Coffee. What is this? Why do we see this drink everywhere? Why are we addicted to it? What separates coffee from any other drink? We know it is special. But why?
This is the answer: coffee is a semi-sacramental drink. Before the modern era, we all stood before the church altar and partook of the sacramental bread, and some the sacramental wine. The sacramental wine was in the chalice.
It was a Holy Meal where everyone who partook of it was in Holy Communion - part of the same community in body and in spirit.
However, hardly any of us are of the same beliefs nowadays and we for the most part no longer have any serious communities with the exception of the vanishing German farming towns in the Midwestern part of the United States.
Thus, the instinct of Man is that he must have a sacred meal, and a symbol of this communion of brotherhood. Our instincts push us toward coffee. In the modern age, we must conquer nature in the quest for economic dominance, and thus, this caffeinated drink powers our modern age. Our eastern brothers drink tea.
We gather around the coffee table and commune. We talk. We participate in community. One famous brand of coffee is called Community Coffee. A friend of mine once owned a coffee shop named Gathering Grounds.
We people of the secular age long for the Age of Community when we all gathered together around the altar for the Sacred Meal and the Sacred Drink. We sniff the scent of the brew as we once did incense in the old churches.
Coffee reminds us of a bygone age of community. We relive this in each cup we drink at the table with another human being.
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