Dynamic Brews
Come with me; I want to show you something. Watch your step; I’ll hold the door, the usual business kind with the glass panes reflecting our faces, my windblown hair, that stubborn purse strap sliding off my shoulder. End of the day and we’re both a little rumpled, right? I look over my shoulder and smile at you. It feels as though we wear traffic and emails and projects and sleepiness bundled around us in layers. Good timing, I think, for some coffee.
The coffee shop buzzes with activity of the usual sort–staff greeting chatty guests, the exchange of orders and payment, customers settling, the bustle in the kitchen. And it looks much the usual way–bright, cheery logo, mismatched chairs jutting around tables to encourage conversation, coffee art hanging on the walls. We walk in already sniffing the rich aroma of coffee, the buttery subtlety of pastry, and the first thing we notice about Dynamic Brews, the one night pop-up coffee shop that culminates a semester-long project at Dynamic Opportunities, is that it is dramatically different from other coffee shops.
“Welcome to Dynamic Brews,” someone says at the door, and we smile, weaving our way over to a table where friends already sit in conversation. One perception instantly takes us by surprise as we settle into our chairs: Even full, Dynamic Brews has none of the typical coffee-klatch hurry. Maybe that’s because every employee here, from management to barista, has exceptional needs under a wide umbrella of labels, and because the customers—parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends–delight more in the experience than in expediency. In any case, we need grace and have learned to offer it. As we take our seats and browse the menu, I find the atmosphere refreshing. How would it be, I wonder, if we all found it easier to linger?
“May I take your order?” Our young waitress holds a notepad and a pencil, and these she uses to add up expenses as we pass her the order forms we found on the table, circled and checked with all our preferences. She bites her lip as she calculates, pencil bobbing. A teacher hovers nearby, just close enough to rescue the student from anxiety-inducing mistakes.
“Take your time,” the teacher says quietly, as our waitress tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear and peruses our orders and her own work.
“That’ll be ten dollars,” our waitress says slowly, as if measuring the words carefully as she checks her work one last time. I reach for my wallet, captivated by the sweetness in her voice. The exchange made, we sit back to wait, to share friendly conversation, to watch a talent show that is about to commence on center stage. The performers, all also our differently-abled friends, have been divided into two companies. The first group crowds the wings of the stage, excited and fidgety, palming microphones and tugging at the tales of their t-shirts. The kids who will perform later, among them Riley and her boyfriend Josh, plop down in the audience after the distribution of our coffee orders signals the end of their shift.
We hold steaming cups in our hands and sip as the emcee for this act, a long-limbed boy with brown curls and an affection for lights of every kind, wanders on stage, looking grateful for our attention. After an enthusiastic welcome, he smirks through a slightly garbled joke (we laugh anyway) and announces the first performance. But technical difficulties persist, and the first performer, a beautiful dancer who gives powerful hugs, grimaces a little in the spotlight.
“Don’t worry, you’ve got this!” The kids in the audience begin to call, looking toward their friend on stage, yelling her name, enthusiastically clapping their hands. “You can do it,” they encourage with wild fanfare, while one of the teachers tries to fix the sound system. The performer grins and strikes a pose much to the delight of her friends, because it’s okay here if everything doesn’t turn out just right. This coffee shop without hurry also exists without criticism or comparison, and besides coffee, they serve the richest honesty and camaraderie.
The sound system at last cooperating, the rest of the performances smoothly follow–singing and dancing mostly, sometimes solo acts and sometimes groups. They are well-practiced but deliciously imperfect, uncoordinated here and there or out of sync; some of their props sagging, some of their masks crooked. Even so, every performance receives exuberant applause, as much for its honesty as its expression of genuine talent. We are warmed, you and I, by so much more than the coffee. I think of our world and all of its impossible standards and begin to laugh, tears gathering in my eyes with relief. We find God’s Kingdom alive and well in the most unlikely places, and without fail, I find it here, among these challenged but thriving children. I lean toward you, dabbing at the edges of my eyes, gesturing toward the stage, where the kids huddle in congratulatory affection, and I say, “Do you see it, just there?”
