coffee klatch in perry, iowa

David and I like to take a different route each time we drive back and forth between Michigan and California.  We are particularly attracted to small towns and interesting hotels.  I have stayed several times in the Hotel Pattee in Perry, Iowa, but Dave had never been with me.  So, I put it on our route in September. 

On this particular morning, in the café of the Hotel Pattee, a steady stream of ladies, appearing to be in their seventies and eighties, came in and started moving tables and chairs around to accommodate a group of about a dozen.  Always curious, Dave asked them about the gathering.  They meet five days a week at three different coffee shops in town, with no apparent agenda. 

I felt quite envious of their easy, uncomplicated companionship, until I thought about my own experience of meeting daily with a small group of men and women to read scripture and pray for eight weeks of my Epworth summer.  In California I had my weekly “Panera Panel”, solving the problems of the world over lunch, a weekly women’s Bible study and a monthly book group that keep me connected with the women in my life.  But there is something about meeting consistently every day that opens us up to a deeper level of vulnerability and honesty, to Shalom and soul repair. 

Wherever you are today, what groups are there in your life where you could make a concerted effort to meet more often and more consistently?  Maybe I will try to find three coffee shops in my community and see who will join me.  Are you interested?  It sounds like a big-time commitment, but it doesn’t have to be.  Twenty to thirty minutes maybe.

Love, Liz 

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God.”  Acts 2:42,46