5th May 2006

'The Great Coffee Scandal'by John Fischer

I'm sitting here this morning drinking my Starbucks French Roast and thinking about what seems so remarkable and complicated about how coffee came to be. I can just see some South American farmer sitting next to a coffea plant one day and suddenly seeing visions of shelling its red berries to get to the little bean inside. And once he saw that little bean, he would immediately know to dry it, roast it, grind it up, and pour hot water over it through a filter in order to get one of the most popular beverages in the world. I'm sure that's how it happened!

Don't you ever wonder about stuff like this or am I the only one? And doesn't it make you wonder how many other drinks or potions are still out there undiscovered? Why did we find the ones we found? Were we wired a certain way? Is it just random that we landed on coffee? Could it just as easily have gone another way and suddenly we are all drinking hot baba from the babao plant? (Don't go looking; I just made those up.)

All this tells me that we are not alone in not being an accident. That little bean inside the coffea berry is no accident either. God has built all sorts of beneficial secrets into his creation and then left us to discover them and use them. And this comes with responsibility as well because some of these secrets are harmful. That's all a part of the good and evil around us that makes life such a challenge.

All of this makes me stop dead in my tracks and go, “God, you are so awesome! To have plants, animals, natural resources, and an environment in which they can all thrive together is one thing. The brains to make something out of all these resources, and the potential to use what we make for good or for evil are even more incredible gifts you have given your creatures. Who could have thought up a God like you? Certainly none of us.”

So enjoying my coffee today has turned into an unplanned act of worship. It's amazing how you can access thoughts of God through the simplest channels. It\'s really not that hard once you start thinking down this road. That we can go about our work and never give a thought to what's behind the world we deal with every day is the real scandal.