West Texas "Starbucks"

Five days in Snyder, Texas and I finally find my oasis in the desert.  I have located the small cup-o-joe establishment called "The Manhattan."  I love this place.  It's got art on the walls, it's on the town square, it's got a front porch with cable-spool tables and yard chairs, great music and great coffee-drinks.  It's got a local flair about it, but it could be in the arts district of Houston or the family-friendly downtown of Fort Worth.

I'm sitting and working a little and lo and behold a friend walks in and sits down and we share a conversation for about 30 minutes.  She leaves and I think to myself, "What a great third place!"  

"Third Places" are those middle-ground, neutral locations (not work and not home) where people have traditional gathered to converse and share thoughts and ideas about life, family, work and even spirituality.  They seem to be more available in larger populated areas, rather than rural communities.  I guess that is because they may not sustain the customer volume that is needed to maintain the business end.  For instance, i've been here working for almost 2 hours now and I have only seen about 10 people come into the shop.  At home, I see 10 people in Starbucks every 8 minutes.  It's just a volume issue.

I actually think I like the Manhattan better than Starbucks though.  It's a community place.  It's a neighborhood place, run by neighborhood people.  I feel at home with the urban feel when I'm inside, but I loved sitting on the porch gazing at the courthouse and seeing the 4x4 trucks pass by, as well as the painted store windows supporting the local Snyder Tiger football team.  Oh, how fresh.

IKE UPDATE:  I am going to be in Snyder for another 4 days, it looks like.  Not because I can't get into my house, but because I can't fly back to Houston with Graysen yet.  Rhonda and Garin are at my parents' home about an hour away from us.  We apparently have a little bit of shingle damage on our house, but that's it.  Our electricity is back on.  Rhonda is planning to go walk-through the house to see how it made it on the inside, but all indications are that we came through unscathed.  We may all be separated, but we are all safe.  Thanks to all of you who have texted or called to check on us.  We are blessed to have friends like you.

Hurricanes and Neighborhoods

Man, I love living on the coast.  This is just plain crazy.  The girls have evacuated north to the Woodlands and Graysen and I are in Snyder, Texas.  I am working with a church here as they transition to neighborhood small groups.  It's crazy.

The senior pastor at FBC, Snyder had a new baby this week and so he asked me to go ahead and preach Sunday morning.  It should be fun.  This is the same church I did Family Camp for last month.  It also happens to be the church I spent my high school years attending.  I owe the church a lot.

I spoke a little to a group last night about my journey to neighborhood.  Today was a great day because I got to hang out with their senior staff and talk about neighborhood.  I talked more than I probably needed to, but they got me going!  I love this journey that they are on.  I am extremely curious as to how the model of neighborhood is going to play out in a rural town.  It's really interesting that in rural communities don't want to be known so much and in urban/suburban communities people long to be known.  One of the things we have done is attempted to capture some of the rural community feel of connection and implant it into the suburban context of our church.  Our implementation isn't always the way we want it to be, but the we are striving to be more connected to those around us.  I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend is sort of crazy, so I may not post again until next week. By then, Ike will have passed over our home and hopefully left it in tact.  After a day like today and a night like last night, I can't wait to get back to my neighborhood though!