COFFEE IN HEAVEN?

With the coffee house beginning to take shape I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about coffee – its origins, production, quality, and properties. Most people who know me have seen me often with a cup of coffee in my hand. In times of theological speculation, I’ve often wondered if there will be coffee in heaven. I wonder if it would be a surprise to be met at the Pearly Gates with a steaming cup?

The first time I ever appreciated a cup of coffee was forty-odd years ago in a remote piece of Mississippi River backwater swamp known as Kings Point Island, not far from Vicksburg. I climbed a tree a full hour before the sun came up and was prepared to wait all morning for a deer to come by. Sitting there in the dark I realized that an Arctic front had blasted through during the night. By eight o’clock I was shaking so hard from the cold that I could hear my bones rattling and I had lost all feeling in my feet. It was then that I remembered my dad’s best friend who was hunting only about a quarter of a mile away and had a thermos of coffee with him. Fifteen minutes later I was holding a cup of the warm dark liquid between my gloved hands and it was the best stuff I’d ever tasted. I’ve been hooked on coffee ever since.

Coffee also reminds me of my Ole Miss days. During my last two years in Oxford I worked in a small restaurant where I eventually rose through the ranks to be placed in charge of the afternoon and night shift. This being my first real job, I took it quite seriously. We were losing money in the afternoon lull, primarily because our only business consisted of coffee drinkers who would pay 25 cents for a cup of coffee, get four or five free refills, and pour a nickel’s worth of sugar on the table each time. I started cooking peach cobblers and other minor delicacies and hawking them to the coffee clientele, which enhanced both our cash flow and our profit margin. Being a student of political philosophy, I enjoyed the sometimes-spirited afternoon coffee-and-cobbler conversation, which ranged everywhere from Nietzsche to Nixon.

Coffee makes me think of long nights during my seminary years in New Orleans, pouring cups of chicory-laced brown coffee that was so strong it seeped out through your pores and you could smell it on your skin. It makes me think of sitting in the hot dampness of Cafe’ du Monde’s courtyard, drinking coffee, hearing sidewalk Dixieland jazz, studying the preachers of the first Great Awakening, and watching tugboats and barges come down the river.

Coffee reminds me of long planning meetings for building programs and capital campaigns, where we all were so dedicated that we stayed until the meeting was over and our work was done. It reminds me of the Perryville waitress named Sharon who would come by and fill my cup, smile, and call me “Sunshine.” It reminds me of good Disciple Bible Study groups and cool football nights and many of my favorite coffee cups. Coffee reminds me of some of the things in life that don’t change too quickly.  It reminds me of many good people who have come into and out of my life and have helped make me who I am.

Yes, I believe there will be coffee in heaven. I’ll see Dad’s best friend who will smile and pour me a cup from his thermos and tell me about the deer that just went by him. I’ll see the saucy Oxford girls who used to work with me in the restaurant and taught me how to make peach cobblers. I’ll see my old Baptist friend who got me a job down in the Garden District with all the free chicory coffee I wanted. I’ll hear the wail of my little bean grinding machine, which sounds like it’s spinning up the engines of a 747.  I’ll smell the warm aroma of hospitality and welcome and hazelnut and powdered-sugar French-Market beignets. It’s because heaven contains all of your favorite things, some of the things that bring you close to people and make you feel warm and safe and alive and real. Heaven promises to be filled with all the things that speak to you of kindness and connectedness and life and vitality and love. For many people it won’t be coffee but in my case, I figure St. Peter will put on a pot when he sees me coming.
                                                                Yours in Christ,
                                                        Dr. Bill >)))'>

YOU CAN SAVE THE WORLD:

WONDER WOMAN AND HEATHER HEYER

 This June, I went and watched the Wonder Woman movie while it was playing in our town. Like most boys, I was a big fan of Marvel comic books when I was a young lad. I liked the movie so much this year that I went back and watched it again, something I rarely do.

This time I took some notes about the literary movement in the Wonder Woman story plot. The power in any fiction story lies in the change of mind or heart in the main characters.  In the case of Wonder Woman, it is a classic tale of movement from innocence lost to consciousness gained.  

The movie begins with Diana Prince slowly discovering her origins and her destiny to save her people and, beyond that, to “save the world.” In her youthful innocence, she believes that she must defeat the source of evil in the world, which in this case is personified as Aries, the Greek god of war (he might as well have been personified as Satan). She expresses her personal mission statement in one great, brief soliloquy: “Zeus created men [sic] to be strong and wise, just and compassionate. Once I destroy Aries, there will be good men again and the world will be better.”

Her journeys take her from battle to battle to battle, pointless war to pointless war, until she finally confronts Aries himself, and with great difficulty and violence, defeats him. To her shock, grief and dismay, the treachery and fighting and hate among humans continues unabated. 

