The Chatterbox Cafe

This past Friday night, my wife Ellen and I had the relatively rare occasion (for us) of having dinner out - just my sweet bride and me! Our son Nathan was preoccuppied elsewhere, and it was a great opportunity for us to catch up with each other before heading into the weekend. We went to Papayas, a local family restaurant in our neighborhood that we had been to a couple of times, but not for quite awhile. We had a coupon for a discount (which we didn't end up using after all, but it got us in the door!). Anyway, while we were there, my mind went back to my childhood and the Chatterbox Cafe.

I grew up in rural Iowa, but very close to a little town near the center of the state called Radcliffe. And, Radcliffe had one restaurant - the Chatterbox Cafe. It was where most everyone in that small town (and the surrounding area where I lived) went for breakfast, morning coffee, lunch at noon, and then again for afternoon coffee. People also met their families there for lunch on Sundays after church. It was a very popular place - a place to see and to be seen at. I loved the Chatterbox Cafe.

We all need a place like the Chatterbox Cafe. Why? Because we all need other people. Even though we think we can be independent and isolated from each other (and we may even try to get away with doing that for awhile), we really can't. I am convinced that if you don't interact with other people and/or authentically share your life with someone, you die. God made us for relationship. We are wired for it. The Chatterbox Cafe was where people saw each other, interacted with each other, shared their lives with each other, and developed life long relationships. At various times you might find the same four or five people sitting there talking with each other three or four times a day, every day, 5 days a week, and for maybe twenty or thirty years straight! Being the city/suburban dweller that I am today, I think that might kind of drive me absolutely crazy! But, in small town America, this is how you thrive. On people. You know others, and you make yourself known to others by this daily routine. It's really pretty amazing.

Maybe that's why Starbucks became so popular several years ago. Maybe Starbucks was the more sophisticated, 21st century version of the Chatterbox Cafe?

One thing is for certain, people still need each other, and people can't live independent and/or isolated from each other for very long. If we do, we get sick, we get tired, we get cranky and oftentimes terribly out-of-sorts. We also miss the grand opportunities available to us to know and love other human beings traveling down similar paths, maybe with a different set of circumstances.

Tomorrow, make sure you find your own place to call the Chatterbox Cafe. For some it may be a coffee shop, for others it may be a school or a church. For still others, it may be something as simple as the break room at your place of employment. No matter where it is, get involved in other people's lives and enrich your own life in so doing. Find out about others by spending time with them and investing in their existence (and they in yours).

We'll go back to Papayas again. It was a wholesome and very authentic place. People loved being there together, allowing their lives to completely overlap. It was all very much like the Chatterbox Cafe.