Coffee

I'm headed out to church camp for the week with youth from all over Southeast Alaska. No internet so I thought I better write and post tonight just so no one experiences a great vacuum of inane thought this week.

I bought five pounds of espresso roast for five days of camp. That would be normal if there were more than three of us who drank motor oil, but as it is, I think I might have an issue.

I love coffee. I come close to worshiping it. Don't tell my husband, but every morning I drive to church with my knees so I can hold my coffee cup in both hands and let the fragrance of heaven fill my nostrils.

At least I sing psalm 141 (Let my prayer rise up like incense), while I enjoy this moment of idolatry. My prayer life has sucked recently. I wouldn't normally use that word, but it has felt like a draining demand slapping me with a sense of failure instead of the focus and joy I normally experience.

So, my coffee is my prayer especially in the midst of so much travel. It's the moment that stills me and gives me joy and focus. I sing my psalm and get my jolt to make it through the day. Everything has its season. I don't want to stay in this place of distractions and drainage, but I trust God to pull me back as long as I keep going through the motions and rituals that folks have been doing for thousands of years.

I was tempted to write about the worm infested fish we had for dinner tonight, but I decided to go to my warm, happy place instead. But the worms were a gift. We laughed for a long time making up worm songs at dinner. It was good to laugh hard. Nothing like parasites to pull you out of the season of family crabbiness.

It does make me nervous about what will pull me out of my season of distraction. I'm hoping it's coffee.