A Cup of Coffee

Across the street from the Denton County Courthouse, at the top of the hill there in the Denton town square, is the 24-hour coffee shop. Since two of the things I like on chilly, overcast Saturday mornings are riding my bike and sipping a cup of hot coffee, a ride for coffee was the plan. I could have brewed a pot of coffee in my kitchen. I could have taken the pick-up to a much closer coffee shop in Sanger. Instead, I pedaled the bike through an indirect sequence of deserted backroads to the Denton town square. It was a 20-mile ride for a cup of coffee.



There are more time efficient and less expensive ways to get coffee in the morning. But, as you can probably guess, the objective isn't only the coffee. The objective, and this might surprise some of you, isn't even the bike ride. No, the objective of the morning involved a variety of things. The coffee and the bike ride were included, of course. Also included were things like physical and emotional health benefits, an extended period of time to think about God and the Bible class I will be teaching Sunday morning, and seeing how long it takes to ride to Denton in case I ever have the opportunity to commute to work in the future. From the perspective of some, it might be ridiculous to ride a bike 40-miles round trip to get a cup of coffee. What a waste of time and effort!

Nope...not a waste at all. Today's morning adventure reminded me of a lesson we must keep relearning...that speed, productivity, efficiency, and monetary profit aren't always useful ways to measure things. There is danger in over-simplification. The economy of real value is a more complex thing.