The Gospel and... Starbucks?

Two or three years ago, my husband was given the book The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion by one of our sons. Interesting title. Interesting book, so my husband told me.

I only picked it up recently, intrigued by the title, and wanting something different to read.

I like post-modern books, in general. I like Christian books which offer a new perspective on faith. And I was curious to know how the author would approach his subject.

I haven't finished yet. When I do, I'll review it on my books blog. But the first few chapters have raised some interesting questions in my mind. The author talks about Jesus being radical, relational, exciting. About the Christian life being a great adventure, with multi-sensory thrills. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the idea. Fair enough. Too many people see the Christian life as boring or restrictive, God as some benign Santa character in the sky. Life with Jesus can and should be much more exciting than we often see it.

However... my problem with the book is that the author keeps comparing the Christian life with Starbucks. A coffee shop. Yes, a new idea in coffee shops when it started - offering easy chairs to lounge in, free wi-fi, books to browse, snacks to eat, and a large number of variations on the theme of coffee. I thought perhaps there might be fifty or sixty possible ways to drink coffee at Starbucks. According to this book, there are several thousand. Fair enough. One can customise one's drink, to a pretty cool degree. And, of course, pay through the nose.

But still... Starbucks is not actually different, in principle, from any other food chain. Yes, the first ones may have been radical. But the owners found a formula, it was popular, and so they started spreading around the world, training their staff to produce exactly the same drinks, to the same specifications, wherever they happened to be.

Isn't that pretty much what McDonald's did?

Except that McDonald's products are pretty inexpensive. Junk, to be sure. I suppose paying anything at all for fast 'food' is rather a waste of money, but it's popular, and cheap, and at least provides calories. The shops are clinical white, with fairly uncomfortable seats. I doubt if anyone lingers in McDonald's for longer than they have to.

Starbucks is the other extreme. Ridiculously expensive, comfortable seats, and they want people to hang around. On the face of it, the only thing it has in common with McDonald's (other than coming from the USA) is the enormous numbers of calories that can be consumed in a single portion.

So, the originators have made a fortune, the advertising worked, the product sells. Fair enough, that's how capitalism works. Nobody has to go to either of these chains if they don't want to.

But to compare Starbucks with the Gospel? Isn't that just a little sacrilegious? The uniqueness of each human being created by God is surely far more significant than umpteen thousand blends of coffee, identical whether ordered in Singapore or Switzerland or Spain. The artificiality of the comfort and supposed friendliness of the Starbucks baristas (carefully trained to give the required responses and make the exact drinks required) bears no resemblance at all to the reality of life with Jesus.

I guess it doesn't help that I'm not a huge fan of Starbucks coffee anyway. I like it - well, the two or three varieties I've tried, when nowhere else is available for wi-fi - but didn't find it as good as either Costa Coffee, or the Coffee Bean chain, popular in Asia.

And since nothing would convince me to buy Starbucks coffee first thing in the morning - I am plebeian enough to prefer my Maxwell House instant - many of the book's analogies rather leave me cold.

Perhaps this makes me rather a has-been, albeit a mostly post-modern one. Or is it just that I can see through the hype, and fail to see why an over-priced coffee shop should have my custom (other than those necessary occasions mentioned) merely because it has an internationally recognised image?

Life stages and patterns

This has been something of a year of milestones, as I shall no doubt mention when we write our annual Christmas newsletter at some point in the next few weeks. I celebrated my 50th birthday. We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. In between those two events, our older son became engaged, planning to be married next year.

Thirty years. It feels like a lifetime, but then I still feel about 26 on the inside. How can I possibly have been married that many years? How can my sons, who were children for such a short time, now be young men with their own lives, separate from ours ? And most of all, how can I be fifty years old?

I'm not particularly worried about advancing chronology. I'm not embarrassed about my age, or the lines on my face, or the grey hairs slowly creeping in. I don't hide any of them - I don't see the point in pretending to be younger than I am. I am still in good health, for which I am thankful. And as I sit here in my jeans and a tee-shirt, I can't quite reconcile it with the way that people in their fifties seemed so elderly when I was in my teens. Even when I was in my twenties. I vaguely assumed that one day I'd start wanting to wear tweedy skirts and tights ('panty-hose' in the USA), and court shoes. But I, and other people my age, still dress the way we did when we were 20. Perhaps younger people see us as old-fashioned in our styles, but I like to be comfortable.

