Reflections on Tea

Single flower in a vase. Single kanji painting to meditate on (waterfall). Tatami mats. Shoji (white paper) doors. Small sweet cake. Green tea. Every turn of the bowl, twist of the hand, placement of the cup...is careful and deliberate.

For weeks I have been processing the tea ceremony experience, trying to figure out how to put my thoughts into words. It is fascinating to look into Japanese history, culture, and values... and to compare with Communion. While it is obviously missing the deep and powerful meaning of the Lord's Supper (I'll just say "grace!" and leave it at that), it shares so many other themes: ceremony, beauty, humility, cleanliness. In the tea room, everyone is equal. The mind is quiet and meditative. The small cake and tea are not meant to fill you up like a meal. The relationships of everything from placement of tea cup to whisk, to the relationships of person to person are central.

Though there is a loneliness, an emptiness, in Japan, sometimes more than others, which some people sense more than others... Japan is so incredibly good. While there are certainly exceptions and I wouldn't make these as universal statements, the values and themes we saw in the tea ceremony can often be seen all around Tokyo: the cleanliness of the subways and streets, the conscientiousness of the people around you, the care for beauty seen everywhere from bento lunches to plants grown on every doorstep, the honor, the drive to excell, things are orderly and prompt, people are helpful and hospitable, my person and my belongings are far safer than they were in, say, Jackson, MS...

 I glimpse the beauty of Communion in the tea ceremony, and in the many good aspects of Japan I see a shadow of the Creator, like His signature on a masterpiece. While I fumble for words to express both the goodness and deep need in Japan, my mind keeps returning to this quote: "The Divine ‘goodness’ differs from ours, but it is not sheerly different: it differs from ours not as white from black but as a perfect circle from a child’s first attempt to draw a wheel. But when the child has learned to draw, it will know that the circle it then makes is what it was trying to make from the very beginning." ~C.S. Lewis (Problem of Pain)