"Starbucks" is Not Enough

How Starbucks Saved My Life is the true story of Michael Gates Gill. As such, it is about Christ, (Who is Truth), and what Christ did in this man’s life through Starbucks. Gill was employed with J.Walter Thompson, the world’s largest advertising agency, with accounts like Christian Dior, the United States Marine Corps, IBM, Ford, and Burger King. Life pressed along for him, in the cut-throat business world, leaving him highly successful, but alienated from his wife and four children.

After 25 years, he was overtaken at his own game by "younger blood," and a new director who fired him. His "never-at-home" life had tricked him into an adulterous relationship in which he fathered a son, and now a brain tumor threatened to become a major financial and worrisome problem. He had to concede the home to his divorced wife, and now here he was, at Starbucks, 64 years old, in his pin-striped Brooks Brothers suit, cell phone resting on top of his expensive leather T. Anthony briefcase---jobless and practically homeless.

"Mike" (his Starbucks name) was strangely pulled from the depths of his pity-splattered latte one night when Chrystal, the young Starbucks manager at 93rd and Broadway asked him if he wanted a job. Much to both his and her surprise, he said he did, and much to both their delight, it worked out for everyone.

What Mike learned at Starbucks are the principles of the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ, with uncompromising principle number one being "To create a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity." Others include: all Partners (those are the employees) get excellent benefits; they invest their lives in the grand goal of helping others achieve their full potential; the work is hard, but satisfying, with Partners operating at "peak adrenaline." It is about serving others; there are no power plays; all work is meaningful and honorable, and is assigned by the Manager; all partners are to bury the past and look forward to the gloriously bright future. Chrystal made sure these principles were "happening" at her store.

So Mike learned his new world. After about 8 months on the job, walking toward the subway one day, he realized that, for the first time in his life, he was really "happy." "I could feel a kind of gentle, inner happiness I had never felt before…I was almost scared; still afraid to admit to myself how happy I was now…with a job as a barista at Starbucks."

What Mike experienced at Starbucks is called grace, or unmerited favor. It is what comes to each one of us through Christ. God uses whatever He needs in order for us to experience grace. Some people call it luck, or they say "I’m blessed" (but they won’t admit, or don’t know by what), some call it "good karma," some call it serendipity, and some say, "The gods are smiling on me." But it is Christ, the Creator, working on the heart, arranging our life so that we have to take note of the fact that our way, our plans, aren’t working.

If we respond to this grace, and live by its principles, we will have a good life here, and will possibly help many other people have a good life here on this earth. But, dear reader, "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul?" Mark 8: 36 Christ is waiting with longing desire for us to acknowledge Him as the author of grace. He’s waiting for us to say, "This is something coming from completely outside of me. There’s a divine element here, a supernatural something." "He that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son, hath not life." 1 John 5:12.

Yes, Starbucks, or any other decent outlook on life, will sustain us for our meager pilgrimage here. But what will carry us through to eternity? It is only Christ. Although the principles at Starbucks are life-giving, without recognition from the sinner (that would be us) of the One (Jesus) who is the embodiment of those principles, they only give us an existence here in this life. "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity (love), it profiteth me nothing." 1 Cor.13:3. It is God who is love. 1 John 4:8. If we have experienced grace, let us acknowledge its Author. It is not Starbucks that saves us. It is Christ.

Chris Hasse was raised in Michigan, but spent most of her adult life in a "traveling" mode. In 1992, she and her husband, John, moved to Chloe, in Calhoun County, where they currently reside. Her vocations are gardening, writing, and "fishing." (See Matthew 4:19)