As anyone who really enjoys coffee knows, drinking coffee is much more than just consuming a beverage. It’s certainly more than getting a “quick pick-me-up”. It is an experience that involves the whole body.

Now, certainly, there are many ways to enjoy coffee. Drink it with breakfast, while reading the morning paper, or however else you choose to drink it. I often drink my coffee in a travel mug or while reading in the morning, before work. But this morning, somehow, it was different.

This morning, as usual, I got up and fixed eggs for myself and my wife, and got the coffee going. As many of my friends know, I’ve taken to roasting my own coffee at home. This way, every week, I have a freshly-roasted batch to enjoy. Today, I was brewing an Ethiopian Dry Process Guji Sidamo that I had roasted Sunday evening.

As I was finishing my eggs, and my wife had already left for work, the coffee finished brewing. I pushed down the plunger of the french press, poured my first cup, and spent the next few seconds just taking in the aroma. Even in the scent I could detect a full body that complimented the hint of sweetness I’d already noticed the past couple mornings.

Then I took a sip. I let it linger on my tongue a bit before swallowing, savoring the flavor. It wasn’t intense, certainly not the kind of thing that would make you want to jump up and say “wow!” It was subtle, full, and calm. After the coffee was swallowed, the taste continued to linger, and I waited a moment before taking the next sip. Somehow, this coffee tasted better much more than usual. I still had a bagel to finish, but I honestly didn’t want to eat it, knowing that it would interrupt the taste I was so enjoying.

So, there I sat, for at least 15 minutes this morning, probably longer, serenely sipping my coffee and looking out the window as the dawn began its transition into day. I thought about picking up the book I’ve been reading, but I just didn’t want to distract myself from the coffee. Everything seemed, for that period of time, to be quiet and calm around me. Even our dog barking in the backyard didn’t really disturb the peace.

I said earlier that drinking coffee is an experience that involves the whole body. I’ve mentioned the smell, and the taste already. There’s also sight. Of course, seeing the coffee isn’t essential to enjoying it, but I think it does add some to take a moment and watch the steam rising from your cup. And you’ve got the feeling of the hot cup in your hands, and the warm feeling in your mouth and down your throat as you drink the coffee.

Sight and hearing also take in everything around you, because the experience is not limited to the coffee. As I mentioned, I enjoyed also looking out the window on our backyard, and hearing the sounds around me. When it’s warmer, I prefer to have my coffee on the front porch, where I can hear birds in the summer, and hear people starting their cars to leave for work, and so on.

In the end, I suppose I’m not just talking about coffee. Taking my time to leisurely enjoy my coffee this morning simply helped me do something I don’t do enough of: to stop. Not just in the sense of “cessation of activity”, but, for a moment, at least, I took a break from all the things that stress me out and just enjoyed God’s creation: the coffee, the light silhouetting the trees to the east, and all the things around me. I let my mind wander and just forgot about “life.”

1) Father Stephen, on the blog, Glory to God for All Things, re-posted an older entry on his blog for Independence Day: Civilizations and the Kingdom – A Call to Prayer. It is a good meditation to read today; let us not forget that this nation is not the Kingdom of God.

2) Secondly, I think it is appropriate to post, here, the text of the Declaration of Independence. This is the document in which the American colonies declared their secession from the British Empire. It is interesting to me that the idea of secession is so ridiculed in America today, when it is the root of our very existence as a nation. (This text is from Wikisource.)

In Congress, July 4, 1776.
A Declaration
By the Representatives of the
United states of America,
In general Congress assembled.

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the Present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People; unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislature.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule in these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Powers to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic Insurrections among us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of the divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

This being my third year observing Lent in the Orthodox fashion (my second year as an Orthodox Christian; three years ago, I was still a catechumen), I find that I approach Lent with a joyfulness and also with dread. With dread because I am really going to miss my bacon cheeseburgers for the next 6 weeks or so. With joyfulness because it is a season of repentence, a season in which the whole liturgical life of the Church encourages us, in a more intense way than normal, toward repentence, and I know that I desperately need it.

And, yet, that aspect of Lent is so easy to forget in the attempt to keep the food fast. It is so easy to merely abstain from certain foods, and forget God. Apart from a conscious effort, one can spend the entirety of Lent “going through the motions,” as people at my former Baptist church often say. Without renewing one’s focus regularly, one may very well come upon Holy Week and realize, “I have wasted the Fast.”

For that reason, I am very grateful for a recent post by Father Stephen, an Orthodox priest in Tennessee who keeps the blog Glory to God for All Things. He has, in the past, posted sections of St. Nikolai Velimirovich’s writing, “Prayers by the Lake,” and the other day, he posted a section from that work on Fasting. It has encouraged me so much, I would like to (with apologies to whomever apologies are due) re-post it here in its entirety:

XLI

With fasting I gladden my hope in You, my Lord, Who are to come again.

Fasting hastens my preparation for Your coming, the sole expectation of my days and nights.

Fasting makes my body thinner, so that what remains can more easily shine with the spirit.

While waiting for You, I wish neither to nourish myself with blood nor to take life–so that the animals may sense the joy of my expectation.

But truly, abstaining from food will not save me. Even if I were to eat only the sand from the lake, You would not come to me, unless the fasting penetrated deeper into my soul.

I have come to know through my prayer, that bodily fasting is more a symbol of true fasting, very beneficial for someone who has only just begun to hope in You, and nevertheless very difficult for someone who merely practices it.

Therefore I have brought fasting into my soul to purge her of many impudent fiancé’s and to prepare her for You like a virgin.

And I have brought fasting into my mind, to expel from it all daydreams about worldly matters and to demolish all the air castles, fabricated from those daydreams.

I have brought fasting into my mind, so that it might jettison the world and prepare to receive Your Wisdom.

And I have brought fasting into my heart, so that by means of it my heart might quell all passions and worldly selfishness.

I have brought fasting into my heart, so that heavenly peace might ineffably reign over my heart, when Your stormy Spirit encounters it.

I prescribe fasting for my tongue, to break itself of the habit of idle chatter and to speak reservedly only those words that clear the way for You to come.

And I have imposed fasting on my worries so that it may blow them all away before itself like the wind that blows away the mist, lest they stand like dense fog between me and You, and lest they turn my gaze back to the world.

And fasting has brought into my soul tranquility in the face of uncreated and created realms, and humility towards men and creatures. And it has instilled in me courage, the likes of which I never knew when I was armed with every sort of worldly weapon.

What was my hope before I began to fast except merely another story told by others, which passed from mouth to mouth?

The story told by others about salvation through prayer and fasting became my own.

False fasting accompanies false hope, just as no fasting accompanies hopelessness.

But just as a wheel follows behind a wheel, so true fasting follows true hope.

Help me to fast joyfully and to hope joyously, for You, my Most Joyful Feast, are drawing near to me with Your radiant smile.

I think I am going to try to re-read this regularly throughout Lent, to re-center myself. I think I am also going to take more seriously the admonition of my own priest, Father Jacob, to “turn off the TV,” so to speak. I haven’t decided what all I am going to cut out (I do know I won’t be keeping up with Heroes this Lent…which will be very difficult for me!); I need to make that decision soon, I guess.

That said, if I disappear from anywhere that I normally frequent online (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), I’ll probably be back after Pascha (Easter). I think I may continue blogging, but I’m not sure how often I’ll post. That’s nothing different from normal, though.