Let it be known that I am an avid coffee drinker. Coffee is my vibe and my mood and has been for years.
If you ask me about my trip to Hawaii, I'll tell you how there was coffee laced in the
Twix bars, and Kona brews. Chat with me about my time in Australia, and you will come away knowing that they’ve got some of the best coffee culture around. Hardest moment of my life? The month I went without coffee and was crying out to the Lord on day 21 to just let me come meet Him face to face. (that last one is a bit dramatic, but I am who I am).
Coffee is life.
As I sat to write this post I figured it would be something fully charged and ready to rock your socks. Heart pumping. Caffeinated, ya know? But as I kept thinking about what to share, the only thing that came to mind was the idea of meditating, pondering, slowness. All I could think of were things that sounded like... tea. Tea equals calm. Tea represents reflection. Tea feels like patience. Peace.
Coffee on the other hand…. Coffee is that jolt of energy you need to get going in the morning! Or the afternoon… or the late evening. Coffee is loud and proud. Quick, busy and strong. Coffee dares to anyone to get in its way. I am a COFFEE kind of woman, and I’ll bet many of you are too.
Many of us realized we want to move forward with living intentionally. Pouring our energy and time into what truly matters. Not what seems to matter because it's the religious thing to do, or what seems popular in my sphere. These pandemics have given us what we needed. A moment to see what all was going on in our lives, and the opportunity to pause and reassess. An opportunity for tea life. The life that is sipped slowly, carefully and thoughtfully.
One of my favorite books I have gone back to over the years was written by Abbot Christopher Jamison at a monastery in the UK. I’ve gone back to this book a few times over the years, and hope that sharing some of it’s quotes, along with my thoughts, will be helpful for us all.
So, here are a few of my favorite thoughts on Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life:
“Before I could offer sanctuary, I had to find it.”
Our world is crazy busy. Full of consumption and working so we can consume more. We as believers in Christ know we are supposed to provide a place of refuge for others, but we’re often caught up in the same cycle. It’s cultural, steeped in the fibers of who we are as modern Western people, and it permeates our every way of life. In this book, I was encouraged to recognize how I had lost having a sense of sanctuary, and find ways to be purposeful in seeking sanctuary for myself.
“You are a free person and you can choose how busy you want to be. Freely choosing
to resist the urge to busyness is the frame of mind you need before you can take any
steps toward finding sanctuary.”
There are many things we can not choose in life, and there are many things that will absolutely demand our time (ahem… kids. Yep, says the childless woman. I see y’all!). We choose how we use our time, and often we do not steward our time well. “Teach us to number our days” (Psalm 90:12) is a prayer we should all meditate on more often. Time is easily taken over by anything that happens to show up in a given day, or drained by things we feel obligated to do. Time even goes to things we have no good reason for doing! Like I said, I am not a parent, but I’m often amazed (I mean AH-MAZZEEEDDD) at what parents can accomplish with their time restraints. (Lemme get my life). The way we use our time is up to us. It takes constant evaluation and recalibration to make sure the life being lived is intentional, and that our time is being used well, especially when it comes to creating space.
“The sanctuary that you purchase as a holiday or as a therapy comes to an end; the
myth of endless consumption is just that: a myth.”
That sentence gathered me, ok? Trust, I am ALL for therapy, vacations, and copious self-care rituals! ALL FOR IT. Those things are not, however, a replacement for what our hearts actually find in sanctuary and solitude. There is no replacement for the presence of God, which ultimately is the only thing our souls can find rest in. The other practices absolutely have their place in our lives, but they are not a substitute.
“When they spend time in solitude and in silence, people inevitably have to wrestle with
their own demons. Indeed, that very phrase to “wrestle with one’s demons” is derived
from the fathers and mothers of the desert tradition.”
Remember that time Jesus basically spent 40 days in a desert fasting and the enemy was all up in His face with some nonsense? Crazy, right? We don’t get to escape that either. We may not have gone into the desert on our own, but with the state of the world in 2020, many of us have had more solitude than we’ve ever had in our lives. Our country certainly has, and we’ve seen our individual and national ugliness surface. This isn’t a bad thing, individually or corporately. We’ve had a 400 year buildup, so it’s really ugly. Even in our regular lives, it is important to create space and plenty of it, so that we are able to let things surface. How can we let God search our heart and genuinely hear from Him when we are bouncing from event to event, person to person, new item to new item, task to task. Its really distraction to distraction. There’s no way that the deep work of changing one’s heart can take place in all that noise. Intentionally creating space in our lives for this is paramount to our development at Jesus followers.
Though our culture marches to a go-go-go, more-more-more beat, I challenge all of us to consider what God is actually asking of us. Though it may seem important to have a “big” name and do lots of “big” things, have the most popular small group at church, the most magical dating/courting/whatever-we’re-calling-it-now story, become wildly successful and perfectly Christian, is that what we’re really after? This isn’t to say great things will not be accomplished through us, but living our lives in step with the Holy Spirit produces a special kind of fruit. Our life is changed in a way that it becomes a place of sanctuary for others. We--yeah, you and I-- are the Church. We ARE it! We are the sanctuary. If people aren’t able to find some sort of sanctuary at our tables, then it’s time to look at what we’re really trying to produce.
I will be a coffee drinker until the day my doctors pry my bony fingers off the oversized mug that I can never finish anyway. But in my life as a Christian, I want to be a tea girl. The kind who isn’t always drowning in a sea of speed. The kind who takes her time to get the water temperature right. Who can’t drink right away because the leaves need time to steep. Let’s all become the one who creates space for others to join, sets the kettle, and has enough to pour out for others.
Guest Contributor: Eboné Denise is a Chicago-based writer who focuses on encouraging and empowering others. As a Los Angeles native who has also lived in New York and Sydney, Eb's big city lifestyle has fueled her passion for simple living within the madness. She also likes to make average meals look insta-mazing!
instagram @ebonedenise and her website ebonedenise.com.
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