If you don’t live in Boston, you may not know that there is a Dunkin Donuts on almost every corner. OK, a little exaggeration, but not by much. At Back Bay station in Boston, yes, inside the station, there are two Dunkin Donuts within 50 feet of each other. Where I live right now, there are three different Dunkin Donuts all within the same block. There is one on its own, there is one in the gas station, and there is one in the supermarket.
Why so many? Why do people want coffee – and Dunkin Donuts – so much?
Well, the other day, I drove up to the Dunkin Donuts in the gas station and went inside to get my usual decaf coffee. I went up to the counter: "Could I have a medium decaf, milk and sugar?" The young woman taking my order asked, "Was that milk and sugar?" Yes.
"Everybody wants milk and sugar."
Remember the promised land? When God saw that the Israelites were severely oppressed and enslaved in Egypt, He came to bring them out of that place and He promised to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey:
“I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Ex 3:7-8)
What does that mean, a land flowing with milk and honey? Well, you can’t have milk without cattle, and you can’t have cattle without a lot of land, and you can’t have property like that unless you have prosperity. And, you can’t have honey without bees, and, well, imagine trying to keep beehives when you’re always fighting wars. So, God was promising the Israelites in their own language a land of peace and prosperity, a true home.
The Lord has sent His Son to come down and deliver us from our own oppressions and bring us to our own true home. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (Jn 14:6)
He is everyone’s milk and sugar.
“Everyone is searching for you.” (Mk 1:37)
Are you overworked, oppressed and feeling enslaved by life? Do you look for your coffee fix, your Dunkies fix, your milk and sugar each day?
He is always in the tabernacle at church, in the Eucharist. He is always waiting to be found: “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28)
I limit my D & D’s to being a genuine treat, having given up on anyone ever bringing me one just for a surprise. (I bear the same nearly-not-gluttonous view of the “honey” part — Russell Stover chocolates.) When I come into a meeting or discussion group and see a big D & D’s there, I almost whine aloud, and went into real withdrawal while in Ireland and also in the midwest: Best coffee in the world, and maybe there’s some in Heaven! I will think of it with even greater pleasure, now. I’ll be thinking of the first Chosen, and then how wondrous it is that we are led now, too, and how He said via Jeremiah, “I know My plan for you –to prosper you…”
Yes, a great blessing, that we are chosen. And every Dunkies customer is chosen!
Jerome, I need an insightful answer please: why do people order decaf, and then put sugar in it? Isn’t that sort of a nutritional oxymoron?
Signed, Gab (a Tim Horton’s Café Mocha kind ‘a girl, who rarely says no to a honey cruller)
Gab,
I would say such a person wants to have the same flavor as their caffeine days, but without the spinning head. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. Nutrition? Dunkin Donuts has nutrition?
Thank you, Jerome; I knew I could count on you. (and I’m counting the milk in the coffee as nutrition). If it’s some kind of fake milk, please don’t tell me.