Three Beautiful Things 03/30/14: Loren Crow Preaches, Hard Fought Games, Hot Pot and Gyozas

1.  This mild cold and slight sore throat and maybe low grade fever I've contracted, along with new inflammation in my right foot, in the area of the heel and Achilles tendon made the "don't go to church" voice roar in me.  But Loren Crow was preaching.  Being among the people at St. Mary's is uplifting.  So I dragged my inflamed foot and my groggy head to church and I'm really glad I did.  Loren went epistemological and metaphysical on us in a sermon entitled "Seeing is (not) Believing" and this was pleasing to me.  Many sermons, and I understand why, I think, are focused on ethics.  What are we to do?  I enjoy other philosophical questions of faith:  what is the nature of reality and how do we think we know what we know?  That the reality of living a life of faith must be more than physical, more than the surfaces our eyes see, and that the life of faith leads us to know things beyond empirical evidence is at the root of it all, in my opinion, and I enjoyed Loren's exploration of these philosophical matters in his sermon.  (I also enjoyed the fact that his sermon was, in my opinion,  in Homer and Shakespeare territory [unmentioned in the sermon..no problem] as well as Samuel and John territory!)

2.  I enjoyed an afternoon of rest on the couch with the corgies, listening to UConn beat MSU and KU defeat Michigan.  I didn't have a favorite team in either game, but what came through the radio was how hard fought these games were, making the contests very enjoyable to listen to. 

3.  To treat my mild cold/wee bit of congestion/slight sore throat I decided to go to Izakaya Meiji and have a steaming bowl of that Sumo Wrestler Hot Pot that Don McNaughton ordered when we were in there Tuesday night.  What a smart choice.  Not only did the pork belly and chicken meat ball, simmered daikon radish, and assorted root vegetables and mushrooms in shoyu ginger chicken broth taste great, it was medicinal.  I don't think the gyozas I also ordered were medicinal, but they were a perfect porky side dish for my soup.  As gingery as the Sumo Wrestler Hot Pot was, it left me yearning for even more ginger, so I closed out my medicinal visit to Izakaya Meiji with a gingery cocktail:  the Meiji Mule, a tasty variation of the Moscow Mule.