The Press and the King

Each morning I make my coffee with a French press.
It’s a simple ritual, almost forgettable, until one day it isn’t.

Hot water meets the grounds and nothing dramatic happens. There is color, aroma, potential. Then comes the waiting. The steeping. The patience. And finally the slow descent of the plunger. Pressure, applied evenly, without violence. What emerges is not chaos, but something rich, clear, and sustaining.

It struck me recently that life appears to be built on the same architecture.

There are moments when we are placed inside pressurized chambers. Not as punishment, not as evidence of failure, but as part of the brewing. The heat has already done its work. Time has already softened what needs softening. Pressure is simply the final stage that brings depth into form.

As a working artist for more than forty years, I know this chamber well. Living from the sale of one’s work means encountering seasons where the bank balance is low and the needs are not yet met. This kind of pressure can feel destabilizing, even hollowing, as if one is being carved from the inside while waiting for the next painting to find its home.

What I have learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, is that pressure cannot be relieved by force. There is no lever to pull, no acceleration that helps. The only viable posture is waiting without collapse. Holding one’s peace. Conjuring gratitude not as denial, but as alignment with a deeper truth.

And then, often without warning, someone appears. A collector. A patron. A beautiful human being who says yes. The painting is wrapped. The box is taped. Gratitude arrives not just as relief, but as recognition. This is how it has always worked.

When I say I wait upon the Lord, I do not mean an old man in the sky dispensing favors or thunderbolts. I mean something far more intimate and far more demanding.

The Lord, for me, is inner presence.

It is the stillness inside that remembers I have been here before. It is the inner King who governs my own kingdom, who never rushes to fix or explain. He leans back in repose, not from arrogance, but from certainty. He knows the outcome has already been determined, because he has lived the pattern enough times to trust it.

This kind of waiting is not passivity. It is command presence.
It is authority without theatrics.
It is faith grounded in experience rather than hope.

I see now that the pressure I feel in my life at present is not foreign. It is familiar, simply larger in scale. A deeper chamber. A richer brew. The same intelligence applies.

Hold.
Wait.
Do not crack the glass.

Pressure, when met with patience and dignity, does not crush.
It clarifies.

And when the moment comes, when the plunger reaches the bottom and the cup is filled, the result is always the same.

Something warm.
Something nourishing.
Something unmistakably good.

With love from Paris,
Rick