Bad Etiquette, Sinfully Smoking Hair & Choosing Coffee for Jesus

  Yesterday I was piddling around in our kitchen and took a bit of time to observe the variety of coffee selections we have available for ourselves and others.  And I was thinking about a friend of ours who, should she have been observing the coffee selection we have available, would be

mortified

because

• she loves Starbucks coffee so much that
• when traveling with her I’ve had to be wary of
• her taking off with the keys to the rental car because
• she leaves and does not come back until she’s found
• Starbucks coffee even if
• it means she has to drive to another state to get it

It also reminded me of a recent conversation I shared with one of our neighbors that is a good indication that we’re not going down a road of happy or fancy or specially blended coffee around here:

She said,

Did you like the coffee we gave you for your wedding?

I said,

It’s really good.

She said,

Are you sure?  We didn’t know what kind of coffee you two like.

I said,

Oh honey, don’t worry about that.  You could run a little pile of dirt through a coffee maker and we’d like it.

She was silent and I started getting nervous out of fear that an Emily Post book of etiquette was going to drop out of the ceiling and knock me smooth out for such a crappy way of saying,

Seriously, that coffee was fuckin’ de-lic-ious!

A few days ago Ben came home and reported what I like to call a ‘Jesus Sighting’.

‘Jesus Sightings’ are qualified in the land of me as:

1. Be wandering along minding your own business
2. bump into a friend and
3. start having a conversation about dealing with life on life’s terms which
4. leads to at least a few statements about
5. having faith that everything will work out and then
6. realize Jesus is apparently near because
7. some yahoo who was hanging around on the edges of your conversation
8. hears the faith thing and saying things along the lines of…

Having faith without Jesus is no faith at all

or

Mentioning faith without mentioning Jesus is blasphemous

or

for those who seem to have only read about Jesus getting all jacked up and off the hook and throwing a few tables around in the city of Jerusalem because he clearly thought it wasn’t the place for sales and marketing activity…

If you don’t get to talkin’ about Jesus pretty damn quick I’m going to kick your ass.

Ben and I recently attended a memorial service where we were informed by the main speaker that he was

not a professional speaker.

And about half way through the service I thought,

You may not be a professional speaker pal, but you are sure do have the Jesus drama freak out scary thing down pat!

Because he basically informed us that,

• There are currently fires burning in California because gay marriage is now legal in that part of the world

and

• The tsunamis that hit in 2006 were a clear indication that those folks in Asia had been up to no good

and

• We better watch it when it comes to our sinning ways

And it caused me to want to turn to Ben and say,

Babe!  Is my hair smoking?  I’m afraid my head is going to burst into flames at any minute because I was living in sin with you until last month!

But I didn’t do it because, even though I always think I’m really funny for saying things like that, it sometimes doesn’t go well at memorial services. 

So I just sat there and started thinking about how glad I am that something happened several years ago that motivated me to stop going to church and do a little history project of my own that got me onto a recorded gospel writing that essentially said,

The truth will take the form it needs to take according to the culture in which it shows itself.  And the same is true for each individual.

And now I’m sitting here thinking that the same is true when it comes to coffee because, just the other day, Ben and I were at the grocery store looking at all of the available coffees and chose the one with a little handle on the side because we think it will make a great scoop for horse feed after it’s empty. 

And I think that’s a mighty fine way to choose the best coffee.

I’m also thinking it’s high time I started saying what’s on my mind about being afraid my head is going to burst into flames next time I’m sitting around listening to a bunch of Jesus drama freak out scary stuff in a memorial service.

I think it would be a good sign that I’ve truly embraced the truth showing up in me as an individual.

Right?