The Best Latte

The sun shines over Vatican walls, the snow and smoke rise and fall, but we are gone. . .It was the best latte I'd ever had, and I drank it in that holy Roman morning.  Drunken confessions forgotten, now I was drunk on Mercy.  And in the days, months, years to come, it was the Mercy that sustained me.  The memory whispered happiness in my heart--joy beaming from a forgiving face.  But I wasn't there yet.  Mercy still had work to do in me.  And I drank it in.

The memory is a manifestation in my heart of the words "His mercies are new every morning."  (Lamentations 3:23)  But Mercy takes different shapes.  Sometimes it's a reprieve from hardships, a moment of grace that allows us to catch our breath and regroup.  Sometimes it's an opportunity to try again and do things differently this time around.  Sometimes it's straight up humility that reminds us of our faults, imperfections, and weaknesses.  Always though, His Mercy presents us with hope and the comfort that He is everything we are not and, since He loves us so much, He will do what we cannot. 

As I lived and learned this "tough love" of God, I struggled through classes and work and the self-inflicted emotional stress of my life by drinking lots of coffee.  Because the coffee I was drinking couldn't compare to that Roman latte, I decided to add a little color one day by grinding up some rainbow sprinkles with my black coffee beans.  The taste was unaffected, but there was a little extra pep in my step, a spark in my soul.   

Then there was a dark, quiet coffee shop in my hometown where I went to drown in sorrow with my old friend.  We were searching for answers, for our place in this world, this fast-paced society so contrary to our own characters.  We wanted to change the world but didn't know how.  We sipped our lattes and suddenly I felt that Roman morning flood through my veins:  Mercy.  Somehow, this local coffee shop had produced the best latte I'd ever had this side of the Atlantic.  This was coffee for my soul, a spark of liquid happiness to push me forward, to give me courage and strength to take on life in all its obscurities.

I got a job with the company that owned that coffee shop, and thus began my education in the world of coffee.  I've learned that each cup of coffee is so rich with stories and enough character to hold its own, even without adding sprinkles.  Coffee is colorful, like the people who grow it, the people who harvest it, the people who process it, the people who roast it, the people who brew it, the people who drink it.  Every cup is a communion.

Periwinkle Clouds and Coffee Grounds

The glorious sunshine of the day nearly blinded me, and the mighty wind nearly took my breath away as I was swept in to work.  My afternoon behind the coffee bar was slightly darker than the day, a mad stormy rush to create complicated caffeinated concoctions for waiting customers.  Brewing, pouring, (spilling) serving, cleaning up in time to do it all over again.  I barely had time to catch a breath and all I wanted was a piece of chocolate.

Finally there was a pause in the madness and as I took a moment to grind coffee for the next pot, I glanced up toward heaven somewhat exasperatedly praying, "Dear God". . .and there I saw several soft, perfectly periwinkle clouds drift lazily by the big windows, a delightful contrast against the soft blue sky:  grace.  Grace filled me and my soul sighed with relief at the reminder that I am so very, very small, that there is something more, something--Someone bigger than me, bigger than coffee and my Lent-induced cravings for sweets and chocolates and everything else that would violate my strict "diet for Jesus."  There is beauty beyond, in and around us, blowing in on a gust of wind, drifting by in a periwinkle cloud, beaming in a big smile from a stranger.

It's the little things.  There are graces to be had in every moment of every day.  Even when days blend together and there seems to be no end to the constant madness, there is grace to be had.  Some days I know I have no desire to find it.  I dream all day of a big fat rock I could crawl under and hide from the world.  And then I see a mother turn the hose from the flower garden and aim it at her daughter who squeals in surprised delight at the relief from the uncharacteristically hot March sun.  And I see an elderly couple walking hand in hand down the street, each holding the other up.  Beauty.

And I may not be the happiest person in the world when I roll into work before the sun has even begun to rub its eyes, but I see a sliver of the moon aglow in the morning mist, the rest covered in shadow, and I know that all around me is Something, Someone bigger.  There is a force greater than any in the world, a force that created the world and bound it together so that when the earth shakes and the oceans roar and countries are devastated and lives are lost, this force reveals itself in efforts of relief and comfort:  Love.

