An Advent

[To the folks from Elizabeth Esther's blogstravaganza: this current post, "An Advent," won out over a close competitor for the monthly carnival slot. That other post is featured here. It represents what is perhaps another facet of my blogger-personality, appearing as differences in topic and perhaps style. In this case, I am discussing the intersection between people with disabilities and cultural ideals of sexiness. I talk about Aimee Mullins, conjoined twins, where 'sexiness' comes from, and moral reactions to these things.]

Today is the first day of the liturgical year, beginning with the season of Advent. If you are interested in what Advent is, I will yet again encourage you to visit Conversion Diary, which is quite likely one of the Internet's best wikis on all such things, even though it's not officially a wiki. I won't be talking too much about Advent as a general topic, though. Rather, I want to talk about this Advent, which marks or is marked by a unique advent for me.

(In case you didn't visit Jennifer Fulwiler's blog, I should at the very least tell you that Advent is the first season of the liturgical year and one during which we prepare ourselves for the birth of Christ, celebrated on 25 December. The end of the liturgical year, a season known somewhat anticlimactically as Ordinary Time, is the time in the liturgy during which we recall Christ's reign on Earth. Thus in the turning over from this last Saturday to today, we move from Christ's reign to a pre-Christ's reign time, a sort of harkening to the Old Testament which is itself a preparation for Christ. That's not a pre-Christ's reign time in that during this season the sacrifice is somehow moot and we're all for the next few weeks damned. No. It's rather a symbolic sort of thing, a remembering sort of thing. Anyway, Advent is a time of New Year's resolutions--or positive personal change--as we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ, both as born in Bethleham and as returning again at the end of all things.)

This Sunday, you may recall, is the first Sunday that I became a server at Saint Thomas' Anglican Church. If I were asked to give my denomination, I would say either that I was baptised and confirmed Lutheran or that I am non-denominational. I recall three churches of which I would have called myself a regular member of the congregation: the Lutheran one (St. Paul's) previously described, the evangelical/non-denominational/student church (Bethel) at school, and St. Thomas' here in Fort McMurray. Bethel did not have an alb-clad worship team, but St. Paul's did and during the last two years of elementary school and to a lesser extent the first year of high school, I served there as an acolyte. (I was also Assistant Minister once, but I don't remember much about that.) Anyway, one thing I missed when going to Bethel was the ritual, the altar space, the formal roles, and, as a sort of crystallization of all of that, the alb itself. Here at St. Thomas' we have both the energy of Bethel and the ritual of St. Paul's, and when they called for servers (of which 'acolyte' is in the Anglican church a subtype), I volunteered.

I completed server training a few weeks ago, but in the first two Sunday's following that the other new servers served, and then last Sunday there was a baptism and so one of the girls from the more experienced lot served for that. This Sunday, then, was my first day as a server. It is my luck (solely a figure of speech, I'm sure) that my first day as a server was the first day of Advent, and thus the first day of the liturgical year. Truly a day of firsts.

As far as St. Thomas' itself goes, this is also a time of turn-over. It doesn't match up as neatly as my first, but it's still interesting. Rev. Fraser is going to be consecrated as a Bishop soon and presiding in Athabasca. Thus St. Thomas' will be out a priest. (Rev. Leslie Hand will still be 'our' priest, but she can't always make it Sundays due to commitments at another church.) Today was the second or third worship that I have attended which Rev. Fraser did not himself attend. Rather, the deacon and one of the lay-readers (David and Lori respectively) made up the worship team with myself. Fraser will be back for some more Sundays, but not many more. The sort of service we had today will be more and more common, and so while it's not an actual first, it is among the first and is a taste for what will follow in a few weeks.

However, this leads into a more human story. That is, because Fraser was absent, we did not have communion this Sunday. The sort of service I prepared for was a communion service, and the cues I was watching for were communion service cues. This means I got awful lost and confused when I realized that a central part of the ritual would simply not be there, and so I had no idea when to do things. For instance, in the three songs before communion, you prepare the table during the second song and receive the offering during the third song. So I know that when the priest starts getting ready for the sacrament, I should be getting out the bread box and then the flasks, and then on the song after that I will get the offering plate, receive the offering, and place it on the altar. But since we had no communion, the pre-offering liturgy would be different and my other cue (the priest preparing the sacrement) would be missing. So I was lost.

