Shot of Gratitude

I am getting to the blog early Sunday due to plans of kayaking this afternoon which will then probably transition to supper and beers. And then, no desire to blog at 8:00 PM when I get home and have to get up at 5:00 tomorrow morning. I know myself and how I think. I try not to delay that which can be done now rather than later, unless it is a Sabbath rest issue where it is not essential to work or purchase something today.

Do hard things first, though writing this blog is not really a hard thing. If I were dependent on my writing to pay the bills, I think my fingers would hit to keyboard like hammers. The pressure would weigh on me. Maybe it would be good. The pressure, like an espresso pull, would extract a higher level of talent. Right now, I write for fun and the enjoyment of my world-wide audience.

Speaking of espresso, last night a buddy who also enjoys the finer things of life went to Cafe Bruges in Carlisle, a mid-state college town sans college students right now because it is the middle of the summer. So, it is like the opposite of a shore town. The money is made from September to May, and then the summer is for the locals. Dickinson, the college in consideration, is an elite college which goes back to colonial times. The War College is also in Carlisle and that draws military minds from across the world. After those two audiences are extracted, a good portion of what remains and Confederate sympathizing red-neck townies and surprisingly, an  African American populace that has a rich history in town for some reason unknown.  A couple  of decades ago, Carlisle High School was a basketball powerhouse and its superstar was Billy Owens who went on to having a storied college career at Syracuse and a semi-successful pro career in the NBA.

After a massive meal of mussels, frites, steak, and a Belgian waffle at Cafe Bruges, I was teetering on falling into a food coma, not good considering that I had to drive back to Bierkergaard World Headquarters in quaint Molumbia, Pa (about an hour down the turnpike). I saw our server jawing back and forth with another staff member and I surmise it was his astonishment resulting from my eating prowess. I also had two Belgian beers to wash it all down. Frankly, it was a meal fit for a king. My buddy and decided that we needed an espresso, like Narcan, to resuscitate me. Boy, it did the trick. We purchased the espresso at another local establishment and sat like a couple of Italians in Rome, philosophizing about great things.

I relayed to my buddy the points I had distilled from the previous presentation the night before at a Row House Forum about what the world can teach us self-centered and spoiled Americans. The presenter said: 1) We are Isolated and very alone in the U.S. Other countries are much more community-centered. We in the U.S. are cocooning inside our homes with our devices and cable TV, where the goal is individual autonomy and isolation. The technology provides a slice of connection but it is tenuous and fraught with social media superficiality and stupidity, where everyone hides their identities to some degree and lets other parts of themselves rip, often the darker-side afforded by the anonymity. Other countries are more inter-dependent, where people are know by their neighbors and etc. 2) The Decadence of the United States was the second key point. His observation was that in a land of plenty, plenty becomes the norm. So, we whine about our wine, critique our food, bitch about the line at the gas station, and blah, blah, blah. We act like bratty children who are so used to being spoiled that we don't smell the rot of our souls. Now, I get that it was rather ironic and hypocritical to be sipping on an espresso on a sidewalk on a lovely summer evening opining about the insipidness of American culture when I was primo candidate numero uno. My buddy and I don't normally dine like we did last night. It is unusual. But, even so, our normal routines allow us access to resources that a good amount of the world can't reach.  I can order almost anything imaginable and have it on my doorstep through Amazon Prime in two days. So, I think his point is that we had better appreciate God's manifold goodness towards us as a culture. And to whom much is given, much is expected.

I have been working on an essay about coffee for the Front Porch magazine which is the literary arm of the Row House Forum's ministry (not sure that is the correct term. Maybe mission is better). The essay is proving to be a complicated composition because coffee is quite complex in all of its facets: growing, harvesting, processing, shipping, roasting, preparing, and serving. The mighty bean which is actually a seed. Coffee is one of the world's leading commodities and illustrates quite aptly the imbalance of producers versus corporations and the consumers. Producers have often been bottom-lined by purchasers to take or leave the offered price. And due to the lack of equity in exchange, coffee farmers coffers have little relative to the coin in other segments of the distribution chain.

Cooperatives have helped the coffee-farmers to regain some control over coffee as has the awareness on the corporate and consumer-end that being a compassionate world citizen requires an understanding of market forces of inequality, and what we have to do to even it out to be more fair and sustainable (pay more). Direct trade between growers and buyers seems to be the best model where the people know and care about each other and the coffee. The setting for my essay is Alabaster Coffee  in Williamsport, Pa. where the owner and his staff and customers are elevating community through coffee culture.

"Alabaster" refers to two different instances where  Jesus was anointed with spikenard  by women, one Mary, the other unidentified (a "sinner") who is know by God. The stories are remarkably similar in some key points but also quite different in settings and circumstances. The essence of the stories that they have in common is gratitude to Jesus. So, I am attempting to reflect on coffee at some theological vantage point.

Post-Script: Some have tried to postulate that these stories are referring to the same incident despite the discrepancies in the details and as evidence of the biblical accounts not being accurate or an act of forgery, where it is a case of 1st Century Fake News, like it couldn't have possibly happened twice at a house owned by dudes named Simon (one a former Leper and one a Pharisee).