Consistently Unsettled

I’ve been restless lately. Irritated. Un-settled. Someone will probably say, in their best Robert Anderson voice “too much coffee?” and I’d have to say “no, probably not enough”

On an unrelated topic, Starbucks have changed the color of their logo on the side of their cups. Its brown now, instead of green. When I saw that, I thought “What are they doing, the green logo is so…them.” But here it is a few weeks later and I realize it doesn’t really matter. In fact, I’ve grown used to the brown. The brown is subtler. Brown ink might be more friendly to the environment. It might be more soothing. Come to find out that it’s a ‘retro cup’ and an “old” Starbucks logo just out temporarily. Funny.

Back on topic #1. I am unsettled about what? I don’t know. But it’s not about the color of the Starbucks logo. Which brings up an interesting point. Making apparently superficial changes will often irritate people for a few minutes. But very shortly they are over it. In the case of the brown logo, the reasons for the change might not actually be superficial, but it is in fact that to me. And after noticing it and stewing on it for a couple of minutes, I haven’t really given it another thought. If I was asked by someone (say in a focus group) at the time it was exposed to me, I would have responded pretty strongly to it in the negative.

But I’m still not settled. So if I’m not settled, then it’s not about what is perceived to be superficial. It’s about something deeper that I can’t put my finger on. Spiritual matters for me are often like that. I don’t have a lot of words to describe my spiritual demeanor, and so I end up feeling disconnected from what is going on, but something is clearly going on. The way that I have looked at my faith, and the way I’ve lived out my faith isn’t satisfying where I’m at. I don’t think this is a crisis of faith, its more a crisis of consistency, and feeling that what I believe or want to believe is inadequately lived out in my life. Also, that the forms, or ways of describing what I believe are inadequate to describe my real experiences of faith. But I can’t put my fingers on exactly what is so unsettled, only that I am.

So, I’ll just accept that I don’t know exactly what it is that bothers me, and keep being open to seeing things differently. Kind of like seeing the side of the Starbucks cup, and moving on. I don’t have to have all the issues settled. I don’t have to know the answer to every question. I don’t know why I feel dissatisfied, or unsettled, or why they made the green logo brown. There is probably a good reason for all of it. I don’t have to, and know that it’s impossible for me to, “have it all figured out.” For today, that has to be OK. It might even be “retro.”

Addicted to the Bitter

The other day I was in Hong Kong on business. I was having coffee with an associate who pointed out how incredibly bitter tasting was the coffee they were serving. I said "it is?" He laughed, thinking I was joking, but I was serious. I sipped it again, and thought "OK, its a little more bitter than my normal coffee," but it was certainly not out of my range of acceptability. My colleague said that they must like bitter in Hong Kong, because all the coffee was bitter that we'd had there.

It made me think about our tolerance for bitterness. That like almost everything, bitterness is an acquired taste.

I have an acquaintance who has been through a lot. He's a professional, but has been tossed out of two of the last three positions he's held. The last one didn't last too long. He and his family believe that the people who employed him were the reasons the jobs have ended. That it was someone else's fault. Whenever he talks about the two places that threw him out, he is just so bitter.

After the last job ended, he received some career counseling, and discovered that his skills haven't really matched what he's been doing. I assumed that this would be welcome news, that he would realize that while it wasn't certainly only his doing that his employment ended, that this mis-match of skills wasn't the fault of the employer, but he had some responsibility.

But when I recently contacted him, it was clear that he is still laying everything at the feet of those who hired him. And he is still very bitter about being let go despite his new understanding of what his skills are. It made me realize that being addicted to bitterness helps when you don't really want to taste the truth. Something bitter can overwhelm a lot of subtle and pure taste.

This acquaintance is clearly not comfortably owning any part of what went wrong. So, he's going to keep drinking deeply from the bitter cup to avoid having to deal with this issue.

When I drink coffee, the bitterness and warmth helps to wake me up. But I admit that its so strong sometimes, that everything else gets masked when I drink it. Next time I drink some coffee, I want to try and figure out what truth I'm trying to avoid, not by drinking coffee (God forbid!) but by being bitter myself.

Muck and Mayhem

I was sitting in my favorite meeting-Starbucks (as opposed to my favorite conversation-Starbucks, or my favorite work-on-my-own-Starbucks) about an hour before my meeting was scheduled to begin. Perched in a little alcove out-of-sight but not out-of-earshot I was unwittingly a witness to something unusual. Two men arrived about five minutes after me and sat at the nearest table to mine. They drank coffee silently for a while and when they first spoke I was startled, their voices to clearly present.

I wasn’t trying to listen, but they weren’t making any attempt to conceal what they were saying to each other. One man was clearly in a crisis. His health was compromised due to an addiction of some sort (probably drugs) and he was losing his marriage. The other man was asking advisory questions. “Do you think you can keep your program going?” “If Sarah will have you back, are in able to be in a relationship right now?” “You obviously can’t work, how are you going to pay your legal fees?”

They talked back and forth, struggling to come to terms with all that was wrong. The amazing thing was the man in trouble (and clearly he was a mess) was being as open and honest as you can imagine, while the other man was being very forthright. He wasn’t patronizing, he wasn’t trying to cover his fear, his anger, his discomfort. He also wasn’t acting harsh or trying to shame the other man.

After about 45 minutes of this exchange, they both lapsed into silence. I had been tuning in and out, trying to chip away at my pile of work, but distracted by their conversation and their compelling frankness. A few minutes later, I looked out the window and they were walking out, side by side, heading for their cars.

I took a pull at my grande drip, only to discover it was barely warm. Despite that unpleasantness, I felt a kind of vacant yearning…not for the troubles of the one man, but for the relationship he had with the other. That kind of bald honesty can only exist in the context of love. To love like that is an incredible commitment. To stand with someone else in the midst of their screwed up life, and not run away screaming is not easy. To not shame the other, or provide neat solutions, to just stand with him in the midst of the crisis is stretching yourself beyond the pale.

Of course, I couldn’t help but wonder if that sort of relationship is possible within the church. Obviously it is possible, but how likely is it? Sadly, churches don’t seem to be configured to foster that level of love and support. I think for many of them it’s more important that we appear to have it together, so people will think that Christ is cool, or that he changes our lives to the extent that our feet don’t touch the ground. Most churches aren’t a place where someone can be open about the fact that they are swimming in shit, and their snorkel is clogged. And more’s the pity.

I can’t imagine standing in the lobby of my local church and overhear the type of conversation that I heard at Starbucks. That must change. We have to be a hip-wader clad group of people, unafraid of navigating the muck and mayhem.