You Are Invited to Tea

I have never liked to pray.

"Now I lay me down to sleep if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."

That terrified me as a child.

I hated to be bell-rung out of bed at 5:30 A.M. to go to Mass every morning in the orphanage. 

"Introibo ad altare Dei ..."

Kneeling on hardwood floors reciting the rosary daily with other kids at the orphanage was an exercise in far-flung fantasy while mumbling words that meant nothing to me.

Later, in the convent, I had no idea what I was saying as I sung Lauds, Prime, Sext, None, Tierce, Vespers, Compline and Matins in Latin. These words were written by others and seemed to have no meaning in my life. 

It was a long time before I made the connection between the God I talked to and prayer.  I still don’t like to consider my conversations with God as prayer.  Prayer for me is foreign, is without color, without feeling, without life.  Talking with God is a whole other matter.  In fact, I don’t even call this entity, God.  God is for the catechism.  God is for the churches.  God is determined by a whole cast of characters.  God is dressed as a man by men (who by the way choose the dress of women when they perform rituals).  God is also portrayed, again most often by men, as an old man sitting on a throne somewhere dishing out goodies or punishment.  Read especially the last chapter in the gospel of Mark.

I don’t know God’s real name.  I just know that at any time I can tap into this creative energy and it colors my life.

Let me explain how God has come to have no name. When I was ten, a drunk driver killed Daddy. This event changed my life forever. I found myself, with my siblings, in an orphanage. First of all, I was scared. Then I was angry. God had been a huge part of my life. Not in the ordinary way, I suppose.  I had two ways of learning about God.  During the year I learned about God being something like a three leaf clover (thanks to St. Patrick). The nuns also had me memorizing 200 some answers in the catechism. God was somewhere out there. There were some things I like about God and some things that made me wonder why I was learning how to pray.
  
But, there was another God.  I became friendly with God in a more intimate way. God was someone I could talk to. I really had never tried it myself but I watched my Grandmother and I felt so safe and loved by her that if she thought God was okay, then God was okay.   I don't think I ever heard my Gramma tell us to pray.  But we all knew that her living was a prayer.  We knew it.

When my Dad was killed, I lost my Grandmother, too. She didn’t die, but my mother didn’t tell anyone on my Dad’s side where she put us. When we were dropped off at the orphanage, I was furious with God.  First he took my Daddy.  Then my mother gave us away and finally, I could not understand WHY my Gramma was not there to save us.  I didn't know it would be eleven years before any of those questions would be answered.

Since Gramma was so connected to the idea I had of God, I decided to get even with both of them.  I was so angry I took the bible she had given me and tossed it in the Mississippi River.

"I hate you both - Gramma and God!  I don’t ever want to talk to you again!"

That was my first REAL prayer.

I had two things that were part of my past that I managed to take with me to the orphanage. One was my bible and the other was a tea set from Gramma. When I got to the orphanage and surveyed my plight, I realized I must find a place to hide my treasures. 

Each child had a wardrobe with a built in shoe drawer.  If you took the shoe drawer totally out of the compartment, there was just enough room to hide treasures. That is where I hid my bible and my tea set during my whole sojourn at the St. Cloud Orphanage.

The tea set has come to symbolize my prayer life with God. This is an odd statement because I neither call what I do "prayer" nor the one to whom this "prayer" is directed, "God."

The tea set is not complete.  Neither am I.  In some ways, it is prayer that gets one to that place where they become whole.  I am still becoming. 

Originally, my tea set contained four cups, four saucers, four dessert plates a teapot, sugar and creamer. Over the years and the many places I’ve been, a cup would break; the teapot was lost in one of countless moves. The tea set has been with me in every important step I’ve taken in my life. It went with me to the orphanage, to the convent, in my marriage; I held the cups tightly during my divorce. I set them out again when new love became part of my life.

I don’t remember what Gramma’s tea parties were like. I only remember that I had a total sense of peace, safety, of feeling loved.   I don’t think we talked much at those tea parties but just being with her was the most important part of the whole experience.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that my connection to Gramma was also my connection to God. I decided that I didn’t like the male name for God. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to call this "person" Goddess, either.

In my familiar way with this person, "hey You," didn’t work unless I was mad. So, I’d just think really hard; think of those teacups and saucers and remember; remember how it was with Gramma.

It's funny, but each of the cups and saucers was a different color. I could choose one and it spoke for me...pink when I felt loving, blue when I was sad, yellow when I was happy and bursting with energy, green when I was at peace. The mere thought of any missing and broken pieces took care of my angry feelings and feelings of abandonment.  I think some spiritual directors might even say I was centering.

Doesn’t matter what they call it. I can’t give you my formula. This person that many call "God" comes to me, or I become part of it, when I think of colors. Colors have become my way of telling this person what is going on, how I feel about things in general; how I feel about things in particular. I let this person, who is color for me, reach out and hold me. I allow that this person can hide from me. Often I can’t find the color. So, I sit and wait, or I stand up and holler. "Where are you?" "ARE you?" "Why have you left me and why do you tease me with doubt?"

Prayers that are written down may be fine for some. Maybe they are a way of priming the pump, getting people to pray on their own. For me, I’ve got to do it my way. I'll hold my teacups in my hands or in my mind AND REMEMBER. Then I speak my own colors in silence.  For me this is honest because I cannot speak another’s words from my heart. 

After all, who reads someone else’s script to tell the beloved, "I love you"?