My Cup of Tea

So...I have concluded that God likes tea...

Let me explain...

I'm sure most of you know that it is impossible to read any work of C.S. Lewis without finding some remarkable thought to marvel at, if not quote for years to come. I won't be quoting this one much after this blog, but only because it is far too long. This particular quote, from "The Screwtape Letters" is, of course, written from the perspective of Screwtape, a fairly experienced tempter in Satan's army. He is offering some constructive criticism to his nephew, who has slipped up, and allowed his 'patient' to have a moment alone with God... "And now for your blunders. On your own showing you first of all allowed the patient to read a book he really enjoyed, because he really enjoyed it and not in order to make clever remarks about it to his new friends. In the second place, you allowed him to walk down to the old mill and have tea there - a walk through the country he really likes, and taken alone. In other words you allowed him two real positive Pleasures! Were you so ignorant as not to see the danger of this? The characteristic of Pains and Pleasures is that they are unmistakable real, and therefore, as far as they go, give the man who feels them a touchstone of reality...Didn't you forsee that it would just kill by contrast all the trumpery which you have been so laboriously teaching him to value? And that the sort of pleasure which the book and the walk gave him was the most dangerous of all? That it would peel off from his sensibility the kind of crust you have been forming on it, and make him feel that he was coming home, recovering himself? As a preliminary to detaching him from the Enemy, you wanted to detach him from himself, and had made some progress in doing so. Now, all that is undone...Of course I know that the Enemy also wants to detach men from themselves, but in a different way. Remember always, that He really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. When He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever!...I would make it a rule to eradicate from my patient any strong personal taste which is not actually a sin, even if it is something quite trivial such as a fondness for country cricket or collecting stamps or drinking cocoa. Such things, I grant you, have nothing of virtue in them; but there is a sort of innocence and humility and self-forgetfulness about them which I distrust. The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack."

Now, "The Screwtape Letters" is certainly not scripture. But I doubt that anyone would claim that C.S. Lewis' writings lack real wisdom! I have noticed this phenomena before - that is, the affect of a "real Pleasure," as Screwtape calls them. When we do something simple that we simply enjoy simply for the reason that we enjoy it, there is peace...an unconcsious smile...an opportunity for God to enter our minds on a positive note! Previously in Screwtapes letters, he had encouraged Wormwood to nudge his patient toward fake pleasures - mingling in circles he did not truly enjoy being in, pretending to enjoy and know all about that circle's enjoyments, and in doing so forgetting the things that he, himself, truly enjoyed! His purpose being that we slowly become the thing that we pretend to be! On the other hand, and much to Screwtape's dismay, when we allow ourselves to experience a real Pleasure (the real kind, not perversions of the originals), and because we each prefer one or two kinds of Pleasure over others, we are then allowed to experience something we thought we never stopped experiencing: being ourselves. The real me is the me that God loves, bumps and blunders and blonde moments and all. If for just a moment I allow myself to feel like myself, it is at that moment that I allow myself to feel loved by God!
Now, this is not to say that we should indulge in anything that we define as "pleasure" and expect to feel loved by God. There are what Screwtape wisely calls (yes, a demon can speak wisely, and easier so when he is simply a voice of C.S. Lewis;)), *ahem* what Screwtape wisely calls "real Pleasures"... "You were trying to damn your patient by the World, that is by palming off vanity, bustle, irony and expensive tedium as pleasures. How can you have failed to see that a real Pleasure was the last thing you ought to have let him meet?" You see the difference? Real pleasures are enjoyable things as God intended them to be. The pleasures that Screwtape and Wormwood and the like would prefer us to "enjoy" are really distorted versions of real pleasures. It is important to understand the difference. For example, a cup of tea can be a real pleasure. It can offer a moment of escape from the busy-ness and to-do's of the day. These are the moments when it is easiest for me to stop all the bustling, retreat back to being myself, and pause to feel loved by God. This would not be the case if I were to sit on the toilet drinking tea all the time! An excess of this little Pleasure of mine would not be a real pleasure at all. It would truly be hard to even pretend it to be so. I'm sure you can see how big the difference can be. On the other hand, the difference can be quite small. I doubt that I need to go on to explain small differences. You all posess a bit of discernment. The point is, whatever real pleasures you know of in your life, whether it be a cup of tea, a good book, a nice walk, a cozy corner to relax in...whatever activity allows you to be you, without the influence of others, is an opportunity for you to realize reality - especially the reality that you are you, just the way you are, and God loves you.

As for my conclusion that God likes tea...what I really mean is, God enjoys the simple pleasures that help us to step away from the distractions around us, and enjoy Him. For you, it might not be tea...but whatever it is, do take the time to find out:)

Anywho...time for a cup of tea...