THE SOUL is shaped by words, images, & experiences.

THIS BLOG is about those things that have left their impression on me. I'd love for you to comment on what affects you.
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Monday, November 26, 2007

Serendipity 0

A few years ago when my younger son moved from Greece to the U.S., the first thing he wanted to do, of course, was visit New York City. So my sister and her daughter, who lived in NY at the time, lead us on a tour. We took in a bird's eye view of the city from the top of the Empire State Building. Then we visited, among other places, the New York Public Library (site of Ghostbusters), the Plaza Hotel (Home Alone II), and Rockefeller Center (Breakfast at Tiffany's). Okay, our interest peaked at these places because of the movies filmed there. But I did appreciate the Beaux-Arts architecture of the library. http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/New_York_Public_Library.html

At the end of our tour, my sister treated us to lunch at a popular little restaurant called Serendipity. The place is known for its extravagant desserts--one costing $25,000 was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records. Serendipity was also the site of the John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale film of the same name. (There, I'm doing it again!)

I don't recall what we ate for lunch, but I'll never forget our dessert: Frozen Hot Chocolate. Sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it really isn't. The ingredients in the recipe need to be heated and dissolved, before the mixture can be frozen. Frozen Hot Chocolate tasted like a blended Fudgsicle, except less milky and more chocolaty. The chef served the confection, topped with whipped cream, in a huge goblet. Scrumptious!

The Serendipity experience proved to be a fitting cap to a memorable day in Manhattan. Unfortunately, the landmark restaurant was shut down last week. This is what a reporter for the Associated Press had to say: "While serendipity may be the art of finding pleasant things by chance, what health inspectors found at celebrated eatery Serendipity 3 was not very agreeable." (Love that intro!) "Officials closed the restaurant Wednesday night after it failed its second inspection in a month. An inspector spotted a live mouse and mouse droppings, fruit flies, house flies and more than 100 live cockroaches."

Ugh! What a disappointment! Did the news shock me? Not really. I know that at some point man or his achievement will fail me.

I'm so thankful God never fails me.
"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"-Numbers 23:19

Sometimes I stare at the cruddy sidewalks here and imagine what it will be like to walk on the shiny gold streets of heaven--streets that will remain everlastingly pure like the promises of our Creator who paved them.




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