Saturday 21 January 2012

Tea time on the 'lawn', top notch airbourne refreshment! ?


                    
One of the great mysteries about the English is that when all hell is breaking loose around them, there is always time enough for a cup of tea, warmed pot - Darjeeling not tea bags, by no means is it only the British, who use tea for a restorative break but they do like to do it with style. You can see in MAF, tea is an essential part of keeping the operation going and one cup of tea rapidly evolves into a tea party. Reminds me of the amusing quote from the American film Mary Poppins  "As the ship lay anchored in Boston Harbor, a party of the colonists dressed as red Indians boarded the vessel, behaved very rudely, and threw all the tea overboard. This made the tea unsuitable for drinking. Even for Americans." Actually folk from the US do do great cold tea. 
Tea really does do something for you. Alas here I am in South Africa and rather a fan of Rooibos, and I have not had a cup of tea in 3 days as there is none left in the guest house, I have found hot water an adequate 2nd but then again perhaps not as I read this delightful quote from a PG Woodhouse book, which Trish and I are reading aloud together. "'Morning, Jeeves," I said. "Good morning, sir," said Jeeves he put the good old cup of tea softly on the table by my bed, and I took a refreshing sip. Just right, as usual. Not too hot, not too sweet, not too weak, not too strong, not too much milk, and not a drop spilled in the saucer. A most amazing cove, Jeeves. So dashed competent in every respect. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I mean to say, take just one small instance. Every other valet I've ever had used to barge into my room in the morning while I was still asleep, causing much misery; but Jeeves seems to know when 
I'm awake by a sort of telepathy. He always floats in with  the cup exactly two minutes after I come to life. Makes a deuce of a lot of difference to a fellow's day."

Often wonder who had the most need for restorative cups of tea in the Bible. Think it would have to be Paul .... think this inspiring paragraph would have generated the need for more than a few cups of soothing tea. 2 Corinthians 11:25-29 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;  in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food,1 in cold and exposure.  And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.  

Time for a tea break and dig into 2 Corinthians in the New Testament ... 

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