Panera, Piety, and Pipes

The title of this blog post may seem a bit odd, though the alliteration should provide evidence that I have a point to make.

I was sitting recently in a Panera located across from Lake Eola Park in downtown Orlando. I've gone to many different Paneras. It's a nice place to read or meet a friend. The pastries are pretty good and usually there's pleasant music playing in the background.

Tea is my common drink of choice because it's cheap and I can get as many refills as I want. I'm sitting there reading an autobiography of Mark Twain edited in 1959 (a necessity since Twain could never seem to keep on track). I look over to my right and there's a sketch drawing of two men making loaves of bread. But it is what is missing that is important. There's no signature. Who drew this? Like the picture seen here, much if not all of the artwork I see in Panera is manufactured.

I'm reading Twain's description of his childhood, eating fresh vegetables and enjoying pies, living simply. I take a sip of my tea and though I knew it before, I only realized now that the British Breakfast blend is terrible. It's one of the few that are unflavored that go well with milk and honey. I could only get through a few more paragraphs and then I had to get out of there, pitching my unfinished second cup in the trash. The coffee is not that good either. May be if Panera served International Delight.

The Panera tea will not touch my lips as long as I can help it. I knew of a really cool hangout in Winter Park where I had once had a pot of excellent tea. I determined that's where I would go when I had some time to do so. This past Friday provided that opportunity and I drove to Austin's Coffee. Since the establishment allows smoking outside I packed up my pipe and Sherlock's Secret tobacco.

I was inspired to take my pipe based on something I heard in a lecture, which led me to find the quote on a blog, which led me, ad fontes, to the source of the quote.  While lifting weights I like to listen to lectures on ITunes U (keep your judgments to yourself). Andrew Hoffecker was answering some questions on the understanding of Christian piety at Old Princeton seminary. He said that at Princeton the piety presented "is a bi-product of the learning of the truth." He then offers a paraphrase of a quote by C.S. Lewis, who everyone likes to quote. In the Introduction to St. Athanasius' De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, Lewis states,

"For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."

Not sure what this means for women. I don't personally know of any who smoke pipes and I don't think lighting up a Virginia Slims, even if one has come a long way (baby), would be the best practice. Perhaps just taking in the second-hand pipe smoke?  Pipe-smoking, to me, is a reflective activity. It's not done quickly, with the remnants being ground into the sidewalk with a shoe or tossing the ashes out of a car window.  A pencil in hand means pausing in the middle of the reading to contemplate and jot down a note in the margin or in a journal.

I commend the rest of the article as it speaks also to learning from the primary sources (ad fontes!) rather than settling for "some dreary modern book ten times as long."

At Austin's very little is manufactered. The artwork on the wall has signatures and is for sale by the artists. I ordered a pot of Assam tea, a tea known for its strong, full, bright, red infusions and smooth, round, malty flavor. I told the fellow behind the counter the reason I was there was because Panera's tea is horrible. You see, context is important. No one walks into the door without a context. Nearly every person who entered had been there before. Conversation flowed easily, like the St. John's River on a warm August day.

With a sipping tea cup and a spot of honey I sat down to read. Not to disappoint Mr. Lewis but the book of essays on how to do history from a Christian perspective did not strike my fancy. Shoved back into the bookbag, I pulled out some collected stories of Sherlock Holmes. The delicious tea, atmosphere, and reading "A Scandal in Bohemia" combined to make a delightful time. The story was the first of Arthur Conan Doyle's published in the Strand Magazine. Now it was in my hands in a green-covered, gold-leafed volume. I believe Lewis would approve.

I did end up smoking, but not at Austin's. I called upon a friend at the hour of half past six (to use Doyle's language). He almost didn't answer the knock because he thought I might be a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness.  There are just certain days when you don't feel like debating on a doorstep. He peeked through the curtain, certain I was not in a white short-sleeve shirt and black tie and let me in. The screened-in back porch provided a respite from the sun and a place for the breeze to waft in. The waft of the smoke lifted from the pipe and we discussed life and what God would have for us. It reminds me of an episode J. Gresham Machen wrote of many moons ago.

"My idea of delight is a Princeton room full of fellows smoking. When I think what a wonderful aid tobacco is to friendship and Christian patience I have sometimes regretted that I never began to smoke."

Lewis would doubtless raise an eyebrow to that latter sentence.