Eight years ago, I worked in our coffee shop (Four Winds) as a barista. I was 20 years old; but this was my first food service job. I felt so inexperienced and nervous interacting with customers and handling all the duties that came with the position. At that time, there wasn’t enough business to justify more than one employee at a time. So, I often spent my shifts alone as the only person in charge of the entire facility.
I remember one evening, when the shop was nearly empty, I was beginning to tackle the enormous list of closing tasks. There was a man sitting in the lobby of the coffee shop who had been there for a few hours. He seemed pretty downtrodden, not homeless or in-crisis, but just sad. And as I was working on various chores around the shop, I suddenly felt the strongest urge to go and talk to him. It was a gut feeling like I have rarely had in my life; one that I can only attribute to the Spirit’s prompting. I struggled against this feeling for some time. I was nervous to abandon my chores and risk having to stay late that evening. But mostly, I was nervous to approach a stranger and offer…what? Prayer? Sympathy? Friendship? Money? I wasn’t sure. So I ignored the impulse. A while later, I peeked my head into the coffee shop lobby and saw that the man was gone. I was immediately filled with an overwhelming sense of grief. Not guilt, but grief. I felt that I had missed out on something…some interaction in which I would’ve caught a glimpse of Christ. This feeling didn’t leave quickly either. I thought about this for weeks, now years, wondering what would’ve happened if I had said, “yes.”
Eight years later, I arrived for work at the Christ Center. I began to make my way towards my office, but stopped in the coffee shop kitchen to grab a much-needed breakfast burrito. One of our youngest baristas approached me, looking a little bit shaken. She told me that she had answered the coffee shop phone expecting someone who wanted to place a coffee order, reserve a meeting room, or ask a question about our menu…the usual calls we get. However, she was surprised to hear a young man calling in a raw moment of despair and hopelessness. He wasn’t suicidal; but he was clearly struggling.
Who knows how he found our phone number? Maybe he googled “crisis center” and we popped up, maybe he was randomly dialing phone numbers for someone to talk to, or maybe he found our website and thought we could help him. Either way, he was now on the line with an 18-year-old barista who had no idea what was coming her way at 6AM. It would’ve been so easy, and maybe more prudent, for her to cut this call short, to say that there is nothing we can do for him. After all, what could she offer this young man?
It turns out, a lot! She stayed on the line. She said yes to this random interaction with a stranger. She prayed with this young man and gave him some hope. She encouraged him to seek help. She was a friend for a few minutes. She brought some peace and goodness into his life.
As she told me this story, I became so inspired by her willingness to be available. It is so easy to have tunnel vision in this world. We can dismiss anything that is outside the perimeter of our job description, our social group, our time constraints. But what wonders are we missing out on? There are a million options for how each day can go, a million different paths we can take. But, we tend to keep our heads down and stay focused on the straight and narrow.
Maybe God’s call for us today is to wander off the straight and narrow path, or to at least be open to that possibility. Maybe as we practice this, we will slowly become less enslaved to our tasks and our distractions. Maybe we will put down our phones, to-do lists, “urgent” duties, and everything else that numbs us to the wonder of this world. Maybe we will remember that God is right here doing something right now! And maybe, just maybe, he wants you to play too!
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
Gerard Manley Hopkins
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.