I was in Olympia to visit an old friend, and during the day when she was working, I walked around downtown. It was awesome.
Part One: Coffee Connections lead to Chill Christians
We start off our journey with amazing single-source ethical coffee from Olympia Coffee Roasters. 
See that photo hotness? I was trying out Google’s Lens Blur feature on their camera app.
Check out their backroom coffee operation:
The barista recommended I check out the Artisan Well, which is a natural spring that gives fresh free water to the whole town. Rocking!
Here’s the well:
Yep; it’s a pipe. As I got there, a woman (skinny, all-black clothes, tattoo-festooned, lives on a farm outside town) complained about how the city was trying to “develop the spring”.
“It used to be just a pipe! And that’s how we liked it!”
(Now, it’s a pipe with some mosaic around it. And a barrel)
She was pretty cool – she had many plastic buckets to fill, since she doesn’t get running water in her farm outside of town.
She leaves, I chat with a few other people, and then a couple about my age starts filling up a ton of plastic buckets as well.
After a few introductions, I ask that big question that tends to either get great conversation or confused looks:
“So! What makes you content in life?”
The man looks at me, sits down on the bench next to me, and says:
“Well, Sahar, what brings me joy is being loved by my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”
Five years ago, I don’t know how I would’ve reacted. Thanks to a pilgrimage to Missouri to hang out with Zack Exley, however, it wasn’t weird (or even that unexpected) at all.
Me: “Hey, do you guys like Rob Bell or Shane Claiborne?”
Him: “Yeah, I love Shane! And I *hate Rob Bell!”
Her: “Oh, silly! You don’t hate him. Hey, how did you know about Shane Claiborne?”
Turns out that the two of them are christians in a “loving, social justice” oriented sense. They build schools in Cambodia and so on. And their lives are fantastically happy! They have a purpose, they have a community that supports them, they know who their friends are and they are secure in teh world. We ended up talking about all sorts of things for over half an hour.
Olympia is a cool town.