Coffee with a Friend…
By: Jay Horne
Tags: Pastor, Jesus, God, Church, Coffee

He was sitting at an outside table with a book, scrolling through his cell like any normal human being.

“That’s funny,” I said approaching, “I thought I would try and be the one with the book waiting on you but I can never remember which corner this place is on.”

He greeted me with a Covid friendly fist bump and motioned to the opposite chair.

A few generalities were exchanged, and I remember he told me that he was essentially enjoying a brief interlude of time-off after all of the weekly preparations for Sunday’s services. It was a Thursday, so the simple comment cleared up any misconception that being a Pastor was a one-day a week career.

After a friendly duel of who was paying for the coffee, we each soon had our cappuccinos and were sitting comfortably.

“So where did you learn to write?” he asked.

“Grade school mostly,” I replied. That was an original answer, and as about as truthful as it could get.

“Is anyone in your family artists?”

Now that was a pertinent question. I quaintly rattled off all of the relatives on my mother’s side, as they had all been school teachers, painters, and poets.

“So it’s in your DNA.”

That was also about as good an explanation as any. A bit esoteric, but what should I have expected from another man who has a working relationship with the divine?

“It’s in my DNA,” I agreed.

The sun was rising over the shopping center rooftop at just the angle to be beautiful but not blinding.

I recalled hearing once that if you wish to witness God’s beauty, look to the moon; to witness his power look up to the sun.

“You use to work on an ambulance wasn’t it?” he had just asked. “What do you do now?”

I was beginning to explain that my new job was a lot like Homer Simpson’s, mostly sitting around, when oddly enough, the low roll of an emergency vehicle’s federal Q started whining not far off.

We talked right through while it passed behind me. Old memories die hard.

Funny thing was, I can hardly remember the last time I felt so comfortable.

There was genuine interest in the Pastor, a quality hard to come by today. He took real turns talking and listening. I never had to inquire about his interest in my writing. He offered personal stories openly that I related to on many levels.

There was no agenda. No apparent undermining goal to rescue yet another sheep from the far hems of the flock.

Actually, his main purpose was clear, and he stated it plainly.

“I just wanted to encourage you,” he said. “You have an eye for beauty.”

With that, something else struck me that he said at the start of our meeting. He had told me that his secretary just tells him when and where to show up and that’s all he knows.

Why was I here? I had failed to answer the question the evening earlier.

It was quite simple really; because I had been asked.

I opened up about my true desire that perhaps this social outing would lead to a bit more community involvement and admitted that my closest friends were of the tree and rock variety.

“That’s not a bad thing,” he said.

“Recognizing beauty in those things. They are like signposts. Fingers pointing the way to the Divine.”

He may have actually said Jesus, or God. But what I heard was Divine.

Like he also told me at one point, “Some guys are afraid or angry at God, but they think Jesus is a pretty cool guy, so they start with him.”

I once thought of our relationship to God like candles in the sun. Everyone has a little light, but they think it could never compete with the Lord’s. So, we stay a little far out on the edge of the halo, where we might be seen a little clearer.

But everyone eventually finds their way home.