A few of my favorite things: my wife, huge cameras you can walk inside, the Pacific ocean, eggs benedict with a thin lemon hollandaise, and cities, their stories and symbols conjoined in my birthday breakfast this year! Great spot for breakfast. Proof that heaven and earth still co-mingle. And this old school San Fran cafe, always makes me feel I’m in a movie from the 40’s. Or in a jazz song.

Being with my wife, having breakfast on the sea, and huge walk in cameras—these are a few of my favorite things….

This year’s birthday breakfast needed to contain eggs benedict with fresh crab, by the sea they came from of course! Decided to couple breakfast with bloody Mary’s, heavy on the horse radish and chili peppers, and fresh shrimp cocktail (Old school San Fran-breakfast, cocktails, fresh fish, good bread and eggs, all sourced close by-simple).

Each year i make a pilgrimage to this huge walk in pin hole camera. You just don’t see them every day. This one’s left over from a by gone era. Don’t get me started on this old camera obscura and how it works, basic early photography, before it was even cool, or when it was even cooler. Walking inside a camera is like a dream to me! Just considering perception makes me happy!

And literally we were seated right over the sea. And this is not a high end place, but more of a upscale dinner really, but the view makes it holistic for me. Plus I feel like i’m traveling in time. I would pick it for a last supper or breakfast!

The Cliff house has had five incarnations, the second and third are pictured here; the third was over the top to say the least! Lots of strange fires and ship wrecks! And the first radio signal was sent from here! Before that, morris code. It has a history of new forms of communication (hum…that seems to have continued). Anyways, lots of urban lore around it, but has been around since the late 1800’s on and off. Contains lots of symbols of this city. Fun delving and probing them today over breakfast. I like getting to know cities through their symbolic life.

Plus, i sat next to Robin William’s signed photo. We drove through his tunnel last week. I still miss and respect Robin! He used to live nearby the cafe many years ago.

Always nice to have that old school san fran vibe by the sea, and eggs benedict and the sea are proof that heaven and earth still interface! Anyways, these are a few of my favorite things. Nice birthday breakfast!

And to share life! I used to come here by myself when I lived out here, it’s much more meaningful to bring my wife! And we both love the sea! Her scottish blood, mine irish, we just feel Peace with its majesty! And we both love breakfast! Why not breakfast by the sea!!!

I feel like this old camera by the sea. I often return to it, and just look out in thanks…until I see, and can be me. I guess it is my native spirituality!

A man, always rests, slightly aware… it’s his job to have one eye on the storm and the deeper one on all he loves.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO FLOWERS!
Had to do a little homily from San Francisco, in the spirit of St Francis! So here’s a little flower sermon, since my hair is long now and I’m in San Fran:
The earth is always evangelizing as it says, so we are without excuse, the invisible qualities of God are all around us symbolized and encounter-able in nature. We, though, are more interrupted.
But the birds and trees are in the story directly. Our love gaze relieves their groan. We are writing our way into it, back home. They are not the ultimate, but are swimming in and expressing, and symbolizing it!
We tend to dip our toes into it, and retreat. Reality is too much for us. Even that amount of Love and Beauty intimidates us. Even a loving glance from a stranger, makes us shudder in unbelief. Embarrasses us. Causes us to retract, enacting the old shame in all its fear of beholding fully into being seen and so seeing, in Love.
Are we afraid to encounter it, or of being laid bare by it? If we see a single green glade well, will we be forced to unfurl ourselves? If we see God in a leaf, do we look the other way? Heaven and earth kissing in front of us-does that embarrass us? Do we fear their intimacies?!
A kingdom already in our midst, in tangible art all around us daily. A girl’s wrist in afternoon light, at any cafe, or a single flower, even at night, tells the whole gospel. A single sunset alone is opera, any child could not ignore or tune out! In art, we simply, and in a rudimentary way, emulate those hourly crescendos, we each walk by daily.
Our cat snow seems to get it-he is less worried about doctrine than being and love.
The inner life of leaves alone, their unity in diversity, compels me towards…not to mention the overt overture of flowers in their multifarious silent but sonic praises daily!
Perhaps we need more deeply to behold the gospel according to flowers, the inner geometry of the animal kingdom, if we can’t hear it elsewhere!
That way, we can’t just react to how poorly humans carry it. Nature speaks clearly like poetry. And it’s harder for the heart to argue with a poem.
Sorry for getting homiletic. But nature and my nature, compelled me too! What dense poetry we live in. Our aquarium compels us to learn to swim. Thanks for letting me go hippie on this sermon! Enjoying preaching from the city of flowers in your hair. Good reminder to notice them.
One old preacher said: “One can see the gospel in anything, if you look deeply enough.”
And as St Francis said: “If you look at a single flower, not to mention a person, deeply enough, in Love, you will meet God, and be changed.”
“God is not so “other” that He did not come down, incarnate, and express Himself; we can know His invisible qualities through His art which is all around us. A flower is enough proof to learn to live well in Love.”
(End of my hippie sermon from the flowers of San Francis’ city!)