Diana staggers and reels in grief over the dashing of her innocent belief about the defeat of evil. Her companion enlightens her: “Aries or no Aries, it’s not just one bad guy to blame, it’s us.”

Eventually she wins the day’s battle, but she has learned there are no permanent victories over evil. Her lost innocence gives way to consciousness, and consciousness always comes at a price.

In the end, she understands her true mission and the reality that defines it:

“I used to want to save the world, to end war and bring peace to mankind. But then I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learnt that inside every one of them there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves – something no hero will ever defeat. And now I know…that only love can save the world. So now I stay, I fight, and I give – for the world I know can be. This is my mission now, forever” (Diana Prince, “Wonder Woman”).

On Saturday, August 12, 2017, an American woman was killed fighting Nazis, on American soil.

NAZIS. On American soil. Let that sink in for a moment.

Heather Heyer was thirty-two years old. She was killed by a speeding automobile that was deliberately driven into a crowd of men and women seeking peace and resisting racist hate. Friends said she dedicated her life to standing up for those who had not been heard or respected. She died standing up for what she believed in, and what she believed in was love.

Diana Prince (“Wonder Woman”): “I used to want to save the world, this beautiful place. But the closer you get, the more you see the great darkness simmering within. I learnt this the hard way, a long, long time ago.”

“It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love. Only love will truly save the world.”

Our bishop sent out a letter in response to the hate attacks in Charlottesville last week. In that letter, he reminded us that we, as United Methodists, have made these promises to God and each other in our baptismal/membership vows:

“On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you:

Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

According to the grace given to you, will you remain faithful members of Christ's holy Church and serve as Christ's representatives in the world?”

As hate has reared its ugly head once again and seems to be more and more enabled, emboldened and energized, some of those on the front lines at Charlottesville last week were CLERGY, from various races and denominations, praying and ministering as Jesus himself would do. 

Two scriptures have come to mind in the aftermath of these events and have stayed there:

"Anyone who says 'I love God' and hates their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also" (I John 20-21).

"The only thing that matters is faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6).

“So now I stay, I fight, and I give – for the world I know can be. This is my mission now, forever.” “Only love can truly change the world.”

                                                           Yours in Christ,
                                                            Dr. Bill >)));>

 ASH Wednesday 2017

“Dust you are and to dust you will return.  Repent and believe the gospel.”

Jesus emerged from his baptism and was immediately led into the wilderness where he was tempted, tested, for forty days. In those days he fasted.  Our forty days parallel Jesus’s forty days. Like him, our days are to be marked with fasting or self-denial. This is why the tradition of “giving up” something.

So let’s not trivialize the giving-up like our culture tends to try to trivialize, commercialize, or weaponize almost everything else.  A friend of mine pointed out some new trends for Lent which include “Lent selfies” and “Ash-tags for Lent” which he finds particularly atrocious and I agree.

Jesus went to the wilderness where he would be tested at the point of his identity. God said at his baptism, “You are my Son.”  Satan would challenge that. The enemy will test you and challenge you at the point of who you are, who you think you are, and whose you are.

When you ask what you should give up for Lent, it’s not that complicated: be prepared to give up, set aside, let go of, or forsake whatever it is that is keeping you from being and becoming who you really are. Our true self is obscured by the false self that we present to the world. That is why the mask is a symbol of the pre-Lenten celebration of Mardi Gras.  We are not asked to give up chewing gum or chocolate or red meat or clean out our closets or learn to jump on one foot. It’s much more serious than that: we are asked to give up the masks that we hide behind.

Frederick Buechner has said, ‘During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask, one way or another, what it means to be themselves.”

What might it be that is keeping you from becoming who you really are? What is preventing you from staying on the path to fulfill God’s loving purpose for your life? That can be some habit, a preoccupation, an obsession, a distraction, a pet sin, an old wound, some hate, rage or bitterness, or even a relationship that has become stifling and unhealthy rather than life-giving. 

The ashes of Ash Wednesday are an ancient and biblical sign of repentance and a symbol of mortality, reminding us of the brevity and preciousness of this earthly life, reminding us that life is short and each day of it is a precious gift of God that should treated with reverence and care.  We are on loan to each other for a time; we belong ultimately to God and to God we will one day return.  Life is a gift and each day contains an opportunity to become the person God knows we already are – that is, if we remove the impediments and the distractions.

So when you are praying and asking God what your Lenten practice for this year should be, ask: where is the sacrifice in this? Where is the self-denial for the sake of fulfilling God’s loving purpose for my life? How does this contribute to the emergence and growth of my true self as a child of God?  Then make your choice and ask God for the grace to see it through all the way to Easter.

Yours in Christ,

Dr. Bill >)))’>