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by Reverend Cheryl Meachen I finally discovered what tea is all about. I know, I know, it took me long enough. I have always been someone who takes life on at 100 miles an hour with my hair on fire and tea always kind of ticked me off. It is too hot to drink and has no flavor when you first pour it and too cold to drink and is too strong if you let it sit. I’m not very patient. That’s true of society in general. We love instant gratification. We expect our internet to run at high speeds, our microwaves to cook our popcorn speedily and our meals to be delivered quickly at restaurants. Chili’s Bar and Grille even has a new electronic screen device at the table called a Ziosk where you can push a button to order your dessert halfway through your meal to avoid any of that pesky waiting around. I think that is really cool, but unfortunately, it feeds our desire as a society to move onto the next thing. What I discovered was this: a cup of tea is bliss. It is time sitting still. It is a time of sitting still long enough that my kitten is delighted to find a place to rest on my lap. She reminds me that this is very unusual in the course of a busy week of jumping up to answer the phone or run to the next meeting. Sitting with a cup of tea is a radical countercultural slowing down in a world which speeds along. It is time valuing talking with your friends or loved one or pouring over a wonderful book or today’s news. It’s time savoring the moment, savoring the flavor of the tea and even savoring and opportunity to be alone with your thoughts, perhaps even prayers. I think we all need some of that serenity this time of year especially. It tends to be a time of year when a lot of organizations plan special meetings and events and it can leave us quite breathless as the holidays approach with even more opportunities to be too busy shopping and cooking and wrapping and writing cards and entertaining family and friends. Of the Ten Commandments, the fourth is, “Remember the Sabbath.” For some people, Sunday is their Sabbath day, a day when they go to church. Worship is an important part of that day, but not the only part. Because I’m a pastor and work on Sunday, my Sabbath day is Tuesday. It’s a day when I praise God by appreciating all that has been created. It’s a time that I set aside to do nothing so that I can appreciate everything. Author Eugene Peterson reminds us that it is a time “to set aside our anxious attempts to make ourselves useful, to set aside our tense restlessness, to set aside our media-satiated boredom. Sabbath is the time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude, to receive quiet.” One of my favorite Bible passages is from Isaiah 58:13-14 (MSG). It says, “Treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, God’s holy day as a celebration, If you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’ making money, running here and there—Then you’ll be free to enjoy God!” THAT is what I learned about drinking tea. It is a time to receive silence and quiet and allow me to deepen my gratitude for the beauty of nature and family and community. It is a time of Sabbath, refusing business as usual and enjoying God’s creation. In this season of gratitude and thanksgiving, I pray you will find a way to embrace that silence and joy in the midst of the bustle of busy-ness. Let’s put the tea in Thanksgiving, allowing time for silence and letting it deepen into gratitude!
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May 2016
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