Coffee and the Role of Hawaiian Rainwater (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

We've been lucky to do some ocean cruising, to see some of the world and expand our understanding of other peoples and cultures. 

When our ships dock, we choose excursions that get us out of the port and away from all the touristy money-sucks. We prefer for our money to support locals: families, small business owners and, most especially, farmers. 

This kind of thinking led us to spend an entire day working at a coffee collective high in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. We learned a lot about the process for taking coffee from farm to grocery aisle. The experience really whetted our appetite for more coffee knowledge. 

 

So, on our first day on the big island of Hawaii, we chose an excursion to a small, locally owned coffee farm, well up in the hills west of Hilo. Due to its small size, we were much closer to some of the processes than we had been in the Dominican Republic. Some people just know how to tell a story. And our guide that day was certainly one of them. He was unhurried, comfortable to be with, and open to our questions. His knowledge of the coffee process was unmistakable. It probably helped that his family owned the farm. 

Contrary to what you might expect, no two coffee operations work exactly the same. These Hawaiians, for example, used the wet method of coffee bean processing versus the dry method used in the Dominican Republic. That’s the step we were learning about when our guide spoke some magical words. 

 

We were standing next to open vats filled with coffee beans floating in water. He explained that his family’s commitment to natural processing included allowing the beans to soak for a few days in ... Hawaiian rainwater. 

 

As a group, we sighed aloud: “Ahhhhhh.” 

I imagine we were all thinking something like: “How special. How unique. When I get home and serve my friends this coffee, I’m going to love telling them what makes it so special!”

 

And then he said, “Or, as we like to call it here in Hawaii: rainwater.”

 

Perspective. It’s important. 

 

For us—at least for a moment—Hawaiian rainwater was magical. It’s a rare day, however, that some rain doesn’t fall in Hawaii. From our guide’s perspective, Hawaiian rainwater was an everyday occurrence.

 

How we think about the coming week's four scripture passages is all bound up in our perspective. If we perceive the Ten Commandments as dictatorial, we will likely respond negatively to them. But what if we perceive them as an invitation to a better life, to wisdom, and to a good relationship with God and one another? That’s a pathway toward spiritual maturity. 

 

Similarly, if our perspective on Jesus cleansing the Temple is that he just “lost it” and began beating everyone and everything with a whip, we’re likely to come to a self-defeating conclusion. On the other hand, if we perceive those Temple-occupiers as Jesus saw them—thieves who had inserted themselves between the people and God—then we could find ourselves on a path toward wisdom.

 

We need God’s wisdom as explained in the 1 Corinthians passage. Without it, our perspective has no compass. We simply respond to any stimuli: slap for slap, eye for eye, life for life.

 

God offers wisdom. All we need do is ask. When we seek it, God gives us ears to hear and will bless us with clear spiritual vision.

 

It changes our perspective. 

 

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PHOTO: Steve Orr at the Dominican Republic coffee collective, grinding coffee beans the traditional way (wooden mortar and pestle)

 

Article about Hilo Coffee Mill: 

https://keolamagazine.com/business/hilo-coffee-mill/

 

Hilo Coffee Mill website: 

https://hilocoffeemill.com/

 

Ka’u Coffee vs Kona Coffee: 

https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/kua-coffee-region-hawaii?amp=true

 

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Friday’s coming! Join us for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. It’s a pleasant hour of Bible, discussion, prayer, and laughter. We meet at 8.00 on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place.

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=73

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Bx_ThirdSundayinLent.pdf

 

Exodus 20:1-17

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

John 2:13-22

Third Sunday in Lent (March 3, 2024)

 

Psalm on a Bathroom Wall (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

When I first saw the poem, I was at Algiers, a restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was scrawled on the bathroom wall. I could write a lot about that restaurant: great Middle Eastern food, convivial gatherings, some truly outstanding coffee. But Algiers is long gone. What remains are good memories. 

And the poem—exactly as it appeared on that wall. 

 

home had took me 

to where too much time 

had locke me in 

in my wrong ways 

and the fumbles of 

a memory, and left me 

where I first began 

begging: "Christ let loose 

these ghosts from my bones." 

