“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” laments the titular character of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.1 In this regard, Prufrock and I are similar. Every morning, I wake up and I make coffee. I set my kettle to boiling and grind a few tablespoons of fresh-roasted beans. After putting the grounds into my French press, I pour hot water over them and press the top down just until the coffee starts to foam. Four minutes later, I press the coffee all the way down, pour it into a mug, and cup my hands around it.
For the last five years, I have made coffee just like this, on ordinary and extraordinary days alike. I made coffee on the days I signed leases and accepted job offers and didn’t get interviews, the days I laughed so hard I cried and the days I held my friends as they cried and the days they held me. And I woke up the next day and did it again.
This morning routine persisted through the pandemic. In a matter of weeks, I watched the world grind to a halt in a flurry of death and grief–and then spent my last three semesters of college watching those weeks stretch into months, then into years. And every morning, I rolled out of bed and I made coffee. The liturgy of it anchored me, marking a new day, different from the one before. My mug of coffee was a tangible thing I could hold while everything unraveled. It was manna: not a five-course meal, but exactly what I needed to keep going.
Thousands of years ago, the author of Lamentations watched everything unravel. Situated among the prophetic books of the Old Testament, the book is a short but heartbreaking lament about the fall of Jerusalem. It begins: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people.” Reading it, you can almost imagine its author standing in the rubble of a city that was once beautiful, watching the people around him scramble for food and water, desperate to keep themselves alive. He doesn’t mince words as he describes the abject poverty, sickness, and death he sees around him. And yet, in the very middle of the book, he says:
“But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.”2
He hopes because he remembers the unchanging love of God. But he also hopes because he knows that God’s mercies are new every morning. This is the twofold nature of hope: it is rooted in God’s character and work, and it renews with the sunrise.
This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: when death and God do battle, God wins. I believe that in the early light of Sunday morning, three women nervously approached the tomb where Jesus’s body had been placed on Friday night. I believe that they saw the door wide open, and when they dared to step closer and look into the shadows of the grave, they found it empty except for an angel who told them Jesus was alive. When Jesus later startled the disciples by appearing among them, he offered his wounded hands and side to Thomas, who doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead at all, so that Thomas could touch and see. I believe that when Thomas put his hands in the spear wound in Jesus’s side, he felt skin and scar tissue. And because of all of that–because Jesus died and rose again–I believe that one day, I will, too. Because Jesus has the power to make all things new, this world will one day be made new.
And this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: in the last five years, I have made over a thousand cups of coffee. That is to say, in the last five years, I have seen new mercies rise with the sun every day.
Sometimes those new mercies have looked like big resurrections: rekindling a friendship I thought was broken beyond repair, starting a new relationship, or moving to an apartment that finally feels like home. As he did for Thomas, God is merciful to let me, and you, touch and see that He really is at work.
Most days, though, those new mercies look like little pictures of a world made right: a kind word from a friend, a church service that includes the exact hymn I needed to hear, an opportunity to give someone a ride home, or–yes–a perfect cup of coffee. As it turns out, it is a great mercy to measure out my life with coffee spoons. Every new day is a chance, in miniature, to practice resurrection and the hope that comes with it–to give thanks for the goodness around me, for blue skies on warm days and umbrellas on rainy days. The smallest mercies remind me of the largest one: that my sins are forgiven and all that is wrong will be made right. Resurrection is the foundation of my hope. Making coffee is the practice of it.
So this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: God is a God of resurrection. He has promised to make all things new. And in the meantime – even here, in the middle of the brokenness – He lets us practice resurrection every day.
1. T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”; (1911)
2. Lamentations 3: 21-23; English Standard Version
Photo by Pratik Gupta
