The Fear

These days have been bored and restless.  The silhouette of the next thing is on the horizon, creeping closer.  It's not close enough yet that we can make it out, but it's coming.

The waiting leaves me restless, itching for something substantial to hold onto, wasting my summer watching Netflix because it's easier to get caught up in a silly TV show about beautiful people and their fake lives than to get caught up in my own.

Fear keeps me from opening up my heart to fully love and live right where I am.  I fear that there is something more that I should be doing.  I fear what that might be.  I fear, perhaps most of all, that it will keep us here.  I fear stepping out of the comfortable (even if the comfortable is slightly miserable).

Recently I re-read Kisses from Katie, the story of an ordinary young woman who stepped out of the comfortable to follow God's will for her life and is accomplishing truly amazing things in Uganda.  (I read it a few years ago, and wrote about my thoughts on it here.)  I am a different person than I was three years ago when I first read it, but I was no less convicted.  If anything, this time when I read it, my perspective was less sentimental and more realistic.  I saw how ordinary and imperfect Katie is, how all she accomplished was simply a result of her openness to God and letting Him work through her to reach other people.  I want to be that open, that trusting.

The funny thing is that I think I would be willing to drop everything and follow Him, but I can't for the life of me figure out where He wants me to go.  Which is why I have the sinking feeling that perhaps, at least for awhile longer, He wants me to stay right where I am.  Which scares me more than a disease-ridden Third World country.  The fear paralyzes me so that all I can do is click "Watch Next Episode" on Netflix.

Praise the Lord for the priest at Mass this past week.  He reinforced the message I received reading Katie's story by encouraging us to make Christ the center of our lives and let God interrupt our plans.  He reminded us that in our dark world, we the Christ-followers must be the light--of love, patience, peace. When he led us in song at the end of his homily, I felt the Spirit moving in me.

My heart knew the answers I was looking for:  that the restlessness comes from not being present in the moment.  Yes, maybe God wants me to go on and do great things, but how can I trust in the big things if I can't trust in the little things?

A big lesson Katie learned in Uganda faced with seemingly unending poverty, hunger, and sickness was that all she could do was help the one in front of her, and trust that God would take care of the rest until she or someone else came to help them too.  Her actions created a ripple effect that inspired many more people to reach out and help those in need in Uganda.  God is using her as a voice to cry out in the wilderness, to open the eyes of the body of Christ to the need, to call those of us who make up Christ's hands and feet to action.  All she did was help the person in front of her.

I can do that at work.  I can keep my focus on the customer in front of me and patiently serve them to the best of my ability without being overwhelmed by the long line of caffeine-hungry people behind them.  I can be positive at work and let the little annoyances go (even if in the last five minutes of a long shift I have to deal with a difficult customer who continues to test my patience and ask a lot more of me than I have the energy to give).  I can listen to people even when I have less than zero interest in what they are saying--sometimes people just need to talk.  I can bite my tongue against complaints and decisions I disagree with.  I can love one person at a time.  I can be a light.

Over the years, this blog has carried this theme, of how to love God while being a barista.  You would think that the message would have sunk in by now, but I tend to need constant reminders.

When I stepped down from management nine months ago, I experienced great relief and necessary detox from the stress of the previous two and a half years.  I rediscovered my love for both coffee and people, but eventually, when the people became too difficult to handle, I turned my focus to the coffee.  However, I found that if I wanted to pursue coffee as a career and succeed, it would have to become in some ways a god.  But I already have a God, and I love Him.  A lot.

I never imagined that I would still be here after so long, that I would still need these reminders, but here I am.  Imperfect.  Afraid.  I let the fear in, and it began to consume me, but by His grace I have been saved once again from myself.

Maybe God wants me to go out into the world and do great things, but I will never have the strength if I haven't fully abandoned myself to Him, if I don't fully trust Him in everything.  I will never be able to follow Him along great distances in the future if I can't follow Him right now.

Here I am, Lord.

Coffee Talk

"Coffee coffee coffee..."  

This slightly manic phrase is one my husband hears often--sometimes in the early morning while I fix myself a cup (okay, half of a pot) so that I can transform from "half-asleep zombie" to "functioning human being," but really at any time of day when I nerd out with Barista Magazine or crush on a coffee shop in another city via social media (have you seen this La Marzocco showroom in Seattle???), or salivate over a new offering from a favorite roaster.