After some fumbling, though, and some kind guidance from David, I got everything done on time. The good news also was that Lori hadn't led service very many times before and she was nervous too, though she certainly didn't show it.

There were other fumbles than that, but not major ones. David and Lori were very nice (and presumably still are) and it all worked out, and likely no one in the congregation was the wiser.

In a way I was disappointed that there was no communion. I would have liked to have helped prepare the host. It seems magical to me, and I wanted to be part of that. Now, I dislike your common Christian sayings because I fear that through overuse they have lost their meaning. Notwithstanding this, it occured to me during service that this disappointment is another instance of God's plans superceding our own. I had wanted to be part of communion as a way of strengthening my own bond with Christ through that ritual. The whole process was something that I craved, and I craved it solely because I wanted it to make me feel more connected to Christ. This I did not get. Rather, I served during a service without a communion. My focus was on other things then, like singing loudly enough and praying loudly enough and getting my cues right. I was forced to trust that David and Lori, and through them God, would help me perform this role properly and help me help the congregation worship during a time of transition.

I am not saying that I was in the main disappointed, but it wasn't what I was expecting. And don't get me wrong: I have not walked away from this saying, "Now I can trust God and trust the worship team! I am now focused on helping the congregation and not myself, and I can now find Jesus in the service elsewhere than in the host!" It would be nice if these were true, but they aren't really. I don't trust well at all and I barely think of the congregation and on a bad day I have a hard time finding Jesus anywhere, even in the host.

I knew that my peformance as server would not transform me from someone feeling lost and distant from God into a zealous and whole 'little Christ' who is pumping the Spirit out to the congregation. While I am sure that the sow's ear can become a silk purse as much as water once became wine, the transformation from me into Super-me nonetheless seemed a little unlikely even in light of that. I was, however, hoping for some magical connection, some sudden and undeniable affirmation of my community in Christ. Rather, what I did learn, if it was learning, was a lesson that is integral to Advent: that I am not there yet; that I need preparation and that my change is a process, not an event; that I have a long way to go.

I read Narnia books and see how exciting it is that Aslan comes in at the end and turns them into heroes. What I conveniently forget is that Edmund had to wallow in the Witch's prison. That Eustace had to become a dragon (or become disabled and disfigured, which you get by reading what it's like for him to be dragon) and then undergo what amounted to torture at Aslan's claws. That Aravis and Shasta had to trek across the desert with lions hot on their heels (like Jonah, in a way). That Polly and Eustace had to fight a losing battle amidst sorrow at the ends of times. That they had to do all of these things before they became knights (or friends) of Narnia.

The question, of course, is what sort of change is needed? I don't know, but I suppose neither did Edmund, or Eustace, or Aravis, or Polly, or Abraham, or Hosea, or Peter, or Paul. What I do know is that I will start paying better attention to the liturgical year. I don't know what to do to observe that, but at least I will keep an eye on it. And I will stop expecting magical transformations at the appropriate time, not because they can't happen but because they likely won't if you're looking for them.

7 Quick Takes (X)

1. I realized this morning how difficult to read the last two posts are. My apologies.

2. Today's Quick Takes will by necessity be unlike previous ones. If I were to try to encapsulate each of the past days in one take, each 'paragraph' would become a miniature novel in itself. So I must paint with broad strokes in one take, and then find interesting moments for the others. Which is to say, I spent this week on vacation, visiting friends in Ontario, as you may already know. I arrived in Oakville as described last Friday; I spent Saturday in Oakville with my brother; I traveled to Kingston on Sunday via the Via; I met up with assorted friends and went to a birthday party on Monday; I met up with a professor and friends, and attempted to go to a birthday party on Tuesday; I met up with even more friends and supposedly talked authorially on Wednesday; I took the Via to Windsor on Thursday, where I am now (Friday) visiting a friend from yore, who I met back in Grade 3 or so.

