Happy New Year

The clock strikes midnight, and in the quiet dark the only way of knowing is by the barely perceptible cries of celebration from neighboring houses and the sound of illicit fireworks in the distance.

Happy New Year.  

And yet, the new still feels like the old. The troubles of yesterday did not magically disappear.  We do not all suddenly have superhero powers that will allow us to accomplish what we couldn't last year. 

Midnight has marked the passing of time, and though we view a new year like a blank slate and a chance for a fresh start, we are still who we were five minutes ago.

We will make resolutions and set goals and take steps to move forward, but in the end, life happens.  This is the first New Year we are starting together as husband and wife, and we have big ideas for new adventures.  

It would be nice if we could have flipped a switch and at midnight been where we want to be, but the journey is part of the process.  To get where we need to go, we need to let go of what's been holding us back, and that will take time.  But we'll get there.  Even if we don't get there by 2017, we'll get there.

Every day the clock strikes midnight.  Every day is a fresh start.  

Monday Morning Musings

Life has been getting me down more often than not lately, but I've been doing a lot of much needed reading and reflection.  (I recently re-read St. Therese's Story of a Soul, and for Advent I am re-reading Consoling the Heart of Jesus by Father Michael Gaitley .  I *highly* recommend them both!)

The last two weeks have just not been good, and I needed a new one.  I was so thankful as I walked to work in the angry, gusting wind this Monday morning that it was a new day and a new week and I could start fresh.  And that even though it was mid-December I only needed a light jacket!

The first thing I saw when I got to the coffee bar was a note from an old co-worker and dear friend, who must have visited the store the night before and couldn't leave without leaving her love.  As is her way.  I was so warm and light inside knowing that even though the time and place are gone for good, there is still so much love in the club.

The morning was going smoothly until my first customer rubbed me the wrong way.  Yes, I know that I should know better than to let half-sleeping people get to me so early in the day, but it happens.  And it stirred up feelings of frustration and anger at how rude, inconsiderate, and thoughtless people can be.  

I prayed, "Lord, how am I supposed to love this?  This behavior hurts my pride.  It's inhumane.  How do I just smile and not let this get to me?  Surely you don't want me to simply ignore this injustice?"

Jesus' face came to mind, sweaty and bloody as he hung on the cross.  He tried to answer me with his voice but all he could do in his pain was gasp for breath, and then I didn't need an answer--grace intervened to make it clear:  He is in pain too.  And there's something I can do about it.

As a kid in a Catholic home, I very often heard the phrase, "offer it up" when life's injustice's hurt me.  All that meant to me as a kid though, was that I should "suck it up" because my problems weren't real problems in the grand scheme of things.  

What it really means to "offer it up," is to offer up my pain--of inconsideration, of other people's ignorance, of humiliation, of biting back snarky replies, of silencing my complaints, of keeping my gossipy observations to myself--

in union with Jesus' pain--of his passion, of rejection, of betrayal, of sin.  

It's the same as sitting with a friend when they are hurting.  You can't take away their pain, but you can sit with them and console them to help lighten their load.

When we offer up our suffering in union with Christ's, these sacrifices made in love, console Him.  This opens His Heart and allows the rays of His Love and Mercy to shine through us.

As St. Therese said, "To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul."  It's these little acts that, done with the eyes of our hearts fixed on Jesus, become acts of love and make all the difference.  

So at work, I displayed cookies with love, and brewed coffee with love, and cleaned up sweet, sticky messes with love, and listened patiently to things that I had less than zero interest in with love.  Another customer annoyed me and I took a moment to breathe in my frustration, prayed that Jesus transform it, and breathed out His Mercy with love.

Feeling full of love, I drank my coffee like I did in the old days before I gave up (*read as: tried to give up) dairy: in a ceramic mug with some good old  whole milk.  My hope was that even though it might upset my stomach, the vitamin D in the milk might help make up for my current state of D-deficiency due to lack of sunshine.

It was delicious, but the fact remains that I am highly dependent on the sunshine for my happiness. (Note, "happiness," not "joy."  There's a difference.)

These last few days have been gloomy and overcast, but warmer than usual for December.  Saturday felt very much like it did when I was in Seattle last October.  I loved Seattle and Portland, and every bit of the Pacific Northwest that I saw.  It's gloomy a lot there too, but at least it's near the coast where the ocean is a constant reminder that there is a whole world out there beyond the gloom.  Here in Ohio, we're landlocked, and rather than rain clouds, we have whitish, grayish blankets of clouds that cover us for days to the point that I begin to feel claustrophobic.

Anyway, my coffee tasted like sunshine this morning, and after a few hours of rain, the dark lumpy clouds stretched apart just enough so that the light caught our eyes and we looked out the window, barely believing that it could be real, and yet...there..."stupid cloud, move over just a little bit more"...there it was...THE SUN!

Thank You, Jesus.  For everything.

I Thirst

I thirst--I want to be good, I want to love as Jesus would have me love.  I want to forget all my fears and live for Him and Him alone.  I often feel as though I am not doing enough, like I should be doing more with my life.

