Kudu and the Hammering of my Pride

Questions follow us by season.  In college, you're asked your major.  At graduation, your degree, and your plans for the future.  As a young adult, I am asked, "So, what are you doing these days?"  Meaning, what's your job.

And I hate that question.  Oh, I hate it.  Because somedays being a barista makes me feel like an epic failure.  I crushed the SAT, went to a prestigious university, took a semester off, graduated with a strong GPA, and then...  entered the world of food and bev.

Truth be told, the first year at Kudu beat my pride with the consistency and precision of a pileated woodpecker.  I reeled, swayed, under new revelations of my pride, realizing how highly I thought of myself.  Sweeping and mopping the shop, I was met with a wheedling voice-  you are better than this. You worked hard for something more than this.  You deserve a better job.

And part of me truly felt that I was better than everyone around me, set on a higher plane by intelligence and purpose, and therefore by dignity.   I've attempted to kill as much of that pride as I can, offer it to the Lord as it rises again and again from the stump that remains.  I know I am no better and no worse than the doctor or the janitor; and I know that I am called to be at Kudu, for now.  But family reunions still get me down sometimes.  Cousins show me their children, and their business cards, and their portfolios.  And I show them a picture of a swan I once poured in a latte bowl.  Nope, didn't even use a toothpick.

I see my shame when I define my position.  I call myself an assistant manager (which I was called by a manager, once), or a closing manager.  I don't say barista.  Because I feel like I've let myself and my family down, though they would never say such a thing.

And I want to scream sometimes, that this is just temporary, that I don't intend to stay here, that I am bound for greater things.  And I hope that all those prove true.  Because I do feel called to different things (though perhaps not greater), and I do feel better suited for another field of work.

But my squirming and discomfort and political framings of my position belay something deep within, and give a reason for me to stay right where I am.   They demonstrate that I still find much of my value in what I do, not who I am.  I am not satisfied to make coffee and pour beer, because I find it demeaning and boring and unhealthy and financially unstable.  But were I truly satisfied in the Lord, if I trusted Him fully, with all that I am and have and do, then I would be satisfied regardless.  I wouldn't mind making coffee for sixty more years (eighty, if I follow in Memaw's worn-out shoes), nor would I mind doing hard labor or teaching in a school or driving a taxi or cleaning pools.  Because, when my joy and my self worth is in Him, my trust for the future hung on His love for me, then there is nothing to fear.  Nothing to be ashamed of.  Nothing but to work hard, to love those around me, and rest in His grace.  If repentance means 'to think newly', then I repent by rejecting my ashamed self-aggrandizement, and my arrogant assumptions of superiority, and instead meditate on the source of my true value and satisfaction.  These things come from the love I have been given in Jesus, not the position I have earned, and therefore cannot be compromised.  And when I rely on this love, cling to it, I am freed to work well, to serve well both employer and customer.  And I am freed from anxiety unto rest.  And so I am glad to work as a barista, simply because in such a position I learn humility, leadership, and service, and because I indeed work with and for beings made in the very image of God and who are loved by Him.  Any such work is therein honorable, and good.