Mint Tea

 

I often have a cup of tea in the afternoon. It’s something my grandmother did every day, usually at around 3 pm. She would sit down in her rocking chair to relax before she started preparing supper.

On the metal folding table near her chair was a wooden tray with a pot of steaming hot tea with some biscuits (plain vanilla cookies like Nabisco Nilla Vanilla Wafers) and, sometimes, for a rare treat, a small dish of orange slices. 

 

The wooden tray also had our porcelain bone china cups into which my grandmother would place a sprig of fresh mint which she had just picked from the herb garden she grew near the kitchen window. She would place a strainer over the cup and pour the tea from the pot over the strainer to catch any tealeaves and let it steep over the springs of mint.

 

The smells of the mint mixed with smell of the oranges and the vanilla biscuits which was a delicious bit of luxury which marked the ending of one part of the day’s work and a pause between the beginning of another.

 

The smell of mint always bring me right back to my grandmother’s house, to her rocking chair and our afternoon tea. I forgot that I had some springs of mint in the refrigerator, left over from the Easter meal.  As soon as I smelled it, I knew that I had to make a pot of tea and although I didn’t have any Nilla Vanilla Wafers, I did have an orange I could slice up to have with my tea.

 

I gathered everything together on my tray and when I sat down in my chair – and, just like that – the whiffs of the mint in the tea brought me back to my childhood conversations with my grandmother. We talked about what we had accomplished during the day, what she was making for supper, and the chores she had in mind for tomorrow or the rest of the week.

 

The centerpiece of our time together, however, was for her to read a passage from her bible and then talk about the story and what it might have meant for the people who first heard it and what it might mean for us. There was usually a story my grandmother told about her life in Portugal – her mother who had died when she was 12 years old, her father and her brothers and her childhood friends - which was a reflection of the gospel story. Our time would end with prayer.   

 

Little did I know that this was a method of Bible Study I would actually learn in seminary. It was also one of the methods I learned for sermon preparation.

 

All of that came back to me this afternoon as I sipped my mint tea and enjoyed a few juicy slices of orange. It’s probably should not be a surprise that, as I read over the John’s Gospel for Sunday, I had a whole new inspiration for what I wanted to say about Jesus as The Good Shepherd. After I did the dishes, I sat down at my laptop and an entirely new sermon came together in under two hours.

I have enough mint left in my refrigerator to get through this week, but I’ve already put it on my shopping list. I want to be certain to have enough for a walk down memory lane, which, with any luck, may lead to fresh new insight and inspiration for next week’s sermon.

 

But, you know, it’s okay if it doesn’t. The memories are delightful, but the relaxation and enjoyment of fresh mint in brewed tea is its own reward.