TABLE TALK

TABLE TALK

 “Table Topics – Family Gathering,” is an appropriate card game for all ages and most suitable for our household. Minimally once per week, there’s a family gathering at our house. The second question I read stumped me, “What’s the habit you’re proudest of breaking?”  I didn’t have an immediate answer. Like all good questions, however, it deserves my consideration.

Shatter Voice (named so because it can shatter my thoughts) replied, “It depends.” Rational brain responded, “on? and Stop the rabbit chasing and answer.”  Here was an opportunity for an experience to inform the “now.”

In 2020, I went from years of having solo mornings to being confined to the house with my beloved all day, every day. It was awful and wonderful at the same time. We are resilient people and quickly adopt the habit of waking early, walking, and then driving to a well-known coffee house. Not allowed to enter the establishment, we joined the line of other caffeine seekers to order two cups of piping hot coffee. Not hot enough? Back in line for a remake. Parking in “our” parking spot, we sipped the coffee during our morning devotions. The total cost? five dollars and thirty-five cents plus the gas to drive the three miles.

We were predictable. We would drive up to the menu board and speaker, Travis or Anna would say “What can I get you?” We would respond “this is G and G.” They would say, “We got you, pull around.” From late March to early December, this is how our day began. And then the voice on the other end of the speaker changed and said, “that’ll be six dollars and one cent.” “No, it will be five dollars and thirty-five cents,” said I repeatedly as the line behind me grew longer. Final our favorite barista said, “G pull around. It’s a long story?” The cost of two cups of coffee had increased beyond our breaking point. After a cost analysis (ha-ha), we knew it was time to let go of the national chain – to break the habit - not of coffee but of the ritual for acquiring a daily cup in this manner.

By the end of the year, we had researched the process of perfect coffee brewing and coffee pots. We invested in a pot and began brewing coffee at home.

Had we broken the habit of drinking coffee, I would have said emphatically that this was my proudest breaking habit moment. We are serious coffee drinkers. It is what surfaced as I sat sipping a cup of hot, lightly honey sweetened dark roast coffee pondering the question. The broken habit makes a small contribution to the preservation of the environment by lessening our carbon footprint. We went on to decrease our consumption of bottled water.

Your answer might be much more substantial. What habits are you proud of breaking? Let the concrete and emotional results fuel your effort to break other habits. It has for us. And yes, we picked up other habits. We are a work in progress.

Romans 12:2

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---“What’s the habit you’re proudest of breaking?” Answer and ask your friends.