3. My brother and I tried to make putt-putt boats on Saturday. If you don't know what a putt-putt boat is, look here. Anyway, as is implied by "tried," it didn't happen. In this case, it was due to distractions + time constraints - adequate supplies. While Nick was watching the epoxy set (OK, maybe he wasn't actually doing that) I was looking through some of his books, including one of the art of Iian (sp?) MacCaig and one of animals; in the former there were lots of movie concept art and at least one picture of a centaurine, while in the latter there was a photograph of a hyaena eating a shark.

4. On Monday I got to play with Courtney S's rabbit, named Jazzy. This was after I met Courtney at the Tea Store; she eventually had to get ready for work, so I walked her home and got to meet her rabbit. I felt awful, though, when I realized I had been late. I had written Courtney - 2:30 - Tea Store in my makeshift agenda, but it turns out that we had agreed to meet at 2:00, and I had apparently gotten confused when I wrote it down. I could try and say that being around a pretty girl just melted my brain, but that's more Jon's forte, and, anyway, I wasn't around said pretty girl when I wrote it down. I really have no excuse.
(And I am kidding; Courtney doesn't have that effect on me, notwithstanding that she is a wonderful girl to have tea with.)

5. I met many, many people. Just in case you were unsure as to that point. Frequently, it was over coffee, though more likely tea. My week has been divided between waiting for people to get off class/work, and rushing from one appointment to another. Of course, no appointment is undesirable, but it can make me fret that I'm supposed to be somewhere else at the moment.
At the Brew Pub I was waiting to meet some people for a birthday party. I only knew the birthday girl, so was somewhat nervous--I do not like being the 'lost puppy' who follows the one person around, but it's also hard to be outgoing as the only white guy in a crowd of Asians. But I had an escape plan, which was that I could only be there for half an hour anyway: I had to be at a poker party at 9:30 and, given the length I needed to walk and the fact that I wanted to pick up a fruit platter on the way, I would have to leave at 9. But then the birthday crowd never did show up. I still don't know what happened to them.
And then, as I walked to said poker party (which turned out to just be sitting and chatting with two friends, Jamie and Jude), I somehow managed to work up a pain in my knee that has lasted until at least this morning. Remember how I hurt my knee before? I wonder if it's related somehow.

6. I should mention the conversations I've had about my future. I met with a professor--Prof. Dujardin, for those who know her--with whom I discussed my indecision about where to go from here. In our conversation she asked a number of questions, which I have yet to answer. We also came up with ways of finding the answer, which quite appropriately involve metaphrasis. I say this is appropriate because we discussed the concept and practice of metaphrasis during the classes I had with her. I have no idea if Wikipedia has a page on metaphrasis or not. I can see it being one of the things which slips through Wikipedia's cracks, like Dene dream walking. Actually, from what I can tell, that last one got through Google's cracks until I posted about it here. Anyway, she also asked whether I could even envision myself being anywhere but grad school, which is a valid point. I am feeling better about grad school now. I have to think about whether to do Creative Writing or English, though. Or Culture Studies, which I heard of quite recently.
And then immediately after that, I spoke to Dan and Brenda from Navs about how to deal with my upcoming year in Fort McMurray. More later, perhaps.