 

I’ve thought a lot about that poem over the years, wondering what the author meant for the reader to get from it. Eventually, I realized he wasn’t thinking about the reader at all. It’s too raw. It was scrawled on a bathroom wall, not published in a prestigious literary journal like the New England Review. This guy was hurting—deeply. 

 

It brings to mind another poem: this week’s passage from Psalms. It’s almost impossible to read Psalm 22 and not think of Jesus. In fact, Jesus quoted from its first verse while He hung on the cross. Psalm 22 is a poem about affliction, being rejected, sinking into deep despair, and crying out for salvation. And in that way, it is much like the poem on the bathroom wall. 

But where the bathroom poet stops, the psalmist continues. Psalm 22 goes on to become about God responding to that cry for deliverance, about rescue and salvation. And today our God—the same God of whom the psalmist wrote, the same God to whom Jesus cried from the cross—will hear our cry. He will not despise our affliction. He will not hide His face from our deep need. 

From the depths of his circumstance, the bathroom poet called on Jesus. He knew who could save him, and he wasn’t afraid to write that name high up on a wall where many would see the savior he claimed. 

If I could find the author of that poem, I would thank him for his reminder that God can be called on in all circumstances, even when—perhaps, most especially when—things seem their worst. 

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PHOTO: Steve Orr

Join us for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast this Friday. As usual, we gather at 8:00 on Zoom** and at Our Breakfast Place. It’s a pleasant hour of Bible, discussion, prayer, and laughter.

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=72

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Bx_SecondSundayinLent.pdf

 

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Psalm 22:23-31

Romans 4:13-25

Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9

Second Sunday in Lent (February 25, 2024)

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Giant Arrows Pointing the Way (a Steve Orr Lent reflection)

Sometimes we just need a sign. 

But a sign in and of itself is not enough. For a sign to be useful, we must also grasp its meaning. What good is a stop sign if “stop” has no meaning for us? 

 

There are several puzzling signs scattered about the USA—giant concrete arrows—their meaning not readily apparent. 

 

First placed on the Earth in the 1920s, they are part of the Transcontinental Airway System. It was designed to aid airmail pilots in their flights across the United States. Lacking the level of technology we enjoy today, those pilots could easily get lost. At the time, it was a perfectly reasonable navigation aid. 

These arrows, each more than 68 feet long, were painted a bright golden yellow. At the center of each was a tall tower with a rotating beacon boasting a million-candlepower light. It was possible to see them from the ground, but they were designed to be seen, and are best seen, from the air.

 

At their peak, there were more than 1,500 of these "ground beacons" stretching from New York to San Francisco, one every 10 miles or so. Day or night, pilots could find their way across the country and back. Their makers intended the arrows to serve as a kind of covenant between themselves and those who had to depend on the arrows for essential, often vital, information. 

 

Today, they seem a little simple. 

 

Kind of like the rainbow in this week’s passage from the book of Genesis.

 

After a rain, we see a rainbow arcing across a portion of the sky and feel a little jump of elation, an appreciation of its beauty. Few of us stop to reflect on an essential truth: rainbows are anything but simple. 

 

Without the rain, no amount of sunlight striking our atmosphere could produce a rainbow. For a rainbow to appear high up in the sky, there has to be a brilliant light source, and there have to be millions upon millions of rain drops to reflect and refract that light.

 

To Noah and his family, the appearance of a rainbow was brand new. Before the Flood, it had never rained. Whatever God used to change our atmospheric composition to bring about that first rain, it remained in place after the flood. And it produced, for the first time, the conditions necessary for a rainbow. 

 

Technically, you can see a rainbow from the air, but it doesn't look quite the same; it can even appear as a circle. Where you need to be to see the phenomenon as a bow is on the ground, with rain before you and the sun behind you. 

 

God placed His bow "in the clouds" so that, for all generations, we could be assured that God would never again destroy all flesh by a flood.

 

The rainbow is just one of the covenants God has set between Himself and us, signs we can see on our spiritual journey. When we understand them, they point the way, keeping us from getting lost. 

 

Whether it's bows or arrows, the intent is the same. If you want a successful journey, look for the signs along the way.

