What is my coffee?

It’s a great, if somewhat confusing question. It does not ask what is in my coffee? For the record I take it black. Nor does is ask what kind or brand of coffee I prefer? If my son talks about coffee he asks how it is ground; how fresh is my coffee; how strong or how dark, or medium or light? These are all descriptions of type and technique. A lover of strong, dark early morning coffee myself, I am interested in all these things. But the question posed above, by Pam Kearney (location and source unknown but found on Facebook) asks quite a different question. She unpacks her query below:

I visited Matthew, the owner of Lucy’s Flour Shop a little while back. As I nibbled on an enormous chocolate chip cookie I began to tell him a story

A few years back on a bitterly cold December evening, there was a visitation at the funeral home across the street from his bakery. The people, bundled up in coats, scarves, and blankets were lined up around the building waiting to hug the family of the deceased. Seemingly out of nowhere, a man showed up and began giving away hot coffee to the people outside. People who entered the funeral home with coffee in their hands whispered of a mysterious man handing out free coffee, and how much they appreciated it.

I looked at Matthew and said, “I have a suspicion that you were that man. Is that right?”

Matthew very humbly replied, “Yes, I felt so bad for them and wanted to do something, but all I could do was make coffee, so I made coffee.”

I responded that he blessed so many people that night by helping them warm up and by showing there’s good in the world. He added a positive note to a devastation situation.

I paused, then added, “That visitation was for my sixteen-year-old son. Thank you for being so kind.”

That conversation has stuck in my head since then. “All I could do was make coffee, so I made coffee.”

Somedays, I’m burdened with the reality that I can’t do everything to help everybody.  I truly do want to make a in difference people’s lives and change the world. I dream big, but I can’t do it all.

Matthew’s words came back to me recently, “All I could do was make coffee, so I made coffee.” I repeatedly asked myself, What is my ‘coffee’ in this situation?” I can’t do everything, but I can do something, so I figured out how to do it and I did it.

None of us can do it all, but we can all do something, and if we do, we can make a difference in the world.

I challenge you to ask yourself often, “What is my coffee?” and then go make your coffee.

So what is my coffee? I could answer many ways—environmental activism, something so large and pervasive it’s hard to appreciate any significant influence; spiritual guidance through preaching and the shaping of local parish ministry, things I continue to offer despite retirement from formal jurisdictional responsibilities. Then there is writing in many different styles and contexts; this work is arguably my most enjoyable activity presently.

While vocational, these are all activities which only partially respond to the question. With Pam Kearney I have always “dreamed big.” Possibly I need to reduce my ambitions and rework my dreams, in dialogue with the communities in which I now find myself planted.

I will leave this blog open-ended, as I do with many sermons, where with a good novelist I provide few answers but creating a space for exploration of this very question: “What is my coffee?” And of course, “what is yours?” Do tell, in the comments here in WordPress, or on Facebook.