I admit that at times I have been ashamed to tell people what I do for a living.  I'm in my late twenties and when asked about my profession my answer is, "I'm a barista."  If you were to ask me ten years ago where I would be today, my answer certainly wouldn't have been that.  But I am not the same person I was ten years ago.

Life happens, and in the last ten years, I feel I have lived a dozen lifetimes.  Each lifetime was necessary for me to be who and where I am today.  Each experience has been full of lessons, riddled with joy and pain and mistakes and victories.  Perhaps the greatest lesson that I have learned, the one I continue to learn each day, is one I have written about many times here:

Every cup is a communion.

I would like to say that every cup I serve is one of love, one of humble self-giving.  But the occasional demanding, hateful people I encounter make my job painful, make me feel like dirt, and I know that I shouldn't let it get to me, but I do.  It does.  Because I'm human.

*sigh*

And I would like to say that every day I go to work thinking of how I can share the love of Christ with others, how I can be kind to everyone, how I can bite my tongue from gossip and only speak about the good stuff.  But I don't, because I'm human.  And it's 4:30 in the morning.

But seriously, I thirst.  I desire to be holy, but it's so easy to be distracted:  by drama at work, by silly TV shows on Netflix, by the comforts of home.

In His typical mysterious ways, God brought me back to attention this past Sunday.

My husband and I both had to work, so we went to the early Mass together.  Though neither of us was happy that we had to work all day, it seemed that there could be no better way to begin our work day than by participating in the sacrifice of the Mass together.  (Is there really a better way to begin any day?  Of course not, but we're human, so we often fool ourselves into thinking otherwise.)

At communion, I recognized one of the Eucharistic ministers offering the cup as a regular customer from work.  Many early mornings during the week he comes in to our coffee bar to start his day with a cup of coffee:  a large light roast with room for cream.

And that Sunday morning, there he was, offering the cup, the Blood of Christ, at communion.  I was struck by how small the world is, by how we are all connected someway or another in the Body of Christ, by how every cup is a communion.

Certainly, the cups of coffee I serve in the early mornings are not in any way the same substance as the Blood of Christ, but if I offer them with love, if I am able to die to my self to offer them humbly, even to the hateful, demanding people of the world who belittle me, if I can serve them with a smile, they are, in a sense, cups of communion.

As a human, I fail and I will continue to fail, but I will keep trying.  I know that God thirsts for me, thirsts for all of us.  If we can learn to come to Him, even when we don't feel like it, even when we don't feel worthy, He will pour down His mercy and grace to fill our cups, and we can share that with others.

"I thirst for You. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe My love for you.  I THIRST FOR YOU.  I thirst to love you and to be loved by you--that is how precious you are to Me.  I THIRST FOR YOU.  Come to Me, and I will fill your heart and heal your wounds.  I will make you a new creation, and give you peace, even in all your trials I THIRST FOR YOU.  You must never doubt My mercy, My acceptance of you, My desire to forgive, My longing to bless you and live My life in you.  I THIRST FOR YOU.  If you feel unimportant in the eyes of the world, that matters not at all.  For Me, there is no one any more important in the entire world than you.  I THIRST FOR YOU.  Open to Me, come to Me, thirst for Me, give Me your life--and I will prove to you how important you are to My Heart." ~from the "I Thirst" meditation, Blessed Mother Teresa

Related posts: The Best Latte, Grace You Can Taste, Thankfully, Taste of Heaven, and So Much Love in the Club.

The Colors of the Wind

To walk to the place you work--you thank Him every morning as you make your way to make coffee, you thank Him every afternoon as you make your way home to an entire afternoon of not worrying.

You step into the sunshine and let the fall light bathe your face in warmth.  The sun has set the trees on fire in a red-orange glow.  

Some are burned out completely and stand naked with their brown, barren branches.  Others are still green but tipped with gold.  

The dying, drying leaves clash in a rustling wrestle against an invisible wind.

Orange leaves drop from branches like snowflakes and flutter to the other side of the street.  Yellow-gold ones dance across the sidewalk in front of you.

The early morning darkness that once surrounded you, the darkness of the old familiar fears, broken only by the streetlights, the brightest stars, the warmest smiles, and the wind--the breath of the One who made you--even in this darkness, you feel the earth come alive with color as the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. (John 1:5)

All Is Grace

Happy feast of Our Lady of the Rosary!

Four years ago yesterday, I finished the 54-day rosary novena that I prayed for my future husband.  It was almost exactly a month later, and not a moment too soon, that the man who is now my husband asked me out.  

I trusted in the Lord with my heart, with my life.  It wasn't easy.  The Lord's ways are often very different than our own.  The road to follow Him is paved with blood, sweat, and tears, disappointments and failures and pain.  The journey requires trust and perseverance, but at the end of the day (and sometimes that day feels like a lifetime!), the Son always rises in glory.

