As a coffee roaster with Zach and the guys in the Underground Coffee Project, I've had to study the process of transformation all roasters know intimately: how a hard, small and flavorless coffee bean becomes something larger, edible, and extremely aromatic. This art of transformation, which amounts to the application of heat among other beans, helps the hard bean's hidden character to emerge, becoming a tender grain that, when broken, wakes sleepy people up and fuels a day. For a long time, the beans roll around and stay green in the roaster, no matter how high you crank the flames.
But something eventually happens called "the first crack." You hear it. The beans, like hard hearts, break inside. It is not gradual, but sudden. The hard internal cells can't endure the heat, and the beans suddenly snap inside and jump to a larger size. The thin layer of chaff, its original protection, falls off. Intense heat does this. No matter how much you hammer a green bean, this "first crack" will never happen. You'll just dent or crush both the bean and the hammer. It's only intense, care-full heat.
Neaners, a particularly hard bean, is undergoing a kind of "first crack." Not only is this what our Christian tradition calls "contrition," the breaking-of-heart, but it is where the heart grows and external layers, appearances, fall off. The heat of divine love does this, I believe. The mystery--the art?--is how this holy heat is applied. For coffee roasting, it is both through the other beans rolling against each other, as well as from the contained presence of heat in the air. I believe it is the same with us: the heat of God's love is transmitted through life-on-life contact and relationship, as well as through direct mystical experience.
I say all this to accompany some of Neenie's letters to come. In them he describes mystical sensation, sharp heartbreak and remorse over the past, as well as his relationship with me. It is awkward to make public his loving descriptions of our friendship/brotherhood, but I believe Neenie is trying to study his own experience, how this heat has found him and turned him into something tender and aromatic. All the character emerging from within him, filling that cell like a roasting drum, is an aroma he describes on his developing palette as "f***en beautiful, dogg."
(Regarding the profanity: it's hard to say early in the roast what is chaff and what is the true character of the bean's unique origin. I hope the bad words aren't too offensive. He might sound more refined one day, like a polished espresso bean, but I for one enjoy the raw process as it happens, hearing him pop as he does.)
First Crack
You know these anxiety attacks I get, this loneliness, the times I feel betrayed or just lost, have made me grow closer to God. If it’s yelling at him, or cussing him out or just asking questions, it’s coming from my heart and I’m not holding shit in anymore.
I’ve come a long way. I still trip when I think that 2 or 3 years ago, I wasn’t even giving a f*** about my daughters or who I was playing or manipulating.
Its weird to say this but this solitude has really brought me closer to Jesus, and I’m not even trippin’ now on whether they make me stay in the hole or ship me back to main population this month or not. I used to f***en lose my mind alone in the hole.
[In this new kind of solitude, his immediate next thought goes straight to others he is preparing to reach out to, who are also alone. Watch.]
Homie, I really want to walk with N more. He seems like the one who needs it more than even A or R [whom he said in an earlier letter he feels an urge to accompany when he gets out, among many others]. I love A a lot, but for some reason, even though I never kicked it with N on the streets, I feel like he’s my boy now. Someone who I wish—and am gonna pray—que you contact him soon, so I can write him from here. I got unchingo de love for him. I see in N a good vato who gots good clecha [words, something to teach] once he sobers up off the drugs. I wanna share with him my vision for this Hope for Homies ministry I keep dreaming and planning. I want to make him a big part of it. I f***en love that dude.
Continue to be there for D, even if he’s in jail again. Lil’ by lil’ some stuff will stick.
"It's only intense, care-full heat."
I love that.
Neaners your letters are brilliant- teaching me things. Thank you.
Posted by: Deb | November 29, 2011 at 12:49 PM