On Being Attentive at G.A. (or Shall We Gulp and Jabber)?

this week’s guest blog post is by Rev.  Steven Toshio Yamaguchi, Presbytery Pastor to the Presbytery of Los Ranchos

Japanese Tea Garden by heather

Enjoy some tea with a Japanese friend in a nice Japanese restaurant. The tea will be green because it is brewed from unfermented tea leaves. The same plant gives us black tea, but black tea leaves are fermented. In Japanese, black tea is called “kocha” and takes sugar and milk nicely. Green tea is called “ocha” and should never take condiments. The same plant (Camellia sinensis) yields two different drinks for two different worlds.

But let’s get back to the Japanese table and ocha. You find only one pot for ocha for the table. Your cup has no handle. You might even be seated at floor level on tatami mats. And when your cup is empty, etiquette does not allow you to lift the pot to refill your own cup. You may and should fill the empty cup of others, but you must wait for an other to fill yours. To refill your own cup would appear self-serving and oafish. These manners work wonderfully – everyone gets cared for and every thirst gets sated – as long as everyone tunes in to the etiquette and pays attention to each other’s needs and cups.

The General Assembly could be an opportunity to drink ocha together. But when we gather as the GA, sometimes it appears that we care more about keeping our own cup filled and slaking our own desire, so we ignore the needs and wishes of others at the table.

Prayer is like an opportunity to sit down for ocha with God. But between our gulps we’re tempted to grab the pot to refill our own cup. We fill precious moments of quiet with our jabbering to God about how thirsty we are, about what we are worried about, and about what we think God should do – as if God didn’t already know. What if God prefers to linger over ocha with us, to have us wait quietly and trustingly for our cup to be filled in God’s own perfectly thoughtful time? Could we sip gratefully rather than gulp desperately? Can we be attentive to God’s desires more than our own? Might we offer our childlike service of pouring ocha for our adoring parent who does not so much require our tea but rather cherishes our devotion, time, presence, and attention? Could we savor our tea and our time mindfully?

Or shall we gulp and jabber? I believe this question is germane to our prayer, our drinking together, and our behavior at General Assembly.

ミネアポリスで緑茶を飲みましょうか。
(Mineaporisu de ocha o nomimashoka?)
Shall we drink ocha in Minneapolis?

Steve Yamaguchi
Presbytery Pastor / Executive Presbyter
The Presbytery of Los Ranchos