Coffee, Dating, and God.

Coffee does me good down here in the desert… it helps me… I am old.
I was worried about not having any, about spending a few hours feeling dull and weak, and so – without perceiving the evil I was doing – I went into the kitchen before the others and drank all that was left.
Afterwards, having suffered all day and made my confession, I thought in shame of my selfishness, of the ease with which I had excluded my two brothers from those black, bitter remains.
It seems a tiny thing, yet in that cup of coffee, taken and not shared with my brothers, is the root of all the evil which disturbs us, the poison of all the arrogance which selfishness, riches, and power create.
The difference between me and Jesus is right here, in an affair that seems simple but isn’t at all; after a whole life time it is still there to make you think. Jesus would have left the coffee for his brothers; I excluded my brothers.
No, it isn’t easy to live with hearts like ours: let us confess it.
- Carlo Carretto The God Who Comes

I was encouraged to see even our most mundane interactions as being saturated with divine import. Actually, to be honest, I was encouraged when I read the quote, but then forgot shortly after reading it. Until today happened, and it was nice to see that something that I read is seeing some fruit in my life.

I met Ryan Kidwell, an old friend that I hadn’t seen in over 10 years, at Uptown Esspresso. After realizing that I really didn’t know what he looked like, I made an awkward guess and addressed the person who was closest in age, size, and complexion to my tenuous mental image of what Ryan might look like. I was correct, and after making the connection I scurried to the bathroom, compelled by the cup of coffee that was currently making its residence in my bladder. Thwarted by a locked door, I opted to order my coffee in the hope that the bathroom would soon be vacated. All this to say that I may not have been the most attentive to the pleasantries exchanged with the, as I look back on it, very attractive barista. With the bathroom door remaining resolutely still, I asked whether the barista had seen anyone go in, and she informed me that I needed the key attached to the ridiculously oversized milk steamer, and that she would be happy to watch my latte so that it need not be a part of my bathroom experience. I was thankful. I emerged, grabbed my latte, thanked the barista, and sat down and got down to catching up with Ryan.

I talked, he talked, the same barista came over to sweep up under our table and made pleasant banter about the flower that was inexplicably on our table. The flower is still a mystery, but everything else took on a new level of clarity when, a little while later, a kind gentleman came over and politely begged pardon for his intrusion, but felt compelled to inform me that the barista had been checking me out and that it might behoove me to ask her out. This was a new experience for me. Rather than the standard cat-and-mouse game, the ambiguity, the mystery, here was opportunity as never been seen before. I was immediately visited by two images.

First came Pan. Out came the adventurer, the explorer, the opportunist, the impish child who revels in novelty and jovial narcissism. Drawn to the excitement of the unknown, I wanted to bask in the indecision of it all, I wanted to live life in a way that would result in stories. I wanted to be exciting, unpredictable, wherever-the-wind-might-take-me. I wanted to be the guy who picked up the girl in the coffee shop, took her to Jamba Juice across the street, and made a new friend.

But then came the Lothario, the womanizer, the self-centered and parasitic being who preyed on women for his own existence. Where Pan shared joy through laughter and frivolity, this Lothario was an agent of consumption and destruction, taking his dark delight at another’s expense. He was no devil, just a man filled with the knowledge of what he could get for himself with no regard for what it might cost someone else. This was the man whose existence validated the shotguns on every father’s hearth, whose actions kept Ben and Jerry’s in tear-soaked business. Were I to ask her out with no interest in anything long-term, would I be taking a step in his direction?

On one side of the spectrum lies a prudish sense of Puritanical propriety, expressed in the thought that dating represents the first step on a path that ends in either marriage or tortured regret. There is a counter-philosophy that is propagating itself in reaction to the “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” groupies that have seemingly become the majority voices in Christian communities. This philosophy seeks to be worldly-cool in its distinction from the Joshua Harris drivel, and intimates that we should assert the innocence of casual dating by its frequent practice. Dating advice now defaults to, “Go for it! SPU is jacked, just go and have fun!”

And now to tie this all up, because I’m tired of listening to myself. I initially felt that there is very little moral import to whether or not I take a girl on a first date or not. The fact of the matter is, though, that our decisions never reflect our philosophy of life without in some sense also shaping or reinforcing that philosophy. In the same sense, there is no action so small as to be without moral importance; every action either brings us closer to God or pushes us further away. I think I am coming to disbelieve in a rubric of “right choices.” There are only two choices in the world; we either declare for God, or we declare against Him.