Meaningful Beverages

One of the joys of teaching a Freshman Seminar each fall is the co-curricular activity. This year, in conjunction with my class on beauty and knowledge, we visited the Seattle Japanese Garden and attended a tea ceremony demonstration.

I had a wonderful experience, and I love that I get to share these things with my students.

Among the many insightful responses from the students, this one seems especially quotable:

"Perfection implies permanence... imperfection was all that could be seen in the garden: the leaves changing colors with the season, elements of weather (rain, wind) changing the position of leaves, the movement of the water, and so on. From my perspective, I would hate to see anything but imperfection in such a setting; the Japanese Garden was a deeply calming, beautiful place because it was so imperfect"


One other liquid refreshment's been on my mind recently. I mentioned Seattle U's new policy on bottled water on Twitter, but I want to talk about it again here.

There's a lot that I like about Seattle U's decision to ban plastic water bottles, but my very favorite is the second reason they offer in explaining why they made the decision:

"To keep water as a human right and not a commodity to be bought and sold for profit"

That's just about perfect.

Read more here: http://www.seattleu.edu/sustainability/water.

Cheers, reader. Happy sipping!