Can't fellowship without a fork

So today I had coffee with friends, in my home. Nothing fancy, just coffee and a coffee cake.

Seriously. Nothing fancy.

I'm doing a new thing. A thing where I try not to pretend. So before they came, I cleaned the bathroom, but I didn't wash the blinds or wipe down all the woodwork. I changed out the dishtowels in the kitchen, but I didn't put out the "best" ones, or touch up the paint where the kitchen table gouged the wall.

I purposefully did not buy the eight tropical fruits to make kabobs ala Pinterest. I narrowly avoided an early-morning run for three kinds of specialty creamers. I stopped myself from making mini quiche bites.

And all the other things that popped into my head to add to what was becoming a sit-down-Al-fresco-brunch-buffet-for-12-complete-with-placemats in my head. I like FANCY.

Coffee (and coffee cake). That's it. Well, tea, for those supernaturally-enabled who don't live on caffeine like I do, and Swiss Miss, in case some kids came. But that was it.

Coffee and friends. No agenda. Not business-related. Open invitation to pretty much everybody everywhere on Facebook. A start time, but no end time. All ages from 17 through not tellin'.

And it was good.

Really, really good.

We were made for community, my friends. God created everything in the world, then topped it off by creating man. But He took one look at the poor guy and did not say what He had said after everything else He'd made in the whole of the grand and glorious Creation He sang into being."It was good."

Because Adam, formed for fellowship, was alone. It wasn't good (yet). So God gave him a family, and the rest of the Bible outlines principles for getting along with that family. We are all the Bride of Christ, indispensable members of a Body, not disjointed and separate but designed just as gloriously and grandly as any tiny atom in the universe.

By Intelligent Design we were intended to live together, to work and play and eat and laugh together. To fellow-ship and even fellow-shop, my favorite.

To cry sometimes. To nod sympathetically, to empathize over a tough child-rearing dilemma, to share a Scripture verse. To pray, hard, on behalf of someone who just shared something that made them not want to get out of bed this morning.

And that all happens over the magic of coffee, and coffee cake.

How have I forgotten this?

How have I come to the point where a hot beverage on rainy spring morning, in the company of a few friends, is so noteworthy? So deeply imbued with nuance and meaning? Is it possible that my life, filled with business entertaining, and parties, one after the other, is devoid of actual, real live hospitality?

Thank you, God, for coffee and coffee cake and a lesson I will be learning for a long time to come. For simple pleasures, for my Keep Calm & Trust God mug, for yummy flavored creamer, and friends who don't care that I reeeeeallly needed to wash my front window.

Bless them for their honesty, their grace, their love, and their nearsightedness. Help me do them the honor of not pretending to be more than I am.

Comments

[Kristine John]

"Is it possible that my life, filled with business entertaining, and parties, one after the other, is devoid of actual, real live hospitality?"
This, my friend, is a question each and every one of us need to ask ourselves…not just once, but repeatedly!
Thank you for sharing your real self with those who chose to come. They will be blessed by you and your choice to open your heart to them…without reservation (or maybe with reservation, but choosing to push forward past it anyway).
Those who are real are those who I open my heart to…I think you'll find the same.

[Tamra]

beautifully written and so so true. I remind myself that my friends don't mind if they have to step over a couple toys and kids on the way to the kitchen, wait for me to wipe lunch crumbs off the table and scrounge through the snack cupboard for something to serve with our tea/coffee before we start chatting. Thanks for your reminder of what true hospitality is.

[Nicole Steele]

You are someone I would definitely love to have coffee (well, tea in my case) with. I wish I lived closer! Fellowship is at its best when it is simple and real.

I love reading your devotionals.