7. And the trip to Windsor was interesting. I took a Renaissance car from Kingston to Toronto, which I think I might have found less comfortable altogether than a regular car, though it is certainly classier-looking. On the train from Toronto to Windsor (which is a long haul, in case you didn't know), a woman went to sit next to another somewhere ahead of me, asking, "May I sit here?" "I snore," the other warned, to which the first answered, "I'm deaf." "Well, then," said the second, "this will work perfectly."
And then there was utter desperation getting to my friend's place, as I did not know the address. After several hasty phone calls at a payphone, I still couldn't get anyone to stalk Facebook to see what said friend had written on my profile, but in the end I convinced an at-first-reluctant computer-nerd in the station to get me Internet access. The whole escapade took half an hour, but in the end I had the address written down. (Blessings to all computer nerds. At the very least, the near future depends on them.) Then I caught a cab (which was made difficult by the fact that some vandal ripped the relevant page from the phonebook in the station)... but he didn't recognize the address. The girl at dispatch did, though. Then, as we drove, we talked about employment, and he caught wind of my time in Fort McMurray. Well, now I am to call his brother with the phone number for job hiring for the Divirsified bus company. I heard a rumour that they were willing to get you your bus license if you'll work for them, as they are desperately short-staffed. Since he (the brother) has his bus license already, they will hopefully pay to bring him out there and for a place to live. He has family back in Palestine? Arabia? to which he sends money, so he cannot afford to go to Fort McMurray unless he has a place to live already set up. the driver was uncomfortable earnest about how his family will be my friends forever if I help his brother by getting him phone numbers. I would have done it without such grand promises, and now I feel more like this is a sort of long-term family-to-family contract than a simple favour.
But, anyway, now I'm in Windsor with my friend, in the St. Clair residence. There is not much to say, except that perhaps you will be interested to know that Quinn is a metalhead and that we listened to some interesting female-fronted symphonic metal bands. Tomorrow morning I fly out with the lark and will be in the Mac sometime in the afternoon.

Make sure you visit the Quick Takes Queen.

Observation on Tea

OK.

I was in the library the other day, editing stuff. I was struggling with wakefulness, so I went to get something caffienated (sp?) at the Library Cafe. I was in line and at the last minute I decided that I would get a tea instead of a London Fog. I've grown to really like London Fogs after some friends recommended them and I was trying to find new sources of caffeine than Diet Coke. I like the smell of them, but also the taste, and the Library Cafe makes excellent ones. However, a regular tea is cheaper, so I order that. I've never had Earl Grey tea before. I had this mint tea meant to make me sleep better, and I thought it was so boring. I had a Chai tea once at a friend's place, and I thought it was pretty boring--not as numbingly dull as the mint stuff, but still not fun. But I love the smell of Earl Grey, so I thought, this is the tea for me. I also let it steep a really long time in there.

I was so bored. It's just like faintly-flavoured hot water! And not faintly flavoured, like flavoured water. Flavoured water is like pop next to tea. Maybe I need to dump even more cream and sugar to give it body. I don't know. It was better when I got to the bottom, but that might be because I did some serious tea-bag squeezing down there. It had dregs, perhaps, and was therefore stronger. Whatever the reason, I was bored. From now on, London Fog.

Or I could try more experiments with coffee beverages again. Someone told me I need to get a lighter roast; a friend of mine worked in a coffee shop and she explained to me the ins and outs of different roasts. Apparently, what they don't tell clientelle is that the longer they roast the bean, the less caffeine there is. A lighter roast technically has more caffeine in it, but it doesn't possess as strong a taste; the strong taste of an espresso, for instance, jolts people, and drinkers erroneously associate a strong flavour with more caffeine, creating a placebo effect that wakes them up. However, if I don't like the bitterness of a dark roast, I ought to try a light roast blend, armed with the knowledge that it, in fact, contains more caffeine...and so hopefully I'll get the full chemical and placebo combo. Or I could stick with my overpriced tea drink.

New Year

Apologies for the extraordinarily long time since I've posted. I'll try really hard in the future.

In the meantime, here's an article I read on-line that interests me.

