Chivalry Is Not Dead

Years ago, before my family moved and when I was still going to church on a regular basis, I had several guy friends that I would hang out with on a regular basis with some of my other friends.  Whether we were at church or out somewhere, they would always insist on holding the doors open for the girls.  It was one of those simple little things that I just got kind of used to.  A good guy will hold open the door for the girls to go in first.  That was probably at least three years ago.  Since then I've fallen out of contact with most of them.  The only guy I see on a regular basis is my best friend who's like a younger brother to me and the group of friends that we hang out with doesn't generally actually go out anywhere, though if we do, he grabs the door for us young women.  Being the only guy in our little group, he has to act the gentleman which he does perfectly.  But aside from him, the only guys I see are at work and unless you're some really gorgeous girl or an older woman, you get the doors slammed in your face.

Back To School?

Okay you see that picture.  That could be me in a couple years.  Well, not the food, but you know, the hand garnishing that amazing looking dish.  Okay, I'll give you some context so you can stop looking confused, or if you're not looking confused, well, then, I don't know.  Anyway, since moving back home, there are times when I'll flip on the tv, not very often, but on occasion when I'm eating or doing something in the kitchen.  Most of the time there's nothing good or appropriate on so I've taken to watching Food Network, because, hey, I like to cook and bake and its always interesting to see what other people are fixing and get some good ideas.  My parents noticed this since I fix dinner a couple days a week and usually when they get home that's what I have on.  As we were watching one of the shows while having dinner a week or so ago, my dad made a comment that I should consider going to culinary school since I like to cook so much.  I was a bit surprised, because, well, culinary isn't exactly one of the "practical" college degrees that my parents used to always suggest I go for.  Now don't get me wrong, I know my parents have always had my best intentions at heart when they suggested those practical degrees, but I know I could never do something like business or accounting or even something like being a teacher.  No, no, no.  I would die of boredom or in the case of being a teacher, I think I would lose my mind trying to deal with kids.  I like kids, I think they're cute and all, but I only like them from a distance if I don't know them.  The only kids I actually like dealing with are ones that I know and even then I don't think I could do that everyday unless they were my own.  But that is in the far distant future and not something I'm going to worry about right now.

Surprise and Delight

So, again, I'm blogging about what I'm learning at the tea room. There are just so many awesome things to learn there, I could probably write several books. But what I wanted to talk about today, is serving. I'm a server at the tea room. Now for me, most of the time I think of a server as someone who takes your order, brings your food, then maybe checks in on you every great once in a while. There's really not a whole lot of interaction and for the most part, they have this attitude of, "This is a job, this is a job, this a job." They don't seem to be there to really serve.

At the tea room, I'm really discovering that being a server means to be a servant to the customers. It's not just a matter of, "here's your food," and plunking it on the table and walking away. It's interacting with the guests, asking them how their day's going and really wanting to know the answer. It's working hard to make their table look beautiful, making sure the pillows are all plumped and placed where they should be, and making sure the areas vacuumed clean. All little things that can make a big difference. It's making sure the food trays look absolutely delicious and beautiful at the same time. It's tasting the tea multiple times and making sure it tastes perfect so the guests can enjoy every sip. It's making sure that no matter how rushed we are, everything is done excellently. It's making sure that our guests come first before anything else. There are a hundred little things we do just to make that time relaxing and refreshing for them.

Steeping in God's Word

Okay, so weird title, right? Well, it is unless you're into tea. So, again, I've been learning a LOT at the tea room. Everything from how to set up food trays and arrange the food on them to setting the tables, from making tea to making resets. There's a whole lot to learn, but something I got thinking about now, is something that I just learned from watching the tea being made.

Now, when you make tea, you only want to let it steep for a certain amount of time or else it either gets really bitter or it loses all its flavor. Steep it too little and you get watery tea. Steep it just right and you have the perfect pot of tea. With that in mind, I kind of thought of a kind of "parable" similar to the one about the seed and the soil. This is kind of how I figured it.

Time To Pray

So, as most of you probably know, I am now working at the St. James Tea Room. It is truly the best job I have ever had, despite the fact that I have the tendency to stress myself out and over-think things. Still, God has been teaching me a lot through it and I wouldn't change a thing. And today, God taught me a truly important lesson.

Each morning, before we start work, everyone working the first shift gets together and we have little devotion. This morning, one of my dear friends made a comment that stuck with me. She said that she always makes sure to pray that everything will go well during the seating before each seating. She also said, that the days that she doesn't pray, she struggles. For me, that was an excellent reminder for me to be sure to pray before each seating. I hadn't done that on Wednesday and I had struggled to keep up with everything and get things done. Today, I made sure to pray and ask God to help me, and it was amazing how much better everything went! It was just totally in awe of how God helped me out. I didn't feel as stressed and everything went pretty smoothly.

I was thankful for the reminder, to pray to God at all times, even about little things, or things that seem insignificant or just straight forward. God can do amazing things when we trust Him and let Him take control. And every prayer brings us one step closer to our Heavenly Father.

This post was published on Friday, May 6, 2011. 

Men and Guns

Earlier this week I had the absolutely amazing and very fun opportunity to act in a short film a friend was making.  Needless to say, it was pretty much one of the best things that has happened to me this year and served as a way for me to see how different theatre is from film acting.  Personally, after Monday, I have to say that I really like film acting.  There's something intoxicating about it.  Maybe its the realness and the environment.  I'm not totally sure, but I loved it.  In any case, it was an action movie, so there was a lot of running around, some fight scenes, and, obviously since we all had guns as you can see in the picture, some firefight scenes.

In His Time

So, yesterday I blogged that I had decided that it was high time that I turn back to God and give Him control of my life cause I just hadn't been doing that and I'd been doing my own thing. Well, yesterday, I was given the perfect example of God taking care of His people if the choose to follow Him. For months now, ever since I came back home from college, I have been searching for a job. I've turned in innumerable applications, spent hours on my computer filling out applications there, flipped through newspaper ads, gone online, etc. I've gone into town several days a week to go check out places and did everything I thought I could. Thanksgiving Day, my grandfather tells me that he saw in the newspaper that Smith's was hiring. It didn't say which Smith's just in general. He told me to go online and fill out an application. So, that night I filled out the application, fully excepting it to be overlooked like every single time before.

Half a Year of Learning

So basically we're about half way through the year 2010. A little over half a year actually. On the one hand, it doesn't seem like a lot of time, but for me it's been almost seven months of a lot lessons learned. This is my first blog attempt and I'm basically doing it just as a way to just express thoughts, opinions, dreams, desires, etc.

So, just kind of a brief summary of the first half of this year. The first five months of this year were pretty much spent at college. Those five months were some of the most stressful, painful, worst, but also educational months I have ever had. Despite the fact that they were terrible, they helped me get a lot of things in perspective. I learned a lot about relationships, what's needed to make them work, things to do and not to do, and also they helped me to redefine the kind of guy I was looking for. I also learned some lessons with school. With all the pain and stress and self-doubt, I really let my classes slip, failing one class and not doing so well in others. The result was the lowest GPA score I had ever had and I almost lost one of my scholarships.

So for me the lesson was that no matter how bad life is, when it comes to school, you leave all the bad stuff at the door and just get things done. The doubt, the pain and everything, you can't let that take over and ruin your life. You have to keep things under control, in perspective. The other thing about those months is that all the hardships drew me back to God. The school I attend does not have a very good Christian/church community and I never really developed any kind of close Christian friendships, so I found that I had started to slip away some. Those months made me run back to the one person I knew would always forgive me and take me back: Jesus. Since then I've been working at building my relationship with Christ and getting back into my Bible reading.