“Why did they take out all the comfy seating and put in high tables with skinny-butt stools?” she once complained to a friend. “Nobody likes those seats—they’re always empty.”
“I like them,” her skinny butt friend grinned.
Today she arrived alone. “Lucky me,” she said to herself, quickly claiming a corner spot by the window. Settling in, she took a sip of iced mocha, and closed her eyes. She wasn’t really a coffee drinker—she just loved the aroma of roasted coffee beans infused into the air around her. Once she’d tried to be a grownup and join the java club, but it was a brief love affair that ended badly. It didn’t matter. As much as she enjoyed her low octane drink, what she was really paying for in her favorite franchised coffee shop was the atmosphere.
No one else seemed to understand that. Especially skinny butt people.
Beginning to relax, she stared off across the room, mocha in hand, lost in thought. Absentmindedly, she swirled the contents of her drink while she wondered whatever had happened to Christmas. She missed the decorations that used to fill this place, back when wishing someone a Merry Christmas wasn’t offensive, insensitive or politically incorrect. Once upon a time.
It was such a reflection of her own life. The disillusionment she often felt at the way the world looked now was nothing compared to the disappointment she felt in those around her who had let her down. How long had it been since she first realized she could only count on herself? People were flesh and blood, after all, and true love was only a lyric in a song. She’d never seen it displayed without strings and never believed she was worthy of the real thing, if it even existed.
Brooding into her brew, she didn’t notice the old man who walked past her table, his computer bag slipping off his shoulder while he reached for the door beside her. But as his heavy satchel did a freefall, it banged into her arm and knocked her cup of contemplation to the ground.
“Oh, my goodness,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
She grabbed the few napkins from off the table and wiped up drops of chocolate that splashed on her shoes. “No worries,” she told him in thinly veiled irritation. “I was almost finished with it anyway.”
“Let me buy you another one,” he offered, retrieving the crestfallen cup from the cement floor.
“That’s really not necessary . . .” she began, but he wasn’t listening. Turning to the barista who arrived with a bucket and mop, the stranger gave him the marked cup. “I’ll pay for its replacement,” he said.
“Seriously,” she told the old man. “It was just an accident.” Now she felt irritated and guilty. Why wouldn’t this guy just go away and let her feelings alone?
“I insist,” he said. “Mind if I sit here while we wait for your new drink?”
“Would it matter if I did?” she wanted to say but motioned weakly to the chair he was already claiming. She didn’t know this man, and she wasn’t in the mood to make small talk. As he settled in, she sized him up with full-on radar. She never shared a table with strangers, but what could she do? Hopefully this would be all right. It was broad daylight, after all. In a public place. Where nobody knew her and probably wouldn’t care if she was victimized anyway. She sighed. Nope. She was on her own here.
Maybe it was as innocent as it looked. But what if it wasn’t? What if this was some kind of old-guy scam where he bumped into distracted women in coffee shops, aimed at their decaf with the precision of a big-league pitcher, and knocked their drinks on the ground? That didn’t explain what he was after though. If he was trying to rob her, shouldn’t he have knocked her purse on the floor instead?
She could feel her pulse amp up. If only she could shoot off a text message to somebody. Help, it might read, I’m being held hostage at the corner coffee shop by a man who bought me an iced mocha. Nobody would believe that. They’d all know what a sucker she was for a bargain.
“I’m Josh,” the stranger said, extending his hand across the table.
“I’m not,” she was tempted to respond. Aware it was her turn to answer, she ignored the gesture and wiped some liquid off the table. “Nice to meet you. Josh,” she said, with emphasis if not sincerity.
He didn’t press the issue of her unoffered name. She didn’t revise her comment. She just crossed her arms, waiting for the barista to call her drink and the stranger to get back to wherever it was he was going.
“You looked a million miles away there—just before we met by accident,” the man said with a smile.
Aha, she thought, narrowing her eyes as she analyzed his words. So, you were watching me. Stalking me. I knew it—you ruined my mocha on purpose.
Hands clasped, he leaned on the table and stared out the window. “Well, it’s a good place to come and think your thoughts.”
Rolling her eyes, she tapped on her phone to check the time and let out a sigh. Come on, you traitor, she accused it in silence. Ring, so I can get away from here.
“I come here every day,” he went on, “just to sit.”
“And think your thoughts?”
He smiled. “That’s right. Sometimes I even write them down,” he added, tapping his computer bag. The holiday track in the background had changed to a rock rhythm, its resonating bass shattering whatever peace was left to her in the once-reclusive corner where she’d tried to be invisible for the last half hour.
“Do you like this song?” Josh asked, as if reading her mind.
“Not exactly.”
“I like Country & Western myself,” he offered.
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re in the wrong place. They don’t play much of that here.”
