Where Privilege meets Addiction

I write you now from Ottawa, Canada from the UU Minister's Convocation. We are staying in a super fancy hotel with soft plushy downy comforters and pillows in a crisp white fine cotton weave. Everything is very elegant. But after the morning worship I walked out into the lobby to grab my 10:00 cup of coffee and found .... nothing. They had cleared out all the coffee after breakfast. I stood there in shock. How could I make it through the morning on that one tiny elegant 6 oz cup I had with breakfast? Friends and colleagues I hadn't seen in ages walked by and said hello, and all I could say, hands resting on the places coffee pots used to be, was "there's no more coffee!"

A friend from back in my seminary days said "let's just notice this is a conversation of privilege." I thought "of course, that's what coffee is- the morning luxury you can count on even in the crappiest minimum wage job" I pondered her comment as I went off in search of coffee and into the elevator where I repeated it to a colleague I had not yet met. She thought about it and said "but it's more than that, it's where privilege meets addiction." I liked this- who else but an addict would let the object of addiction come before friends? But as I brewed a cup of Starbucks Fair Trade Coffee in my hotel room I felt there was more. I mean, sure I'm living in the lap of luxury here, but coffee is something else.

As I sat in worship holding my warm cup in my hands, I realized that holding the cup of coffee and sitting quietly for a moment each morning is a time of arriving- whether at my computer at home, or at my desk in an entry-level office job, or here at a conference in worship. I love the ritual of it, of making the coffee, of holding the cup, yes and of course the shot of caffeine that helps my brain go. And I realized- the line between ritual and addiction and privilege is very thin. The fact that my morning doesn't feel right without that quiet moment, without the warm cup is both ritual and addiction. What a privilege to have a reliable moment of quiet peace and warmth each day.