Tea Drinking as a Spiritual Practice

| November 30, 2011 | Spirituality | 5 Comments
I just had a nice conversation with a student and a colleague who is a specialist in eastern religions. I learned that there is a variety of Japanese Buddhism that uses the preparation and drinking of tea as a meditative practice. I like that. As a lifelong tea-drinker and abstainer from coffee I have long been appreciative of Nietzsche’s remarks on the superiority of tea. So Buddhism and materialistic atheism both have their proponents of tea.
“Coffee spreads darkness.”

 

This makes me long for a Christian account of the spiritual significance of tea, or Christian advice for drinking tea as a spiritual practice. Christianity certainly has the theological resources for this sort of thing, and I’m sure someone has written on it. But I don’t know where to find it, and it seemed easier to write something myself. So let’s start with the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4:

“For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1984 NIV).

Tea: God’s idea.

From this we learn that God invented tea, and that it is good. So here is my advice for drinking tea Christianly. Prepare your tea carefully and reflectively, remembering the doctrines that God created the world and that God is good. As you drink your tea, be grateful for your tea, and say a prayer of thanks to God for inventing it and letting you share in His good idea.

(More articles at www.ThinkingThroughChristianity.com)

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About The Author

Mark Boone
Dr. Mark J. Boone

Dr. Mark J. Boone is a teacher and researcher in philosophy, especially the history of philosophy, primarily the ancient and medieval eras, writing his dissertation on Saint Augustine. Dr. Boone is the Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Forman Christian College. Mark is an occasional book reviewer for the journal Augustinian Studies and has written articles dealing with Plato, William James, theology and the arts, and religious epistemology. In some of his precious little spare time Mark makes animated cartoons based on famous speeches and dialogues in the history of philosophy, available on YouTube and Vimeo under the username TeacherofPhilosophy.

5 Comments
  1. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Sorry to ruin your thought, but some might suggest that you could replace “tea” with “marijuana” and “drinking” with “smoking.”

    Does this provide a counterexample to your use of Scripture and/or your hypothesis?

    -MelancholyDane

  2. Avatar
    Mark Boone

    It sure would be a counterexample if we took the passage out of its theological context!

    But given Romans 12 on honoring God with one’s body, Romans 13 on the need to obey civil laws, and various passages against drunkenness which are easily applied to drug highs, I think the smoking of marijuana is excluded from this reasoning of 1 Timothy 4:4-5.

  3. Avatar
    Adam D Jones

    I like this post. I’m going to pretend that you said “latte” instead of “tea.”

  4. Avatar
    reneamac

    Delightful post, Mark. I can’t help but think of the Commonwealth tradition of tea time in connection to communion: a shared experience and a fellowship.

  5. Avatar
    Mark Boone

    Amen, Reneamac!