It comes from http://www.slate.com/id/2180301/?GT1=10837, accessed January 1st, 2008.

hey, wait a minute: The conventional wisdom debunked.
Don't Fear StarbucksWhy the franchise actually helps mom and pop coffeehouses.By Taylor ClarkPosted Friday, Dec. 28, 2007, at 7:35 AM ET

The first time Herb Hyman spoke with the rep from Starbucks, in 1991, the life of his small business flashed before his eyes. For three decades, Hyman's handful of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf stores had been filling the caffeine needs of Los Angeles locals and the Hollywood elite: Johnny Carson had his own blend there; Jacques Cousteau arranged to have Hyman's coffee care packages meet his ship at ports around the world; and Dirty Dozen leading man Lee Marvin often worked behind the counter with Hyman for fun. But when the word came down that the rising Seattle coffee juggernaut was plotting its raid on Los Angeles, Hyman feared his life's work would be trampled underfoot. Starbucks even promised as much. "They just flat-out said, 'If you don't sell out to us, we're going to surround your stores,' " Hyman recalled. "And lo and behold, that's what happened—and it was the best thing that ever happened to us."
Ever since Starbucks blanketed every functioning community in America with its cafes, the one effect of its expansion that has steamed people the most has been the widely assumed dying-off of mom and pop coffeehouses. Our cities once overflowed with charming independent coffee shops, the popular thinking goes, until the corporate steamroller known as Starbucks came through and crushed them all, perhaps tossing the victims a complimentary Alanis Morrisette CD to ease the psychic pain. In a world where Starbucks operates nearly 15,000 stores, with six new ones opening each day, isn't this a reasonable assumption? How could momma and poppa coffee hope to survive? But Hyman didn't misspeak—and neither did the dozens of other coffeehouse owners I've interviewed. Strange as it sounds, the best way to boost sales at your independently owned coffeehouse may just be to have Starbucks move in next-door.
That's certainly how it worked out for Hyman. Soon after declining Starbucks's buyout offer, Hyman received the expected news that the company was opening up next to one of his stores. But instead of panicking, he decided to call his friend Jim Stewart, founder of the Seattle's Best Coffee chain, to find out what really happens when a Starbucks opens nearby. "You're going to love it," Stewart reported. "They'll do all of your marketing for you, and your sales will soar." The prediction came true: Each new Starbucks store created a local buzz, drawing new converts to the latte-drinking fold. When the lines at Starbucks grew beyond the point of reason, these converts started venturing out—and, Look! There was another coffeehouse right next-door! Hyman's new neighbor boosted his sales so much that he decided to turn the tactic around and start targeting Starbucks. "We bought a Chinese restaurant right next to one of their stores and converted it, and by God, it was doing $1 million a year right away," he said.
Hyman isn't the only one who has experienced this Starbucks reverse jinx. Orange County, Calif., coffeehouse owner Martin Diedrich started hyperventilating when he first heard a Starbucks was opening "within a stone's throw" of his cafe, yet he reported similar results: "I didn't suffer whatsoever. Ultimately I prospered, in no small part because of it." Ward Barbee, the recently passed founder of the coffee trade magazine Fresh Cup, saw this happen scores of times. "Anyone who complains about having a Starbucks put in next to you is crazy," he told me. "You want to welcome the manager, give them flowers. It should be the best news that any local coffeehouse ever had."
Now, lest we get carried away with the happy civic results of Starbucks' global expansion, I hasten to point out that the company isn't exactly thrilled to have this effect on its local competitors' sales. Starbucks is actually trying to be ruthless in its store placements; it wants those independents out of the way, and it frequently succeeds at displacing them through other means, such as buying a mom and pop's lease or intimidating them into selling out. Beyond the frothy drinks and the touchy-feely decor, Starbucks runs on considerable competitive fire. Consider Tracy Cornell, a former Starbucks real-estate dealmaker who found and locked up a staggering 900 North American retail sites for the company in her decade-plus career. "It was sort of piranha-like," Cornell told me of her work for Starbucks. "It was just talking to landlords, seeing who was behind on their rent. All I needed was an opening like that, where the landlord wanted out. I was looking for tenants who were weak."