The scary thing about being 50 is that, most likely, I am now more than half-way through my life. At 45, I could say cheerfully that I was half-way to ninety. My grandmother started to seem old when she passed 90; that seemed about right to me. I'm from a fairly long-lived family, on the whole. Barring accidents, I probably have a good chance of living into my nineties. But very few people make it to 100. Would I even want to? I don't know. My grandmother didn't.

Of course, it feels like a very long time since my childhood. Another 50 years - even another 40 years while I still feel energetic - is also a long time. I feel the years spreading out around me; my schooldays passed, my early married life gone by; the children, born, grown, and moved out. Our 'nest' became empty nearly two-and-a-half years ago and I found it very upsetting at first. But we've grown accustomed to it; we welcome our sons home when they come to stay, but it's not likely that either of them will live here again. So the future seems calmer, more settled. Unlike many people my age, I have no hankering to take university courses, or study further. Living abroad, there's no real chance of getting a job, even if I were looking for one. I like to look after the house, and cook, and spend time with friends, and write emails and blogs, and run my websites.

Still, my main question remains: what will I, primarily, do for the next forty or so years?

The subsidiary question is: do I need to know? Or do I continue living one day at a time, doing what needs to be done today, and letting tomorrow take care of itself? It sounds like a Biblical way of living; the problems are (1) I don't necessarily know what needs to be done today (2) even if I do, I don't necessarily do it (3) If I'm to do something significant, such as write a book, or build a new website, I need to have the ideas, and spend many months working on them.

I'm not unhappy. I'm basically a contented person, thankful that there is no urgent need for me to find paid employment. But I do sometimes wonder what the pattern of the future will hold.

Procrastination. Big time.

I am a little startled to see that I have not updated this blog for almost two years. I've certainly thought about it, from time to time. I have updated my other blogs, periodically; I certainly haven't lost the random abstractions that swirl around my mind. But somehow, catching them and squashing them flat so that they can be put in words isn't always easy.

At least, that's my excuse. Procrastination is part of my nature; something I've had to learn to accept, and work through. I read an excellent book recently, 'Writing on Both Sides of the Brain', which inspired and enthused me more than any of the many other books I have read (and am still reading) about writing. It encouraged me to work out what I gain from procrastination, and to work through it. It gave exercises to enhance my creativity while quietening the internal critic/judge/editor, at least in the initial stage of writing. It gave techniques to help me tap into my creative side, and actually get some writing done....

... and within a couple of days of finishing the book, I'd forgotten most of them. Writing first thing in the morning before coffee was one of them. Before coffee?? I can barely hold a pen at all, let alone write before my first caffeine of the day. But yes, writing almost first thing can be energising and inspiring. As can just writing randomly rather than sitting staring at the paper. Or computer. But as soon as I'd put the book back on a shelf, and reviewed it, my enthusiasm waned away.

November is a month for writing. NaNoWriMo encourages people to write novels, 2000 words per day over the thirty days of the month. I tried it a few years ago, and got about a third of the way through. I thought about it this year, but am quite out of inspiration. Or maybe I'm just procrastinating still further. Those who can't quite bring themselves to writing a novel can, instead, join NaBloPoMo - the idea being to post every day on a blog. I've done that before on my Cyprus blog. I'm wondering if I can do it on my book reviews blog, which would, of course, also mean finishing reading one book every day in November - something that definitely sounds a good plan, although I would have to cheat slightly and read more children's books than normal.

And maybe, just maybe, I could start writing posts on this blog again too.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November...

Brits around my age or older will probably recognise the quotation in the title. The whole rhyme goes:

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot;
For I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Yes, today is Guy Fawkes Day, otherwise known as Bonfire Night, when people in the UK remember how Guy Fawkes, back in 1605, attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. He failed in the attempt, and after being captured by the authorities was tortured, then received the appalling punishment of being hung, drawn and quartered.

And every year since then, the Brits celebrate November 5th with fireworks and a huge bonfire, on which a 'guy' (usually little more than a bunch of rags) is burned. Most of them probably know little about why Guy Fawkes tried to do what he did. Some of them might even think it would have been a good idea to destroy the Houses of Parliament. In the UK, we tend to distrust politicians. All of them. They're a product of the media, these days. They have make-up artists and speech writers, and plenty of advisors well versed in diplomacy... and - naturally - say what they think the public want to hear. What matters most of all is getting votes.

Or am I too cynical, having watched, and thoroughly enjoyed, 'Yes Minister' and 'Yes Prime Minister', and also having read the books?

I don't know who first said something to the effect that whoever we vote for, a politician gets elected. But it could well have been a Brit. We don't tend to be polarised in our opinions. Like the sky in November, they're usually various shades of grey.

