Tea for Two.. or Three or Four or More

Once upon a time I gave a tea party. I invited the women and girls in my life to come to the farm to share tea and goodies with me. My neighbors on the farm, my mama, my friends and their daughters all came. The only requirement for entrance was the wearing of a hat. I did not specify what kind of hat, just a hat, please. If you did not have one, I provided one from the stash I have. Peyton is wearing one of my flapper models, a red wool felt cloche with satin roses and feathers. Since like most of us, I pick and choose what I want to believe from the Bible, I choose to believe women should have their heads covered in church. This requires a collection of hats. I have a collection that spans thirty years and includes gifts from other mothers, aunts and friends. Hats add spice to our self image and you never have a bad hair day.
So here we were, a collection of disparate women who were connected through knowing me, gathered for a tea party, doing something we hadn’t done since childhood. The hats set the mood... slightly frivolous with an instantaneous change in presence with the donning of a hat. We fixed our cups of tea, served ourselves tea party goodies, mixed and mingled, laughed and chattered, set ourselves apart for an hour or so. During this time, our hat topped bodies softened, our voices brightened, our faces eased and our souls took a deep breath. It was a lovely sweet time. The hats and the tea gave us the framework we needed for a parentheses in our busy lives.
Advent is a tea party parentheses in my liturgical year. Unlike Lent which is shadowed in the clouds of approaching death, Advent’s darkness is lifting in the dawn of the birth of Love. I put on my tea party hat and make myself ready for the birthday party that is coming. Every day, I light my Advent candles, read from the Lake Shore devotional book, remember, give thanks, pray, write, anticipate the coming of God With Us. John Claypool said the real miracle was not the virgin birth but the coming of God to us in human form... incarnation. And so it is... a miracle of love. God so loved us that He sent his only begotten beloved son to live with us. We are beloved, much loved, dearly loved by the One who created us, brothers and sisters to the Older Brother Jesus. Through Jesus’s life lived loving, we catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, a tea party for all, full of hopelovejoypeace. Love, God’s way of being, our choice to be, our Advent possibility...
P.S. Thanks, Sharlande for your writing yesterday that reminded me of the power of tea.