The coffee parable (Oct 8-14)
This week’s snapshots:
Happy Saturday!
Do you know the parable of the coffee-drinker?
Floating on the Internet and shared occasionally on Facebook by well-meaning soccer moms, the story goes that a teacher was walking down their hallway to class, holding a fresh cup of coffee. In the bustle of the first morning class jumble, a student bumps into them and spills! The cup of coffee! All over the teacher! The teacher immediately sees red and writes the student up for detention, and teaching in coffee-stained clothes all day only further embitters them so that when the student shows up for detention, they make it extra detending.
Why was the coffee spilled? The parable asks.
Because that’s what was in the cup.
And this is infuriating - as though an angry teacher wouldn’t be equally pissed if there had been water or tea or cola in their cup! The issue the parable presents isn’t “what’s in the cup” it’s “why was the teacher carrying a fresh cup of coffee through a busy hallway?” Or “why didn’t the teacher use a cup with a lid?” Or “why didn’t they plan better and drink their coffee at home?” Or even “why is such an impatient person employed to work with children?”
I hate this parable. But because I hate it, I remember it, so when life bumps me and my “coffee” spills out, I experience shame because I am so unlike the Christ in me. I don’t have hope or love or joy in my cup; I have a bitter draught of seething, barely-contained rage.
That was my Monday. Poorly-contained rage. Shame amping up the fury. Every bump splashing bitterness onto my colleagues (forgive me!). It took me until 6pm to pour it out and take a sip of living water…
My cup is full of bitterness because I’m blind to the hope I articulated last week.
Maybe “hope” means something different for you, but the overwhelming connotation I understand is emotion. When you “hope” for something, you grasp the emotion and wave it at the thing you want, wishing for the best. Maybe you get what you want, maybe you don’t, but people who have the emotion of hope are happier than those who don’t because the emotion expects good to happen instead of bad. I don’t have that emotion. I can’t conjure it up.
Remember how language shapes the way you view the world? “Hope” in Polish is an emotion, yes, but it’s more a belief. The reason why is in the word: “nadzieja” is a compound of “on” and “works/acts.” The Christian emotion of hope is a belief “on” the “works/acts” of Christ. “Nadzieja” isn’t just an emotion to stir up with swelling music and pretty words, it’s the most reasonable response to God’s works/acts happening around you.
Which is why I’m blind - when all of the works/acts I have can see produce a conclusion that the world is falling to pieces. That no one gives a 💩 about your person, just your productivity. That no work/act you can offer provides either healing or relief to the sin-filled pus-pocket of a planet we live on. That every starfish you toss back into the ocean dies anyways.
No wonder all of the New Testament writers exhort their readers to fix their eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our assurance that the works/acts of evil are not greater, more frequent than, or more pervasive than His acts/works of good. And hilariously, it’s actually this kind of writing that is proving to be the methodology that gives me eyes to see God’s closeness and kindness, one practice that reliably illuminate His acts/works for good in the face of evil, and opens the door to conviction that my participation changes anything. (Sorry, gratitude lists don’t work on my broken brain!)
Do you have any practices/methodologies/coping skills to pour out your cups of coffee on your very bad, no-good, terrible and awful days? How about ways to refill your cups with healing instead of toxins?
I’m still waiting to hear back on what your exprience of hope is, too 😜
Desperately trying to let go of rage and hold on to hope,
–Beth
