Do You Need Coffee And Social Media In Church?

Olu came in unnoticed into the dimly lit church auditorium. The lights were dimmed for full effect and impact of the onscreen projection at the moment. He sat to my right. I didn’t notice him sit down. He sat two seats to my right leaving the seat between us barren. Why he did that, I do not know. I sat to the right of a girl. She was light skinned, tall, slim, pretty figure with braids. The braids look a few weeks old, a few here is relative. The braids also look great. The auditorium was well lit when I came in so it was easy to soak in the details of her general appearance. Needless to mention how appealing her appearance was. She went out several times to do what I do not know. I dubbed her Miss Sholda. She wore a very low cut top that revealed every smooth, toned inch of her shoulder. I assumed the covered parts of her shared same quality as advertised by her bare shoulder. The sight induced my mind to wander momentarily on one thought only, I know I couldn’t help it. The mind is a powerful visualization tool that can function independent or against weilder’s will. It made me wonder where her bra straps were. Maybe she wore none.

I have not been to Lifepointe Church in a while. I have either worshipped at friend’s church or stayed at home due to fatigue or laziness. Service proceeded naturally. Choir was blessing us with their melodious soul levitating renditions. It was beautiful as usual. There was a particular female voice that soared above all voices and streamed bliss into me like auditory genjutsu. If you are into the anime Naruto, you’ll understand what I mean by genjutsu. Apart from the great voices, the instrumentalists were simply serenading me. As a jazz lover, I am a voracious consumer of good instrumentals. Often times I just close my eyes and mentally isolate all the music instruments and listen to each individually as the band performs as a group. There wasn’t much part for lead guitar today. Could it be the lead guitarist who strums the strings like David strums the harp for Saul is not part of the band today? “The young man gets me”, as we say in Naija parlance. The atmosphere was rapidly getting charged by spiritual vibes. I was feeling it. I was enjoying it. I was loving it. I was going into the zone, the heart of worship. A special place of beautiful contradictions. A place where I’m free from all worries and bound by God’s love. A place where I am everything in God yet nothing of my own. A place where I am alive to God and dead to the world.

Then something interfered with this heaven-earth connection. Something strong hit me. Something unexpected. Something inexplicably unusual. Imagine enjoying an evening cool breeze under a cashew tree that is out of season. Suddenly, a coconut fruit detaches from the tree branch like a bomb dropped from a war plane and explodes on your head. That is how unusual it was. An unyielding smell of coffee hit me. Coffee? Here? Now? Why? I wonder if it is Neo Cafe coffee. Of all the things to expect and of all the places to expect it, and of all the moment to expect it, coffee by this time during a church service? Am I imagining things? Like a caged vicious animal on the lose, attacking every and anything in sight, the coffee smell attacked my nostrils. I couldn’t stand the fierce yet nimble assault from this invisible unrelenting attacker. I am not a coffee lover, nor a hater. Me drinking coffee is almost an anomaly. Every once in never, I get the strong urge to indulge in a cup of coffee. In a slow motion, my nose led me towards the source of the assault.

This guy beside me had a large, tall, insulated, stainless, shiny red mug of coffee. Thanks to the nasal assault, I have now noticed the guy who came in unnoticed. I can understand having coffee in church during a vigil at the previous church I worshipped with. And there’s usually a designated area where the coffee is brewed and drank. I have never witnessed this before. Maybe you have. The way he held the mug gave away his intimate relationship with the cylindrical container and its content mostly. I was like “oohkay…….this is rather new to me and I do not judge” A bunch of questions flirted on my mind. Is he trying hard to stay awake? Is he a coffee addict? Is the coffee and mug his life support machine and oxygen? Is he this? Is he that? These rhetorics returned no logical answer. It’s pointless bludgeoning my senses to numbness with these rhetorics. “Why don’t you simply ask the good fella why he is sipping a tall mug of coffee like it is an illegal drug”, my inner me suggested. We know that I am not remotely wired like that.

He had a thick nicely kept hairy vegetation for beards. He was average height and build. This bearded coffee drinking fellow sipped on the content of his mug religiously at interval. With each sip, my nose was violated by the aroma. The mug is clamped tightly inbetween his left forearm and his left upper rib. At a point I was convinced that the sleep “spirit” he kept away with his coffee descended on me with vengeance. I wondered if I needed coffee to stay awake for a short Sunday service. God forbid! I don’t need any stimulant to binge-watch entire seasons of favourite tv series. I remember binge watching 24, Smallville, Prison Break dusk to dawn. Imagine a world where we need coffee to stay awake for a roughly two hour Sunday service. What did we do with our nights in such world? Is the service that boooooring? He didn’t even pay attention to the service at all.

Like most 21st century pentecostal churches, service was not unnecessarily long. Programming was excellent and exciting, the preaching was engaging and lively. Yet the service for me was distractingly unusual. There I was, sandwiched between Miss Sholda and Mr Coffi. I was unable to keep my eyes open for five straight minutes. I can’t remember ever sleeping during service in this church. I was slipping in and out of sleep uncontrollably. This is rather unusual. I wondered if I was displaying the tell tale sign of burping my head. It’s a dead giveaway, you cannot disguise that. I started scanning for fellow sleepers to ward off sleep, console myself and somewhat conceal my weakness. I saw one guy and was like, “you see…it’s not just me”, as if that changes anything or meant anything. That is how humans validate immorality, illegality, etc most times. The more, the merrier. And majority rules. Once the number of people involved in abnormal activity reaches a critical mass, they push for this abnormality to be recognized as a normality. What’s even more interesting was that, I was more concerned about protecting my squeaky clean I-do-not-sleep-in-church image and not embarrassing myself than I was for missing the savoury sermon. What’s more important? Which is more valuable? You decide for yourself.

Later, an usher ushered Coffi to the empty seat between us in order to accommodate one more person on the row. There was a certain odd energy hovering around. It is hard to explain. I can’t stay awake, and I can’t concentrate. Mr Coffi was glued to his phone throughout the service. He furiously punched away on his phone. I have no idea what app or forum he was on. If he told me he was performing a complicated complex emergency heart surgery over the phone, I would’ve readily believed him. Or maybe he was running Hilary and Trump’s election campaign simultaneously from his phone. Miss Sholda on the other hand was on insatagram most of the time. No peeking was required to see their phone activities when the gadgets were in full display. You can only avoid stealing a glance for so long. You have to be curiously dead not steal a glance. Why do adults come to church to engage in activities totally unrelated to church service while service is ongoing? I believe this adults were not forced to come to church to cause distraction. They could’ve stayed home. You can say it’s none of my business and you wouldn’t be so wrong. But when you’re being a distraction, it calls for concern.

I wish I knew his name, I thought to myself. As soon as the service was over and we stood up to leave, he turned to me with a beaming smile. He held the gaze, held out his hand and said, “Hi my name is Olu”. Wow! The universe heard my thought and definitely wanted me to know his real name. Be careful what you wish for. Better still, wish wisely. I held his hand briefly in a reasonable squeeze and not the trending stone crusher hand shake. I introduced myself as well. Mucho gusto señor Olu. So, Olu woke up this morning, brushed his teeth, showered his body, brewed or bought his coffee, dressed his body, came to church to reside on his phone. He could’ve done this leisurely at home. Maybe not. But what’s the fun in that, right? If he did, I wouldn’t be writing about it now. Nice meeting you Olu. Thanks for inspiring this short story.

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Have a great day!