There is no love without suffering, but the Good News is that, as Sheldon Vanauken wrote in A Severe Mercy, "Love is the final reality."  So when it seems that the world is crashing down around us, or that life is sucking us down into a black hole of monotony, we needn't lose our Hope that Love will have the final Word, that everything might not be the way it once was, but it will be a New Creation:  "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . .And he who sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'" Revelations 21:1, 5

Sunshine Ambrosia

Days pass by in a blur of dulled routine.  The question of my heart haunts me and courses through my veins as I pour coffee and steam milk and clean up spilled sugar:  what will I do with this one wild and precious life?

There are so many things I want to do and I don't know where to start so I keep pouring coffee.  I feel the pressure on me, the weight of the world pressing down until all I see is it crashing around me because I wasn't strong enough to save it.  I am brought to tears by the unkindness and ungratefulness, the swords that pierce the Heart that loves me.  It is an ugly place, this world around us.  I want to save it, but I can't.  I am empty--nothing.  I turn to God pour myself out in tears, the blood of the soul.  He says, "Trust me."  I remember how He taught me to trust before when I made a mess and broke my heart.  He washed me in His Mercy and filled me with His love.  When I was nothing, He was everything.  I was empty and He filled me with joy and peace.

From behind the espresso machine, I lift my eyes up and my heart soars with them and I tell Him, "Okay.  You've got this. I surrender my worry to You."  Peace floods my soul.  Time to start living again.

I look around at the coffee bins behind me.  I am bored with the selection--it's been awhile since we received any new varieties.  At the suggestion of my co-worker (she receives full credit for the inspiration), I pull a shot of espresso with one of our older coffees (appropriately called La Divina Providencia--Divine Providence), add honey, steamed milk, and, of course, rainbow sprinkles.  There it is--sunshine in a cup, liquid gold, joy coursing through my veins and I sip on sunshine and sprinkles until I am drunk on coffee and mercy.

My eyes are opened to the beauty around me and I am thankful for the riches of the day, for the blessings in my cup.  This is the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, this simple life.

Living the Dream

After a long week of fighting frost on black, icy mornings to go serve coffee to cold (and sometimes cranky) customers, I had planned to stay in bed until at least early afternoon today--my first day off in the New Year.  Had it been cloudy and snowy, I would have put that plan into action, but it was the bluest January sky I ever remember seeing peeking in at me as I stretched awake that foiled any and all plans to be lazy.  Too many winters wrought with seasonal depression and unbearable restlessness have taught me--if nothing else--to take full advantage of nature's little surprises, like this glorious January sunshine.

So this morning as I drank my French-pressed, whiskey-barrel-aged Brazilian coffee out of the coffee-loving mug my dear cousin gave to me for Christmas, I knew it was time to give life to this blog that I've been thinking about since last year's pain began to transform into joy and hope.  Yesterday the sun was shining, not quite as brightly as this, but I felt the joy bubbling within me until it began to overflow and my mother accused me of doing drugs and my dad asked if I'd been drinking.  I laughed and laughed and silently wondered why I'm 24 and still living at home.  Then I remembered that I chose this life for myself.  Out of fear, I chose to be a college grad living with my parents while I work as a barista and dream of changing the world.  Yes, I dream, and dreaming may be as far as I go, but I've got my coffee and sunshine, a family who cares about me, friends who believe in me, and a God who loves me.  I've got love, and that's really all I need.

I have no idea where I'm going this year, or what I'm doing, but I am certain that I will make mistakes along the way, and that's okay (I say this over the fearful protests of my inner perfectionist because I refuse to let her win any more battles).  As Ernest Hemingway wrote:  "In going where you have to go and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with.  But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused."  I am learning, slowly, painfully, how to really love, without fear, and not just dream about it or write about it.  It's 2012.  It's time to live the dream.