So it's a bit ironic that most of the world woke up this November 5th to the announcement that Barack Obama is President of the USA. I, for one, am relieved to hear it; but I'm British enough that I don't think he's the answer to all the problems currently facing America, or indeed the world. I just think that he, and the package he stands for, is the preferred option out of the two possibilities.

Steve, a long-standing email friend from South Africa, wrote an excellent post entitled 'Politics and Pessimism' in his blog 'Notes from the Underground'. I had not thought about the similarities between Obama and Tony Blair, but now it's pointed out, I can see it. I did have high hopes for Blair, an apparently charming, polite, young man when he went into office as UK Prime Minister. But, as the old saying goes, 'All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. I don't know if it's possible to be a world leader and avoid corruption, even if the initial intentions are good.

I was pleased to see an article on the BBC news site, which I also agree with whole-heartedly: President Obama and the World.

And for those who are convinced that all Christians should have voted for McCain purely on his pro-life position, this post - and the many comments that follow - is thought-provoking: The One-Issue Abortion Vote.

Lead us not into temptation...

I heard a sermon on the subject of temptation yesterday. A few simple points were made: temptation is not a sin (Jesus, after all, was tempted); God does not send temptation, but does permit it; temptation can help us to grow in the Christian life.

I think that was all, though the sermon was about twenty-five minutes and looked at several verses of Scripture. No stories, or anecdotes, as far as I can recall. It was intended for new Christians, so I didn't actually expect to learn anything new.

Still, it got me thinking about the subject of temptation. It all seemed more straightforward in Biblical times. People were tempted to gross immorality, or violence, or idol worship, or similarly unpleasant activities. All clearly wrong. Somehow life these days seems filled with grey areas. I don't, personally, get tempted to commit violence or theft or adultery. Nor do most of my friends. I don't even use bad language, or covet my neighbours' oxen...

Of course, I might gossip a bit, or think negative thoughts about someone, or criticise the preacher... but I don't experience great temptation related to these things. There's no feeling of being caught beforehand between doing the right or wrong path. When I'm in the midst of people grumbling, I usually join in. It's only afterwards that I feel it may have been wrong.

My temptations are more towards what we used to call the sins of omission. I should really clean the windows/water the plants/tidy my paperwork, but I'm involved in reading/blogging/email, so I procrastinate. Maybe I do the chores later, maybe I don't. Nobody gets hurt either way, and I sometimes wonder if it really matters. Does God actually mind if our windows stay dirty for an extra couple of days?

Then there's the temptation to excess, in an activity which isn't sinful, such as reading books. At one extreme, it's clearly a good thing to spend, say, half an hour each morning reading an inspirational Christian book. I don't suppose anyone would object, either, to half an hour at night reading a light novel, to help me fall asleep. We might quibble over which novels are constructive, and whether some might be harmful to read, but in general I think most people would agree that reading, in moderation, is a good thing. So is eating, and taking exercise, and writing email. Even more controversial activities such as playing computer games, drinking wine, or eating chocolate have their place.

But if I spend fifteen hours every day reading books, or if I become so engrossed in my computer that I neglect everything else, or if I eat so much junk that I start to destroy my body by becoming overweight and unfit - or, indeed, if I make a god out of exercise and spend every hour trying to stay thin and muscular - then I have fallen into sin.

So far, that's clear.

The problem is, there's a huge mid-ground between those extremes. And some people want to measure everything. If it's perfectly fine to eat two squares of chocolate once a week, after Sunday lunch, but it's wrong to eat twenty bars of chocolate every day, what about two squares of chocolate every day? Or one small bar every day? Where do we draw the line?

The thing is, there's no such line. It's not that simple. Each of us is different, and temptation hits us in different ways. If I eat a bar of chocolate on Sunday afternoon, and enjoy it, I haven't done anything wrong. However if I eye up another bar, knowing I'm actually full and really don't need any more chocolate, then I'm facing temptation. Someone else might eat three bars before having that fleeting feeling that they've had sufficient. Someone else might not ever be tempted to over-indulge with chocolate. Personally I don't drink alcohol or smoke, so I don't face any temptations as far as those are concerned, but other people struggle with them every day.

My 'sin', according to Enneagram theory, is that of sloth. Not that I don't do anything, but that I procrastinate about what really matters. I know that's true, and my main temptation is to put off what I know to be important. If God is prompting me to write an article, and I decide today is the day to clean the windows, then I am facing temptation. It's hard to see it as wrong when I'm tempted to do something positive, but if it's not the way God is leading me, then it's not what I should be doing.