 

 

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PHOTO (Plus, want to know if any concrete arrows are near you? Check out this website):

https://www.dreamsmithphotos.com/arrow/

 

If you want to read more on the giant concrete arrows: http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/02/why-is-america-dotted-with-giant-concrete-arrows/385472/?utmsource=GristFB&utm_content=buffere1847&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

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We meet DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast on Friday morning at 8:00. You can usually find us on Zoom** or at Our Breakfast Place. We hope you can join us as we discuss the coming week’s scriptures, order from the menu, and laugh inappropriately. 

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=71

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Bx_FirstSundayinLent.pdf

 

Genesis 9:8-17

Psalm 25:1-10

1 Peter 3:18-22

Mark 1:9-15

First Sunday in Lent (February 18, 2024)

 

A Blessing for the Tsar? (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

The Tsar blamed the Jews. 

In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, the story takes place in Russia during the early 1900s, a tumultuous time in that nation’s history. There were many problems: poverty, hunger, illness, and death. Russia’s ruler was known as the Tsar; that’s the Russian way of saying “Caesar.” And like the Caesars of the Roman Empire, the Tsar was the highest power in his empire. He and his family lived in palaces, had every luxury, were never hungry or without medical care. 

 

Due in part to the widening gap between the way the royals lived and the way everyone else lived, revolutionary forces were stirring about the land. We now know those revolutionaries would eventually overthrow the royals and institute communist rule. But at the time of Fiddler on the Roof, in hopes of heading off that revolution, the Tsar sought a way to deflect the people’s anger from himself.

 

The Tsar needed a scapegoat.

 

So, the Tsar blamed the Jews. He made their lives hard, forcing families to uproot and relocate to less desirable places in the east—many of those places are in what we now call Ukraine. The Jews suffering under these conditions were powerless to change them. Such powerlessness inevitably leads to anger. The Tsar had created a powder keg. 

 

Next time you see the musical, keep this background in mind. It helps explain so many of the scenes. Take for example the elderly rabbi walking through the small village of Anatevka. He is asked by the people: “Is there a proper blessing for the Tsar?” What is not said, but is clearly implied: Is there a blessing even for the Tsar?! They can’t imagine how someone who has treated them so evilly could qualify for a blessing from God.

It’s a loaded question. 

 

The rabbi could just say “No” or nothing at all. But, knowing the mood of his congregation, and knowing that bad things might result from a negative reply, he wisely chooses to respond with humor. His reply always gets a laugh from the audience: “A blessing for the Tsar? Of course! May God bless and keep the Tsar ... far away from us!” 

 

A rabbi in Israel might well have said the same kind of thing if asked about a blessing for Caesar in Jesus’ day. The situation was not unlike that of the poor Russian Jews living in Anatevka two-thousand years later. Most Israelites viewed Caesar as an oppressor, and many groups of zealots plotted revolution. Jesus was well aware that Rome might consider Him an enemy of the state. After all, He had called at least one known zealot, Simon, to join His original twelve apostles. 

 

All of this leads us to consider a strange command Jesus gave in this week’s Mark passage. After a transformative mountaintop experience, Jesus warned the three apostles who were with Him “to tell no one about what they had seen.” 

 

What had Peter, James, and John seen? 

 

They saw Jesus meeting with Moses, the founding leader of Israel, its first prophet and first judge. Even more to the point, with God’s help, Moses had pulled off a successful revolution: He led the Israelites out of bondage to the Tsar of that age, the Pharaoh of Egypt. In Jesus’ time, Moses would be the “poster boy” for zealots wishing to throw off the yoke of the Roman Empire. 

 

They also saw Jesus talking with Elijah, the “super” prophet of Israel’s history, who had stood up to an evil king and queen who worshipped a false god. As you can see in this week’s passage from 2 Kings, Elijah’s presence was considered essential to Israel’s protection against its enemies. When the fiery chariot appeared and he was whisked away, his disciple despaired for what would befall Israel’s army with Elijah gone. 

 

Meanwhile, Jesus and his three disciples had to travel down from their mountaintop experience to rejoin everyone else who had been living the usual mountain-bottom experiences. Many of those at the bottom, chafing under Roman rule, were wondering if Jesus might be the one who would overthrow Caesar.

 

Jesus warned His three disciples not to tell what they had seen until after He was raised from the dead. They didn’t understand that last part, but they kept silent. Telling those at the bottom of the mountain who Jesus met on the top of the mountain could be incendiary. 

