industry and I wanted to find out if hospitality is the right industry for me.
Now
After searching for a job all summer, I recently got offered a job at Blackberry Farm. This weekend, I’ll be moving to Maryville, Tennessee, and I start work on Monday! Last school year and this summer, I was determined that I should move back to Greenville, South Carolina and find a job there. Furman University, my alma mater, is just outside of Greenville and the city of Greenville is really a wonderful place. On top of that, the best church I have ever been a part of is in Greenville. I wanted to return to this place and form a long-term community. I was tired of moving from place to place and wanted to find friends with whom I could be friends for several years. And why shouldn’t this happen in Greenville? I don’t know. But apparently, God didn’t (doesn’t) want me in Greenville because He didn’t provide me with anything more than a very part-time job in Greenville. Instead, He provided me with a job at the very first place I applied to outside of Greenville: Blackberry Farm.
Soar with Laughter 