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 >)))'>