Goats, Granola, and Guatemala

The Following is a sample chapter from a book I’m Working on… Please let me know what you think!

-Billy

It all started with a goat. At least that’s how the legend goes. A herder in Eastern Ethiopia noticed members of the herd had an extra bounce to their step. The goats had been doing what goats do best, eating whatever they find. And what they found were coffee cherries. Soon the goats were prancing around like the cast of Riverdance, and the herder decided to try some too. The rest is history, and a very interesting history at that.
Today coffee is the world’s most popular stimulant. In America alone 400 million cups are consumed every day. It is the second most valuable traded commodity, beaten out by oil, which takes the number one spot. Coffee plants have been cultivated in every hemisphere, from countries as far apart as Guatemala and Papua New Guinea, and in regions, and cultures as diverse as the ways coffee is used.
You can drink it hot or cold. It flavors ice creams, liquors, granola bars, and candy. You can even get coffee scented perfume (perfect for inspiring that good-looking Barista down at the local coffee shop to ask you out).
It has become the livelihood of some of the poorest people, a status symbol for many of the richest, and an essential part of the lives of many of the people in between. Coffee has taken the heart of the world. I know it’s taken mine.

My own love affair with coffee began as early as I can remember. I grew up having coffee with my family at breakfast. Smelling it at the grocery store, and waking up to the succulent aromas wafting through the house as I woke up to go to school. I used it as a dip for shredded wheat, and for doughnuts. And I looked forward to conversations over a cup after attending Sunday morning church services. These are just a few of the reasons coffee has become something very spiritual to me.

Consider the lilies

Coffee had humble beginnings. It spent thousands of years growing around humans without anyone really taking much notice of it. Coffee grew without a care about what it would be when it grew up, or what its legacy would be. It had no concern about how it looked, and had no jealousy about how other plants around it were more popular, or populace.
The coffee plant rose to its high place in world trade and commerce through no real effort to do anything but be a coffee plant . It was planted, it grew, and created “beans ” from which more coffee grew.
Coffee didn’t have any real value to people for a long time. It took a long time for it to be ready to produce fruit. The cherries didn’t seem like anything special, and no one had any idea that roasting them, grinding them, and drinking them could give you energy and a renewed vibrancy. In fact the caffeine that many of us crave today is nothing more then an alkaloid that’s used as a natural pesticide killing poisonous insects. Coffee is an unexpected sensation with a mysterious draw that no one was expecting.

This inspires me.

There seems to be a common adage floating around these days that finding success and happiness is a result of believing in ones self. If only a person would have the confidence enough in who they are, then they would surly achieve their dreams and take hold of true greatness. The problem with “believing in yourself” is that it inspires only a fondness for ones own fancies. A persons dreams are only as big as a persons experience, and the means to that end are confined within the boundaries of their own reflection.

There is no room for mystical, the miraculous, or the mysterious.

A mystery by definition is enigmatic. It is illusive and difficult, if not impossible, to understand. The universe is a mysterious place filled with mysterious things. Even the most basic elements are still throwing us for loops. Every time we think we have something nailed down something new comes up that forces us to reexamine it all. And that’s just the stuff around us: neutrons, electrons, protons, black holes, dark matter, and emus. Newton’s laws may be well and good for helping us figure out gravity and causation, but how about love, courage, and hope. These elements of life seem to operate under a whole different set of rules that even the brightest minds still haven’t begun to figure out. And behind it all there’s God.
God loves to hide in mystery. He thrives in cracks between what is seen and what is unseen. He blossoms in paradoxes, and is never content to stay anywhere that people expect him. After all it has his imagination that started this whole mysterious world in the first place. He loves to make the ordinary extraordinary because he knows how unusual it really was in the first place.
This might be one of the reasons Jesus talked in parables so often. When asked what the kingdom of God was like he points to a tree. When he advises people on how to handle the most essential elements of life he shows them flowers, and birds.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!” (Luke 12:22-28, NIV).
Jesus was not just some kind of first century hippie environmentalist. He was a teacher who understood the beauty of mystery, and that the things of God were seen better in dough then in dogma. And if he was walking around today I believe he’s drink espresso.

Jesus seems to enjoy the things that defy common sense. He exhorts the poor, and the lowly. He calls the wise to be like children, and the wealthy to be like a widow. He himself was a complete surprise to the world. He came from a village that we have no record of prior to his birth. His birth was a scandal, and his death was that of a criminal. But he changed the course of human history forever. This is how God loves to work.
The men and women that God called throughout history have not been the people most qualified, or with the most ambition. They were people willing to trust that God was able to carry them to places they had not seen and work in ways that they could not imagine.

God called a barren woman to give birth to a nation.
He called a shepherd to rule.
He called a slave to save a nation, and a nation of slaves to be his people.

They were improbable people called to the impossible places, and over and over they discovered that God liked to show up in the space just below the end of their rope.

To follow God does not mean we make him Lord over our dreams, but we invite him to do the dreaming himself. A dream of divine origins takes us beyond what we expect into that realm of mystery where God loves to settle. And the best part about it is that God has been dreaming about your life since the beginning.

You were created with a plan in mind more mysterious then any energy inducing alkaloid. God’s plan for you goes beyond the physical and joins with the deepest elements of your soul. His dream is not confined by the cosmos, and not restricted to the conceivable, and at the same time it’s profoundly personal. God’s plans for you are crafted for your life, and your heart, and call you to nothing more.

The challenge of “believing in yourself” is that there is so much we can believe in ourselves to do. We could cure cancer, or solve poverty. We could raise a family, or live a life of monasticism. We could become scholars, or we could become welders. The world is filled with problems that need to be solved, addressed, and amended. I get overwhelmed just thinking about it. The call of God is not to save the world, but rather to be who he has created you to be. And that is someone who is living in the fullest sense of what life is meant to be.
I love espresso because it is nothing more then espresso, and it doesn’t try to be. Espresso is an essential part of any latte or cappuccino. It can be pulled short or pulled long. It can be used to make art, or just sipped on by itself. It can be used in hundreds of ways, but if it were something else then nothing it’s used for would be possible.
I work at a coffee shop in Ypsilanti, Michigan called the Ugly Mug. There are a plethora of things that we need to keep the shop up and running, and each one is absolutely essential. If we run out of milk I don’t need to transform my espresso into milk I need to by more milk. If I tried to use espresso as milk I’d run into some serious problems. Espresso doesn’t steam right, it isn’t creamy, and pretty soon I’d run out of beans and wouldn’t be able to create anything.
The twentieth century theologian Howard Thurman once said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

In my own journey I have found that it’s in the mystery of the mystical, within the parameters of paradoxes, and under the direction of the Devine I have stumbled into a bona fide fervor for life. God isn’t asking you to save the world; he doesn’t need that. God merely comes and asks what makes your spirit prance around like the cast of Riverdance. This mysterious creator wants to carry you to places you have not seen, work in ways that you can’t imagine, and teach you how to live. To be a follower of Jesus begins with simply believing that God will take you there.