It’s evening in a coffee shop. I just realized that I haven’t done the exercise today. By the time I make it home, I’ll be too tired. Darn! What should I do? Should I go out to the car and do it there, either freezing or burning fossil fuel?

I decide to try it here. Immediately, I see a picture of a castle in my head. Then, right away it occurs to me that I should write down what I’m seeing. But I’m afraid it’s going to distract me from the exercise. So I try just sitting there, and doing the exercise.

Then I DO get distracted. My mind wanders to the patrons, to the coffee, to the ridiculousness of trying to do this in a coffee shop. After a couple of minutes of trying, I realize God isn’t blessing what I’m doing.

When that happens, I usually mentally retrace my steps to see where I might have gotten off track.

I decide to take notes on what I’m seeing after all. I let the words, come, and write things down, even if they don’t totally make sense at first, praying through the meaning of it as I went. This is what I write:

I see a castle in my head
The prince is running around
His crown is off-kilter
I love him
He is my Jesus
He is trying to get me ready for the next stage of life
It is difficult
It is difficult because he loves me so much
He wants the best for me
But unfortunately, the world is evil
This means there are many traps to avoid
He can do it
But can I?
How does he guide me past the pitfalls without having me fall into them?
The only way is love
Love can get me past the pitfalls
But love for what? 
Whom?
What is vital is a love for him
It’s the love for myself that I neglect, though
It’s hard to love myself, given all my life's givens
Harder still is the fact that I’ve built my life around an assumption that I
 can sacrifice myself to make it work
No more
There is much sacrifice, but not to make my life work
The sacrifice is for Him
For Jesus
For the KINGDOM
I love him
If I can get that straight, His crown won’t be so off-kilter
It's for Him
For the Kingdom
I love him

Hummm… well, that’s an interesting poem, that’s definitely worth reflecting on.

So, my conclusion is that you can do this in a coffee shop! But I don’t think I could have done it if I wasn’t writing.