As much as independent coffeehouse owners generally enjoy having a Starbucks close at hand, most of them seem to have a story or two of someone from the company trying to undercut them. And occasionally a new Starbucks will hurt a mom and pop—even drive them out of business. For example, in 2006, cafe owner Penny Stafford filed a federal antitrust suit against the company, alleging a nearby Starbucks illegally sank her Bellevue, Wash., coffeehouse. Starbucks employees were passing out samples right outside her front door, Stafford claims, even though the company's nearest outlet was over 300 feet away.
But closures like this have been the exception, not the rule. In its predatory store placement strategy, Starbucks has been about as lethal a killer as a fluffy bunny rabbit. Business for independently owned coffee shops has been nothing less than exceptional as of late. Here's a statistic that might be surprising, given the omnipresence of the Starbucks empire: According to recent figures from the Specialty Coffee Association of America, 57 percent of the nation's coffeehouses are still mom and pops. Just over the five-year period from 2000 to 2005—long after Starbucks supposedly obliterated indie cafes—the number of mom and pops grew 40 percent, from 9,800 to nearly 14,000 coffeehouses. (Starbucks, I might add, tripled in size over that same time period. Good times all around.) So much for the sharp decline in locally owned coffee shops. And prepare yourself for some bona fide solid investment advice: The failure rate for new coffeehouses is a mere 10 percent, according to the market research firm Mintel, which means the vast majority of cafes stay afloat no matter where Starbucks drops its stores. Compare that to the restaurant business, where failure is the norm.
So now that we know Starbucks isn't slaughtering mom and pop, the thorny question remains: Why is Starbucks amplifying their business? It's actually pretty simple. In contrast to so-called "downtown killers" like Home Depot or Wal-Mart, Starbucks doesn't enjoy the kinds of competitive advantages that cut down its local rivals' sales. Look at Wal-Mart. It offers lower prices and a wider array of goods than its small-town rivals, so it acts like a black hole on local consumers, sucking in virtually all of their business. Starbucks, on the other hand, is often more expensive than the local coffeehouse, and it offers a very limited menu; you'll never see discounts or punch cards at Starbucks, nor will you see unique, localized fare (or—let's be honest—fare that doesn't make your tongue feel like it's dying). In other words, a new Starbucks doesn't prevent customers from visiting independents in the same way Wal-Mart does—especially since coffee addicts need a fix every day, yet they don't always need to hit the same place for it. When Starbucks opens a store next to a mom and pop, it creates a sort of coffee nexus where people can go whenever they think "coffee." Local consumers might have a formative experience with a Java Chip Frappuccino, but chances are they'll branch out to the cheaper, less crowded, and often higher-quality independent cafe later on. So when Starbucks blitzed Omaha with six new stores in 2002, for instance, business at all coffeehouses in town immediately went up as much as 25 percent.
The key for independent coffeehouse owners who want to thrive with a Starbucks next-door is that they don't try to imitate Starbucks. (As many failed coffee chains can attest, there's no way to beat Starbucks at being Starbucks.) The locally owned cafes that offer their own unique spin on the coffeehouse experience—and, crucially, a quality brew—are the ones that give the Seattle behemoth fits. Serve an appetizing enough cappuccino, and you can even follow Hyman's lead and take aim at almighty Starbucks, where automated espresso machines now pull consistently middling shots at the touch of a button—no employee craftsmanship required.
After all, if Starbucks can make a profit by putting its stores right across the street from each other, as it so often does, why couldn't a unique, well-run mom and pop do even better next-door? And given America's continuing thirst for exorbitantly priced gourmet coffee drinks, there's a lot of cash out there for the taking. As coffee consultant Dan Cox explained, "You can't do better than a cup of coffee for profit. It's insanity. A cup of coffee costs 16 cents. Once you add in labor and overhead, you're still charging a 400 percent markup—not bad! Where else can you do that?" Until Americans decide they need to pay four bucks a pop every morning for a custom-baked, designer-toast experience, probably nowhere.

As is always the case, I strongly advocate that you examine biases and weaknesses is data ... but as far as I can tell from preliminary considerations, the 'arguement' (there hardly is one) isn't flawed and the information doesn't seem too preposterous.
It seems to me like we have to go easy on our corporate-bashing, yet again.

Update: A Canadian survey shows that 66% of Canadians buy their coffee at Tim Horton's.