Peace over a cup of coffee

Please allow me to introduce myself. On second thought, I’m not especially important. In a world of 8 billion people, I’m just one of them. And yet — and yet — I serve a God who cares about every sparrow and every flower in every field, so perhaps just maybe he cares about me, too, and you, and so I should care about myself and about you and about those 8 billion other humans. We are all irreplaceable, beings who will pass this way only the once with our unique set of circumstances and experiences and what is it that makes us.

As long as I have paused to contemplate what to write next, let me get my first cup of coffee.

Coffee is among so many miracles of human experience. How did someone years ago decide to try grinding the beans and boiling the results to produce a comforting drink with the power to wake the senses? Look at a coffee plant; how do you make that leap? And what insight prompted humans to generate electricity or forge metal or assemble days into seconds, minutes and hours? How do you go from living in caves to building caves, or from scrawling words on paper to sending your words to every corner of the earth?

Every mind is a miracle, our every act an accumulation of all that has gone before and an expression of hopes and dreams. And when one of us has lost hopes and dreams and even prayers — when, for example, he/she begins to believe they are only one of 8 billion people and that thought drifts into melancholy — we must lift them and remind them that each life is worthy of notice by the God of our universe — or if, which is also true, none of us is worthy, then we must share our gratitude for that God’s eternal love, and in God’s footsteps we should love one another, even those who did not get the memo and have sworn to be our enemies.

If I love my neighbors, no one is my enemy, and if you see yourself as my enemy, then you are gravely mistaken, but it will not change the fact that you are my neighbor and I love you.

This is not an easy attitude to maintain, and when I struggle at it, I am grateful to the God of the universe for setting the example.

And here my pride starts to creep in — “These are good words,” I say to myself. “I must share them with the world.” Who am I to think any of my little thoughts are big enough to share? But even someone who is no more important than anyone else may say something that others may want to contemplate and share. One of those no-more-important-than-anyone-else people once upon a time suggested boiling coffee beans to make a beverage.

And so I write these thoughts down in a book meant for myself, but also meant to launch what thoughts may benefit others. This is my message to myself, and I share it on paper (and later in bytes) in small part with the hope and perhaps even the belief that others might see dare-I-say wisdom in them.

I begin to lose the point when I begin to focus on who I am or try to assign any value to my words, although I must admit the source of my message did say “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and so if I am to love my neighbor I must also find love in my heart for myself. And so I write these words and say, “Here are my thoughts; what are your thoughts? Yours are as important as mine, and as we listen to one another and find common ground, we move forward in peace.”

And there, at last, perhaps, is a description of the process that led to discovering how to make a pleasant beverage from a coffee plant.

To hear

Yesterday’s focus was on the struggle to be heard in this rambunctious and contentious world of ours. I have an important message to convey, after all — Love God and love your neighbor — and I want it to be heard.

Today, I wonder: Is more important to hear than to be heard? to listen than to speak?

“God gave you two ears and one mouth, and they should be used in approximately that proportion,” a wise someone said some time ago, and the advice has been passed through the ages.

The carpenter’s wisdom is “Measure twice, cut once.” So it might be with words. Measure the words you hear to make sure you understand; then, and only then, cut — that is, respond, choose not to speak, or otherwise act as your measurements require. Perhaps that is what it means to “speak in measured tones.”

It seems to me that listening to my neighbors may be the best way to love them. 

To be heard

My dreams of reaching thousands with my words and/or music, or selling enough books and recordings to live on — well, they remain just dreams.

“Tell a story,” my self-editor murmurs. “People want to hear a story.” But the audience dips for the posts with an ongoing story, if I am to believe the almighty ANALYTICS.

My main story and message are about finally hearing the still, small voice whispering, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself — upon these two commandments lays the whole of the law.”

And every day the news couriers relay word of a neglected God and hate for our neighbors — and few are as hateful as the ones who point their fingers and accuse their neighbors of hatred and bigotry, so blind they cannot see their own hatred and their flaming bigotry.

Yet I have no more right to be heard than anyone else. There is a board in my eye, so how can I criticize the speck in my neighbor’s eye? “You started it!” we shout at each other. “When your guy does it, you don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” and round and round we go and no one listens.

I would rather tell stories and make music, and listen to stories and other people’s songs. I would rather be “too busy singing to put anybody down.” Is that any way to be heard? 

Is it that important to be heard? Well, yes, if I want people to hear that beautiful still, small voice with its important message. We are all neighbors, remember. You do remember, don’t you? Under all the shouting is that most important whisper: We are all neighbors.