C is for COFFEE

They tell me that coffee is an acquired taste, that you just don't wake up one morning and love the stuff, but that its flavour actually has to grow on you so that over a period of time you just come to really like it. I don't know the answer to that but I guess there's a high element of truth in it. We didn't have coffee in our house when I grew up. Tea was the national and local drink of the time and it had to be well stewed on the cooker before serving. Dad liked to be the last to get a pour and he always said that it had to be so strong that you could stand on it before he would drink it. But coffee he and mum never really touched. We did have a bottle of Camp coffee in one of the cupboards though it really wasn't coffee at all, but a mixture of water, coffee, chicory and sugar in a brown liquid that wasn't the least bit appetising and that mum only used when baking a coffee cake.

I started to drink coffee in my late teens. It happened sort of by accident when I was a poor student. IN my room there was no way of keeping milk fresh for tea and I had begun to use Marvel milk powder as a substitute but it wasn't terribly appealing and, finding black tea just too bitter for the taste buds, bought a jar of Nescafe one day and began to persevere. It wasn't love at first sight and, quite honestly, in those early days of my addiction, I would have preferred the old teapot. At the same time I abandoned the whole concept of sugar in hot drinks as well, again mainly from a financial position rather than one of health consciousness and suddenly began to discover the subtle flavours of the beverages that, until then, had been masked by a common sweetness. And so began my love affair with coffee.

But how times have changed. Back then, few people went out for coffee, preferring to grab a quick cup of tea at home before going to town or else, shuffling into a back street cafe for a snack before leaving town. Now there is an abundance of coffee shops and cafes all plying their wares and offering such a range of delicacies that hitherto didn't seem to exist. Fewer people now seem content with a straight cup of coffee, black or white when you can have a Cappuccino, a latte, a mocha, an espresso, a machiatto, an americano or even an iced coffee. And the whole coffee drinking thing has become a social event, with cafes providing sofas and comfy chairs to entice their customers and not seemingly worried if they sit for an hour or two, chatting or reading. I have to admit I too have a weakness for sitting in a Starbucks, a Costa or an O'Briens and just watching the world go by over the rim of my Cappuccino.

At home we have several containers for preparing coffee including a a large silver percolator that was a wedding present, a coffee plunger and a small, recent addition that is essentially a mini percolator which can be placed on top of a hob. But for some reason we almost always reach for the convenience of a jar of the instant stuff and although some of it is surprisingly good, none of it really compares with the flavour of the real thing. A few years back, in America, I fell in love with hazelnut flavoured coffee and on my return went to great lengths to acquire some for home, eventually sourcing a firm in England who delivered it by post at a rather inflated price. It was the instant variety but it tasted so good and then for a short time a local supermarket stocked it as well. When the supply ran out I never bothered again, until recently when my son returned from a stateside trip and brought back some of the real thing. How great it was, once again to taste that flavour that I had almost forgotten.

I have drunk coffee in many different places, in airports across the world, on safari in Africa, at the beach, in the Vatican, on top of a mountain and yesterday, beside a river not more than a few hundred yards from home. I sat on an old tree stump, in the cold, late evening as the sun descended beyond view, watching the fast flowing, full river rush by with my only company an inquisitive squirrel that approached and stopped briefly for a few minutes before heading to his home just above my head. The coffee was beautiful, hot and from a flask and it warmed me inside and out and in the chill of the end of the day I took time to reflect on a year that has almost gone.

It's a year in which God has become even more real as my faith has grown deeper and where I have been constantly aware of God having a plan for my life. It hasn't always been a year of success and I know, like an other human being, there have been times when I have failed to live to His high standards. It's been a year when I have had many spiritual discussions, read worship books,listened to worship songs and have done some writing over a cup of coffee. And it's a year when I have proved to myself that despite all the various ways in which Christianity is presented to the world, unless Jesus is right at the centre, it soon loses its flavour. He said 'I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.'

At the end of another year, maybe you need to rediscover the taste of Jesus that was once in your life and realise how good it is or maybe you need to taste His goodness for the first time. Why not think about it over a cup of coffee today?

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.. (Psalm 34v8)