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Stone Soup

My coffee story this week starts with Stone Soup.

Do you remember the story of Stone Soup from your childhood?  A weary, hungry traveler fills a cooking pot with water and a large stone.  Then he places it over a fire in the town square.  Eventually everyone in town contributes to the “garnish” and flavors the soup with carrots, potatoes, onions and other vegetables.  In the end, the whole town enjoys the soup.  This week, we had a coffeehouse night at My Father’s House, and it came together because all of us contributed what we had to give—just like stone soup.

A young poet named Levi shared some of his poems with Jeremy and I, and we were so inspired we imagined a night where people from the shelter, our church, and all of Miami County could share their talents.  Jay Preston gave us the space.  Then musicians, writers and comedians came out of the woodwork to add their creative work as “garnish” for our stone soup.  Friends set up the sound equipment, ran the controls during the performances, set up tables and chairs, brewed coffee and hot water and videoed the performances thus adding more flavor to the soup.

My son Asher got up to do a comedy routine he wrote himself, and people laughed.  A middle-school girl named Draven told me she wanted to sing, but she was too nervous.  However, an hour into the performances she found the courage to come on stage and blow us away with her sweet singing voice.  An old friend walked in the door midway through the evening, and three guys formed a spontaneous band around him, so he wouldn’t have to play alone.  The Kansas Monkeys danced across the stage.  And Jeremy played a Bach song for his mother to thank her for all the years she took him to guitar lessons. I would have paid $30 a ticket to see the final act: Jeremy, Ian and Jeff.  All in all, we had a great soup.

I probably drank 10 cups of coffee that night, and I was told we ran out of hot chocolate because people enjoyed it so much.  I counted about 60 “soup eaters” at our coffeehouse night.  They were a beautiful blend of people who came to contribute their own talents to make something wonderful, just like stone soup.  Maybe it was all the coffee (I did get carried away), but I couldn’t sleep when I got home that night.  I felt so much love from my community.

 

 

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Posted by admin on Sep 28 2011. Filed under Beth Gulley, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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