Coffee Shops.

There are about a thousand things I want to write about these days, and maybe we’ll get to a few of them eventually. But today, coffee shops.

As those who are connected with me via social media are probably well aware, I spend a lot of my life in coffee shops. Like right now, I’m in this somewhat hidden coffee shop in an obscure district of Boise that is full of hipsters and businessmen. The walls are decorated with vintage signs and the coffee is made places the baristas can point out on a map.

This place is always full. Always. I’m sitting at a long bar, with twelve of my closest strangers. Some are meeting friends. Some are eating a meal alone. Some are reading a book. Some are writing blogs on their computer.

We’re all here.

And when you share a table with someone you don’t know, you begin to notice a sense of commonality that often evades our mobile lives. People laughing, crying, or just numbly making their way through existence… all sitting side by side. I, among them.

Sure, I sit with my headphones in and my books and journals out, staring into the distance lost in my own thought. My introvert takes over most times and I rarely strike up a deep conversation with one of these favorite strangers. Mostly, I just watch them and remember that I’m human too.

It all reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, when Gandalf hastens Bilbo to consider the journey offered of him: “The world is not in your books and maps, it’s out there!”

As much as I live in my world of thoughts and ideas, I am convinced and convicted that part of what the it means to be a Jesus person is wrapped up in loving humans… and part of loving humans comes from being anchored in a world of public interaction.

This is where my love for coffee shops is grounded. It’s far more than my appreciation for a good cup of Peru or some free wifi, though they are perks. It’s that coffee shops become a place that exists almost solely so humans can gather. They are a modern day public house.

Some my deepest understanding of what the Gospel is doing in Tony has to do with a growing understanding of my place as one in the loved world that John 3:16 talks about… one among many beautiful and broken stories that sit at this table with me.

And so that’s where you’ll find me most days. In a coffee shop, sipping coffee and being a human.

Still Wandering,

Tony