Excerpts from Tea Time

I've talked before about our tea time on Sunday afternoons. Today we had some quiche Florentine, spa tea (raspberry zinger tea and apple cider) and sat outside together. We have all joined the tea times now; Nick, Jenny, myself, Gavin and all of the girls (and Marneaux while she's here visiting). After each person finishes their reading we all clap in approval. It's a very enjoyable way to spend an hour on Sunday afternoon.

We each read several excerpts, but I've chosen my favorites for this entry. Here are a few quotes from some of the readings today.

Gavin: "...Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes..." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Rae: "...God speaks in a whip-poor-will's song. 'I set the North star in the heavens and I mean for you to be free.' Harriet sees the stars twinkling. 'My mind is made up. Tomorrow, I flee....' -Carole Boston Weatherford, "Moses, When Harriet Tubman led Her People to Freedom"

Emily: "Let's have one day for girls and boyses when you can make the grandest noises. Screech, scream, holler, an yell - Buzz a buzzer, clang a bell...One day a year do all of these, The rest of the days - be quiet please." -Shell Silverstien, "Noise Day"

Jenny: "What is, therefore, our task today? ...we lack a holy rage - the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets...to rage against the ravaging of God's earth, and the destruction of God's world. To rage when little children must die of hunger when the tables of the rich are sagging with food...to rage against complacency...and remember the signs of the Christian church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove and the Fish...but never the chameleon. -Kaj Munk, Danish Pastor just before his death in 1944 by Gestapo.

Nick had a great excerpt from Donald Miller (but I don't have the book at my disposal right now), about an interview Miller saw. Larry King was interviewing Billy Graham just after the Columbine shootings. When asked what was coming of our world, Miller assumed he would reference the recent studies on how video games and violence on TV were desensitizing children to the sanctity of life and humankind. Instead Rev. Graham began to speak, very eloquently, about how a long time ago there was a woman and a man in a garden, and they ate from a tree...."and I knew in my heart he was right" -Donald Miller, "In Search of God Knows What"

We ended the tea with one last reading from Raegan: "I wish...I wish I had feathers. I wish I had wings. I wish I was covered with prickly things....What? You say I'm the only kid you see, who acts quite like, talks quite like, is quite like me? You mean I don't need a horn, stripes or tail? NO googlie eyes or a spout like a whale? I guess you are right! I just have to be- TO BE - the one, the only, MAGNIFICENT ME! -Dan Haseltine, "The One, The Only Magnificent Me!"

I hope you are enjoying your family today!
much love to you all, dear friends.