Coffee Time

Let's assume that on the seventh day, if the creator got out of bed at all, trouble at least was taken to prepare a cup of coffee—one of so many wonders created during the six busy days that came before.

Nothing tops the feel of the coffee mug, hot between your hands in the morning with the steam drifting up from the gently rippling brew. The first sip like a chime in the brain. Hello, world.

We humans love to have coffee together. We share it to start relationships and to end them. We meet over coffee to work out a plan. We serve it at wakes and weddings. Hunch over it as we wait for news, recover from rescue, or reckon with disaster. We drink it when we argue over politics. Even when we can’t agree to disagree, we can agree on the coffee. More coffee? Don’t mind if we do.

Other small things do have the power to nudge us closer together, to wake us to our shared humanity. Laughter, a set of notes that rise and fall like so, the smell of baking bread, a gesture not expected, a moment of rest after hard work.

In these small moments, these coffee breaks, we pause. We are aware, sometimes with a jolt, of the moments that carry us along together. We know creation, the universe, or whatever you care to call it.

The time out of time, the drop in the cup, of which we are a part.

❀

Image by Blake Dinkin - blackivorycoffee, via Wikimedia Commons.