Tilting his head, he grinned. “I suppose not. Somebody might get offended if they had to listen to Loretta Lynn do that one song of hers.”
“Which one? She had quite a few.”
“You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly.”
Forgetting herself, she laughed out loud. “I must have missed that one.”
He grinned. “Yeah, well, I don’t think it was a huge hit.”
“Too insensitive?”
It was the man’s turn to laugh. “Among other things.” The music track changed again as piano and violin swelled in duet with the haunting strains of a familiar Christmas carol.
“What Child Is This,” she said. “One of my favorites.”
“Or Greensleeves,” the man offered. “One of my favorites.”
“Well, that way no one is offended, are they?” she said. “I can hear the Christmas story in the strains of the violin while you can imagine a lover’s lament.”
“Maybe it’s the same story.”
She looked confused. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
He leaned back against his chair. “Well, Greensleeves is about a wealthy lover who falls desperately in love with a beautiful woman who spurns his advances. He offers her everything she could possibly want, but she turns it all down. She doesn’t want him.”
Her replacement mocha materialized in front of her and she reached for it, absentmindedly taking a sip while she considered what he said. Forgetting her desire to see the stranger leave, she leaned back against her chair. “Sounds like he was lucky to be rid of her,” she commented.
“He didn’t think so.”
“Then maybe she was lucky to be rid of him. Stalkers are scary,” she said pointedly.
Josh laughed. “She was definitely a hard sell. No, he offered her his heart and all he possessed, and waited.”
“Well, why wouldn’t she want someone like that? She’d be a fool to walk away from such a generous love.”
“People are often fools.”
“So, he decides to cut her off, I suppose?”
“Just the opposite. He gave her the freedom to choose, even though he knew she’d reject him.”
She stared at him, frowning. “That’s so strange. I guess I never paid attention to the lyrics before.”
He looked at her intently. “Most people don’t.”
She had to admit she felt confused. “You said both songs tell the same story. Are you saying Christmas is about God loving fools?”
“There’s an interesting thought.”
“Wouldn’t that make God foolish, too?”
“Would it?”
She expected him to laugh at her point of view or try to reframe it for the sake of conformity. That’s what most people did. But he wasn’t laughing. He was looking at her with . . . kindness? Gentleness? Blinking, she shifted her gaze away from his. This conversation had become . . . uncomfortable.
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” he said.
“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked, meeting his eyes as she searched his expression again.
“Why do I make you feel uncomfortable?”
“No, I mean, well, it’s . . . it’s like you can read my thoughts.”
His smile was natural. “Oh. Well, they’re not hard to read.”
There was something very unusual about Josh. He seemed so young to be walking around in an old man’s body. And conversation with him was, well, mostly it was startling. She tried to remember if she’d seen him somewhere before.
“Remind me of some of the lyrics,” she said, steering the conversation back to safer ground.
“Oh, let’s see,” he answered, looking at the ceiling like the words were written there. “Your vows you’ve broken, like my heart, Oh, why did you so enrapture me, Now I remain in a world apart but my heart remains in captivity.”
“That’s so sad,” she murmured. “A lover in captivity.” This was heaven’s story?
“Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but my lady Greensleeves.”
His delight, she thought, pausing on the word. A wealthy lover who delights in someone because of who they are. Well, that doesn’t happen every day, now does it, she thought with cynicism. She didn’t know if anyone had ever seen her as delightful. Maybe the lady, Greensleeves, didn’t know what to do with genuine affection either.
Caught up in the stanzas, Josh broke into a velvety baritone as he finished, singing the last verse.
“Greensleeves, now farewell, adieu, to God I pray to prosper thee, For I am still thy lover true, come once again and love me.”
She was spellbound. Was it her imagination, or had the entire coffee shop gone silent, too? The words almost echoed in the cavernous room. “Come once again and love me.”
“That’s all any of us really wants, isn’t it?” she posed, more to herself than to the stranger. Josh smiled but said nothing.
“He never stopped loving her then?”
He shook his head slowly.
“And he wasn’t bitter at her rejection. He just kept hoping she’d return his love one day?”
His eyes twinkled but this time he didn’t answer. Her misty eyes betrayed her, and she blinked hard to hide the evidence. “Well, if someone loved me like that, it would be so irresistible it wouldn’t matter if they had money or not.”
He tilted his head to the side before speaking again. “Irresistible,” he repeated. “I like that. But it’s not really love if the other person isn’t free to reject it, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, that would be coercion. Nobody wants to be loved out of obligation, do they?”
She had the sense that everyone else in the room had blurred into the periphery while a spotlight shone on their little table and this unexpected conversation. She thought she should have felt pressured by the stranger’s questions, but instead she felt illuminated by them.
