No Mas Café, Day 20

The alternative of having verses being does not appeal to common sense. To have, so it would seem, is a normal function of our life: in order to live we must have things. Moreover, we must have things in order to enjoy them. In a culture in which the supreme goal is to have- and to have more and more- and in which one can speak of someone as “being worth a million dollars,” how can there be an alternative between having and being? It would seem that… if one has nothing, one is nothing… [however] our goal should be to be much, not to have much.
-Erich Fromm

Deep brown steaming joy in a cup. Coffee is a thing to wake for each morning as the day greets me with its invigorating aroma. A hot rush of flavor is accompanied by comfort and overwhelming peace. Coffee and a good book make for a perfect moment. Frustration is eased by the delightful liquid. It ushers in adulthood during ones first encounters with freedom and independence at the downtown coffee shop with friends. And later in life allows any adult admittance into the sophisticated social class, with its rich syrups, fancy mugs, elaborate logos, and the elegant décor surrounding it. A cardboard cup filled with hot coffee displaying its brown recycled sleeve fixed in the hand of its consumer is like the new cigarette. Coffee makes everything better for billions of people.

I am ridiculously addicted to it. It supplies me with energy, comfort, provides me with little bits of Guatemala, and is a part of who I am. I have coffee, and coffee has me. So I wonder can I be me without coffee. Can I still find as many little bits of comfort and calm? Would a part of who I am be gone? Would my connection to Guatemala cease? I quiver at the idea of never having another comfy sweatshirt morning under the stars as a cool breeze sweeps through my hair with my bible and a cup of coffee. My existence with coffee is undoubtedly a “having” existence. BUT I want to BE!

It isn’t coffee itself that’s grabbed a hold of me. The atmosphere it creates of rest, calm, perfection, it’s mostly a preconceived or conditioned conception that I have. The elegance that surrounds it, the excessive additives, and the million dollar marketing campaigns that run along side the brown fluid are mostly what have influenced me to fall in love with coffee. It’s true. I am trying to imagine the relationship between the bean and the coffee plantation worker. Living in dire poverty, exhausted from picking the beans for the better part of everyday, I cannot imagine that for that person there’s ANY luxury associated with coffee. I think they probably drink it, black, without sugar, to stay awake, maybe, but the way they look at it is polar opposite from me (I’m sure).

I’m attempting to give up purchasing things. I’m attempting to not spend money I don’t have. I’m attempting to get waste, junk, all the bits of excess that we’ve piled into our home out. I’m attempting to be healthy and take care of my body. I’m attempting to make the most out of every minute, to grow, to increase, to think, to exist. Now, I am going to attempt to be me without coffee. AHHHHHHHH!!!!

Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Gal 5:16