 

What happened on the mountaintop needed to stay on the mountaintop—at least for the time being. 

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PHOTO (Tsar Nicholas & family, circa 1913, Russia):

http://www.saint-petersburg.com/royal-family/nicholas-ii/

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Friday morning is a great time to join with others to discuss God’s word. We meet at 8:00 on Zoom** or in person at Our Breakfast Place for an hour of Bible and fellowship. 

 

Did I mention the laughter?

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

 

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=69

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Bx_TransfigurationSunday.pdf

 

2 Kings 2:1-12

Psalm 50:1-6

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Mark 9:2-9

Transfiguration Sunday (February 11, 2024)

 

The Bogard House: Fact or Rumor? (a Steve Orr Epiphany reflection)

We had heard the rumors. They just seemed too amazing to be true. 

Moonshiners, Al Capone, Prohibition. A mansion situated deep in the land between the rivers where only the shacks of poor farmers should have been. 

We'd all heard the stories—not much more than rumors, really—about the long lost “Bogard House.”

 

Then, one day, we found it.

 

It’s a longish story that I will spare you. By the time one of our group found it and led the rest of us to it, that “land between the rivers” had been transformed. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) had turned those rivers into lakes. Today, the area is known as the Land Between the Lakes (LBL), a modern recreational playground. Long gone are the moonshiners and poor farmers. Still, far from the modern highway that runs the length of the LBL, some shacks still stand along nearly impassable dirt tracks.

 

It was on those dirt tracks we traveled that day, dodging pitfalls and uprooted trees, wondering which—if any—of the rumors were true. 

 

And then we came over a rise—and there it was.

 

We suddenly found ourselves staring at a large, multi-story home situated on the banks of Lake Barkley. The house had seen better days, but it was still impressive. In an area that, before TVA, was known for its poverty, that house would certainly have been a mansion. Someone with some money had lived there.

 

But…why? 

 

Why would anyone with that kind of money want to live way out there in the boonies? As it turned out, many of the stories we had heard were true. Joe Bogard, revered among his neighbors as the "King of Moonshiners," had lived there with his family. During Prohibition, moonshine was produced in the Land Between the Rivers and was sold all over the Midwest, including to certain folk up Chicago way. The rumor that airplanes landed on a strip in front of the house, loaded up hooch and flew it back to Al Capone? Well, we could never find evidence of that one.

 

But we did find four secret rooms.

 

As I say, though, the story of that day is longish. I only note this: We had heard of that house, stories passed down by other peoples from other times, and then we came to know it ourselves. Hearing and then knowing. That dynamic appears in this week's Isaiah passage. Isaiah was not expecting an answer when he posed his rhetorical questions: “Have you not heard? Do you not know?” Those questions were raised to remind the Israelites of something important. 

 

They had been hearing of God all their lives. There was a long and documented history of God doing amazing things among them. And yet they had let what they heard cease to be what they knew. They had become theological amnesiacs. God had become more of a rumor to them than a reality.

 

Isaiah spoke those words to remind the Israelites that he and all God's prophets who came before him spoke the words God gave them. The Israelites should receive them and then internalize them. We, too, can put our faith in them. We must seek what the scriptures speak of, ask for it, knock doors until we gain entry. God’s words are worth the effort. 

Hear and know.

 

 

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IMAGE: Adobe Express and Steve Orr

BONUS CONTENT

 

During the 1924 Paris Olympics, Eric Liddell recited part of today’s Isaiah passage after refusing to run a race on a Sunday. He would not budge, even though urged to do so by the Prince of Wales, himself. Instead, Eric preached from Isaiah at a church. Watch him in this brief clip from the film “Chariots of Fire.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjF59VB0h6g

 

Here’s the passage Eric Liddell spoke:

"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:28-31 NIV)

 

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Join us Friday morning at 8:00 for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place. We read scripture, discuss, and laugh. It’s a perfect way to start your weekend. 

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

 **Contact me for the Zoom link

 NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=64

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Bx_FifthSundayafterEpiphany.pdf

 

Isaiah 40:21-31

Psalm 147:1-11, 20c

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Mark 1:29-39

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (February 4, 2024)