Where I grew up there was a town not too far from us that had a lot of sulfur in the water. We hated it when we played sports on their turf because the water from their fountains tasted awful – like rotten eggs. Eventually the coaches caught on to the fact that we weren’t drinking water during the games like we should and brought large quantities of good hometown water with us so we wouldn’t all dehydrate and die on the playing field. We also refused to shower in their locker room before we got on the bus to travel home. We figured our sweat and mud soaked bodies actually smelled better than a bus full of rotten eggs. 

Can you imagine making coffee with sulfur water? It would basically produce a cup of stinking yuck. Think about it – coffee is actually mostly water. So, whatever the water tastes like is going to be a big part of the finished product. That’s why I always use filtered, pure as you can get it water to brew the brew. I’m sure that’s part of the reason some of my coffee drinking while out and about has been sabotaged – bad water. 

The summer before my wife and I got married we worked as recreation directors in a pretty rough housing development. One of the highlights for the kids each week was the day we got to swim in the community pool. Unfortunately, almost every time we got to go swimming, about an hour into the fun someone would yell, “Bubba pooped in the pool! Bubba pooped in the pool!” The poor little kid was having so much fun that he didn’t know when to get out and do his business in the bathroom. The long and short of it is that we had to evacuate everyone from the pool and notify the pool people about the “accident.”  They had to clean and super-chlorinate the pool water for two days before they’d let anyone in again. What’s amazing is that it wasn’t that much poop. But, evidently, just a little poop goes a long way.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t even consider lapping up a latte’ that was flavored with a pinch of puppy poop. I guess the bottom line is (I know it’s a terrible pun, but I couldn’t pass it up) it doesn’t take much of some things to ruin the taste of something that could be really good.

I think I remember learning in Jr. High that the body is made up of about 60-70% water. So, I figure if I don’t want a life that stinks I better make sure that the water is pure. And, since there are lots of things that can pollute the pool, so to speak,  I think I’ll concentrate on watching what I allow to be a part of my life.

A pretty smart guy named Paul who lived a long time ago said it pretty well; “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” 

Besides being pretty wise, I bet the guy made a good cuppa coffee too.

I can’t help but imagine that God must have taken a coffee break while creating the universe. Why else would he have created coffee?  I’m pretty sure that the coffee plant was not the tree of the knowledge good and evil that man wasn’t supposed to eat from.  (Coffee does have some special properties that help clear the mind and enhance our ability to think, but I don’t think it has the good and evil thing embedded in its chemistry.) Anyway,  once man did eat from the forbidden tree, you can bet that they had an “aha” moment when it was affirmed in their brains that coffee was on the good team, not the evil one.  The first thing Eve probably said to Adam over their morning coffee the day after they messed up was “What were we thinking?” To which Adam probably replied, “I told you we should have had another cup of coffee before we went to work! You never start thinking straight until you’ve had a second cup.”   Maybe God knew they would mess up and would need coffee to help them think clearly and sort things out. Mmmm....Drink more coffee - think more clearly. Thanks God…coffee is good!

Part of the fun of meeting people is hearing how God has wired them with unique gifts, passions, and ideas. You've got to check out a great imaginator's vision by visiting globalneed.org   One of the highlights of my time at the Q conference was about 2 hours (late) talking with Armando Fullwood. This guy knows what it means to be a real imaginator - clearly able to imagine a better future for mankind, willing to listen and calloborate with even the least of these (that would be me), and full of the drive to create something truly amazing that will impact the world for the common good - and specifically present Christ to a world of people who desperately need Him.  


This Java Art was inspired by that conversation.