Recently, the timing and circumstances were just right so that I was finally able to root out a source of significant stress and anxiety in my life.  I believe that once again, the Lord was guiding me, patiently, faithfully, along the painful path toward freedom.  I know that everything that happened leading up to that life-change was as necessary as the life-change itself.  This change is a grace that I am extraordinarily thankful for.  I don't have enough words to express my gratitude, but I feel kind of like this:

#peace

Life is a roller coaster of highs and lows, but I believe that these highs provide grace to help us persevere through the lows.  It's much easier to praise Him when all is dripping with sunshine than when all is covered in overcast gray.  I love You, Lord.  I thank You for ALL THINGS.  I believe that ALL IS GRACE.

So Much Love In The Club

It was an identity crisis--were we baristas or...something else?  We weren't sure, so she cried out in a half-joking way, "Is there anyone here who can tell me what coffee is all about?"

And in classic Linus fashion, the answer came: "Sure, I can tell you what coffee is all about:  It's about love."

You may think I'm crazy for saying that, but hear me out.

Coffee is all about the people--the people who grow coffee, the people who harvest it, the people who sell it, the people who buy it, the people who roast it, the people who brew it, the people who drink it, and all the people in-between. 

In my time as a barista,  I've known some that truly warmed me inside and out with their funky, hearty characters--and that goes for both people and coffees!

 New crops of new coffees came in every few months, and so, it seemed, did new people.  We once built a graveyard display for Halloween of all the coffees we'd loved that never returned to satisfy our longing taste buds.  I never saw many of those coffees again, but new coffees came along to expand my palate, to teach me to experience coffee in new ways.  Similarly, I never see some of the people who built that display with me anymore, but new people came along to expand my heart, to teach me to love in new ways.

Today is National Coffee Day, and this week marks four and a half years of me making coffee from this coffee company.  A LOT has changed in that time--people, coffees, structures, machines, uniforms, products, policies, I got married, etc., but this week I returned back to the basics:  no more orders and schedules, I'm just making coffee.

To make this move,  I had to say goodbye to some people who I've grown close to, but that is nothing new to me.  It seems that in the last 13 months especially, I've said goodbye to so many.  I miss them all in different ways, but I'm a better person for having known each of them, and they each hold a special place in my heart.  

All of these people have come to me because of coffee.  We became a family of co-workers, of customers, a community who shared more than cups of coffee, but cups overflowing with love.

I've said this before and I'll say it again:

Every cup is a communion.

To all the generations of my dear barista family and all the customer-friends we've collected over the years:

I always believed but I never really knew until I met you that coffee really is all about love.  Thank you for filling my heart and my cup.

Just a few generations of coffee-family. #somuchloveintheclub

Labor of Love

"Work without love is slavery," said Blessed Mother Teresa.

That's a deep thought, one I've personally pondered for quite some time.  I aspire to work only with love, to break the chains that bind me, but it's so easy to get caught up in the motions, the annoyances, the things I can't control, the drama and nonsense of business politics.  Quite often, I am enslaved.

It's pathetic, really.

So I was really happy when I found this prayer in my Magnificat the other day, and I kind of wish I had had it years ago.  It's completely perfect, and I figured that it would be good to share on Labor Day for all you who labor.  Let's all ask God for the grace to labor with love.

Litany to Sanctify Work

     R. Lord, protect me.
From the temptation to be listless and lazy: R.
From the temptation to complain: R.
From the temptation to be critical to my boss: R.
From the temptation to cheat or to be dishonest with others: R.
From the temptation to gossip: R.
From the temptation to lateness: R.
From the temptation to waste time: R.
From the temptation to be judgmental of my co-workers: R.
From the temptation to procrastinate: R.
From the temptation to be jealous or envious of others: R.
From the temptation to indolence and lethargy: R.
From the temptation to be hyper-critical: R.
From the temptation to engage in idle-conversation: R.
From the temptation to be quick to take offense: R.
From the temptation to shift my work onto others: R.
From the temptation to impatience: R.
From the temptation to cut corners or to be sloppy: R.
From the temptation to give in to weariness: R.

     R. Lord, please grant it.
For the grace to be a peacemaker: R.
For the grace to witness to you by word and example: R.
For the grace to be energetic and committed: R.
For the grace to take initiative: R.
For the grace to be compassionate and forgiving: R.
For the grace to offer up all tedium and drudgery: R.
For the grace to be attentive to those in need: R.
For the grace to be generous in sharing: R.
For the grace to be prudent in dealing with others: R.
For the grace to be kind: R.
For the grace to be understanding: R.
For the grace to fulfill my responsibilities well: R.
For the grace to be patient and persevering: R.
For the grace to put myself in others' shoes: R.
For the grace to be dedicated and undistracted: R.
For the grace to be honest and forthright: R.
For the grace to be hardworking: R.
For the grace to be free of stress: R.
For the grace of insight to solve problems: R.
For the grace of industriousness: R.
For the grace to resolve conflicts and difficulties: R.
For the grace to put up with hardships: R.
For the grace to esteem the dignity of my co-workers: R.
For the grace to be thankful for the chance to work: R.
For the grace to spread the Good News of the Gospel: R.

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)