“You mean God wants to be loved by us?”
“What do you think?” he asked, his expression warm.
She thought about words he’d quoted, reframing them as though dictated by God to some ancient scribe. For I Am still thy lover true, come once again and love Me.
It was simple. Honest. Earth shattering.
“That’s the Gospel?” she asked, as though the old man with the young eyes was an expert on the heart of God.
“I’d say that’s love. And if God is love, then that’s the Gospel.”
It wasn’t the message she’d been used to hearing in church—usually one of grace smeared thinly between thick layers of judgment, like a condemnation sandwich. How many times had she visited houses of worship and been met with commands, demands, and reprimands? She took a deep breath. If the stranger was right, if this was really what love looked like, this changed everything.
“It changes everything, doesn’t it?” he asked, his eyes laughing again at her look of surprise.
Smiling, she said, “Well, it helps me understand why the people of Bethlehem asked, what child is this?”
He seemed pleased with her answer and stood up to gather his computer bag and push in his chair. “Time for me to go,” he said, holding out his hand to her. As she returned the gesture, he held her hand warmly and said, “Merry Christmas, my friend.” Then he opened the door and disappeared.
She sat at the table for a few more minutes, her forehead wrinkled while she drummed her fingers against the side of her mocha. She wanted to discuss this with him some more. Hadn’t he said he stopped in here every day? She picked up her purse and started for the door where a barista stood beside a large, metallic trash can.
“Have a nice day,” he said as she dropped her empty red cup into the trash bag he held open for her.
“I already did,” she told him. “That man at my table was so interesting.”
The barista looked puzzled and glanced at the corner by the window. “I guess I didn’t see him.”
“Oh, he was an old guy with a computer. He comes here all the time.”
“No kidding,” the young man said. “Well, I’m the manager and pretty much know all our regulars. I didn’t see anyone sitting with you.”
Her eyebrows gathered in confusion. “But you cleaned up my mocha when it fell on the floor over there. He even bought me another one!”
The barista shook his head. “I’m sorry. I guess we’ve been busy this morning.”
“But you did see me sitting there for the last hour, right?”
“Sure,” he answered, tying off the large plastic bag. Smiling, his eyes full of a kindness unusual for one so young, he told her, “I’ve got to get this outside. Enjoy your day.”
She stepped out of his way, shaken as she recognized a now familiar gentleness in the barista’s expression. That’s impossible, she thought. I’m sure I’m mistaken. Suddenly, she didn’t know what to think. Maybe she should text someone after all. Help, it might read, there was something weird in my decaf and now I’m hallucinating. Nobody would believe that. They knew she was much too cautious to be delusional.
She’d never be able to explain this to anyone. She didn’t even understand it herself. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she fell asleep in the corner and dreamed the whole thing. Or maybe she’d been the victim of a beautiful visitation and it wouldn’t matter whether anyone believed it or not.
Just as long as she did.
A faint melody floated up from the recesses of her heart, a sweet accompaniment to the freedom sweeping across her soul. “Greensleeves was all My joy, Greensleeves was My delight.” Suddenly she saw it. The Christmas story. It wasn’t something that could be contained by red cups or expressed in seasonal greetings. It wasn’t restricted to one month a year or limited to the pages of an ancient book. The story of Christmas was as unrestrained and shocking as a love that gives without taking.
As scandalous as a peasant girl two millennium earlier who became the lead character in an immaculate drama. As miraculous as when the young girl’s sweat-drenched face looked into the eyes of that newborn in her arms while she questioned, what child is this?
The answer then was the same as the answer today. It saturated the air around her like the aroma in the coffee shop. Love was always there. Ready when she was. Patiently waiting. For her.
“I am still thy Lover true,” the lyrics echoed in her heart as the café’s door closed silently behind her, “come once again and love Me.”
With appreciation to Mike Chaput for permission to use the photo above. The original photo can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/427/2142255029/in/photolist-4giBMx-qjh92R-q9PNU6-iz82zZ-iuytNn-2aDCnqL-92urD6-q8GceX-vDD5L-dV7ArB-dBy9m6-iuAPX5-5SHesX-dASwJH-5LtWXx-iG19E3-7nhqGp-qE2zNK-9uwwiK-qf3jGF-939Y1M-dp2qfg-7pwbND-pBbnRe-BtQfX1-rgKQix-izz4ej-9dzX5U-iCqkrk-2TWLWf-qBBup4-ppKWQB-pWn73N-7sLKY9-aZAevv-4cDKwh-dHQuAz-r97oE9-iyYAqM-jder13-qnSvKi-izDSqW-7pPH6E-vEaDf-7ku1CK-8UYbT9-7rNLdi-dwAXVr-8XgKgm-iz8gjH
