I’m Sorry, We’re OUT of Coffee.

I thought I’d share this shocking Starbucks adventure with you.  Before our Sunday evening gathering last night  (check out our naming contest, by the way), I stopped at the local Starbucks to get my regular IV injection.  I decided quickly on a simple tall house blend and ordered with confidence.  The barista looked at me with shame and confessed with heavy eyes… "I forgot to brew the coffee." 

"Oh," I said.  I had never imagined hearing those words uttered at a Starbucks.  "Okay… I’ll have the Antigua brew, then," I responded. 

"No, you see," confessed the barista, "I forgot to brew all the coffee."

"All the coffee?" I clarified.

"Yep.  We’ve got no coffee.  I’m sorry, we’re totally out of coffee."

I couldn’t quite process mentally what the guy behind the counter was trying to communicate to me.  It seemed like he was saying that he had no coffee.

"But this is Starbucks," I reminded the shamed barista.  "Starbucks is coffee,"  I slowly explained. 

"Yeah, but, you see… we don’t have any coffee," he admitted again.

"But you have to have coffee," I decried in neglect.  "You just have to.  Sears has appliances.  McDonald’s has hamburgers.  And Starbucks has coffee.  It’s just that way."

"Not today it’s not.  Sorry, dude," said the barista once more.  And just to make it clear he stated quite eloquently the words I didn’t want to comprehend: "Man, I’m sorry.  We’re out of coffee." 

My world began to spin and the chairs floated to the ceiling and the cars outside turned into bubbles and frogs started appearing everywhere and the water turned to blood and locusts swarmed the windows and…  I tried to recall how John had depicted this moment in the book of Revelations.

So later, at Tim Hortons, I was explaining this shocking cataclysmic catastrophe to a huddle of coffee appreciaters… "They were OUT of coffee!"  "You’re making that up!"  "No, seriously, they were dry!"… when I remembered the Starbucks cup that Kelsey had shown me earlier in the evening.  She had just enjoyed a grande something-or-other from another location and had discovered an eternal truth tattooed on her Starbucks brew. On the waxy cup was an incredible saying, not one of the cheesey ones that so often adorns the side.  The saying reminded me of somebody I first met 27 years ago as an eight year old kid and who has become the most incredible friend everyone could ever have:

"The greatest leader is a servant.  Don’t be a boss.  Be a real leader.  Be a servant leader.  A servant leader is a winner.  Even when he loses everything, even when he loses his life, a servant leader wins it all."