What can I say?  I want to taste all the coffees.

Coffee is my friend.  It doesn't always get along well with my stomach, but my taste buds, my head, my heart, and my soul all welcome it with gladness and joy.  

For that reason, when I was new to specialty coffee, I was personally offended when my favorite coffees would go away for long periods of time.  Why would they leave me like that?!  You may have had a similar reaction when your favorite coffee suddenly disappeared from the offerings at your favorite coffee shop.  Or, maybe you aren't as personally attached to your coffee as I am. . .

Either way, it isn't our fault that our favorite coffees leave.  They leave because coffee is a produce. Like apples.  Each region where coffee is grown has its own harvest season.  Most specialty coffee shops only buy the freshest, in-season beans, so that they can provide us with the freshest, most flavorful cups of coffee possible.

I appreciate that.

What I didn't appreciate when I first entered the specialty coffee world was that when my beloved Ethiopian Yirgacheffe (my first specialty coffee friend--i.e. the first light roasted, single origin coffee I tried, and my first pour over) with the depths of its blueberry smoothness and crisp lemony goodness disappeared and returned after months of separation tasted like a completely different coffee, very floral, more earthy, less smooth or sweet.

While I originally considered this new Yirgacheffe to be a traitorous impostor, I eventually learned that this is simply one of the beautiful things of being a coffee lover.  There are so many factors that influence what a coffee will taste like (even if the processing and roasting remain completely constant, a little extra rain or a little extra sun during growing season can change everything), that the same coffee rarely (if ever) tastes exactly the same as it did last year.  It's sad that we can't keep our most favorite coffee-friends around us all the time, but it's exciting and downright fascinating to try new coffees, and taste the differences in various harvests of our favorites.

That said, it's always interesting comparing coffees from different regions too.  Each coffee-growing region has a specific characteristic that tends to define it.  African coffees, for instance, tend to be fruity and funky.  Coffees from near Indonesia tend to have more body and earthy tones.  Crisp acidity and light chocolate notes are common among Central/South American coffees.  (There's A LOT more to this, and I won't keep going on about it here, but if you are interested in learning more, a really fun book to introduce you to specialty coffee is Coffee Nerd, by Ruth Brown.  I got a kick out of it and learned some things too!)

Typically, coffees from Africa, Kenya specifically, are hit or miss with me.  I appreciate their funky flavor, but the lack of acidity makes it fall flat for me.  On the other hand, I enjoy the acidity of Central/South American coffees, but they tend to be too boring.  So when I learned that Counter Culture had a special limited release coffee that married the two--a Kenyan varietal grown in the rich soil of El Salvador--I really nerded out.  

There is so much to learn about coffee, and while I understand pretty well the differences by region and climate, I am still working on discerning the differences between varietals.  Obviously, I had to get this coffee. . .you know, for educational purposes. . .

Counter Culture Coffee's Finca Kilimanjaro is said to have "deep, sweet notes of clementine and tropical fruits with a syrupy sweet finish."  I didn't have an opportunity to cup this coffee, so I'm going off of the pour over version.  To be honest, I expected much more sweetness than I tasted.  It definitely has the same syrupy sweetness and thick mouth-feel as other coffees I've tried from El Salvador have.  But the fruity notes are almost so deep that all I taste is the earthiness.  Whatever the case, its deliciousness and incredible quality reminded me of a Geisha that I tried years ago.

The deliciousness that is Counter Culture's Finca Kilimanjaro.

What I learned the most from tasting it, though, is that I have not paid nearly enough attention to all the coffees I have tried over the years.  I typically gloss over what variety the coffee is, and look just at the country and/or farm of origin.  My approach to new coffees will now never be the same.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about this coffee on Counter Culture's website to get a better understanding of where the coffee came from, how it was grown and processed, the mindset of the farmer, the reactions of the buyers when they tasted it.  It's one of the great joys of working in coffee--stories are always brewing, and not only do we get to be a part of them, we get to taste them.

Which is really great for me, because I want to taste ALL THE COFFEES.