Tea Leaves and Hopefulness - June 18
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 88; PM Psalm 91, 92; 1 Samuel 3:1-21; Acts 2:37-47; Luke 21:5-19
Today’s Reflection
This week, I’ve been up in Kanuga, North Carolina, for a conference on Christian formation. I brought my daughters along with me to get some R&R in the mountains. I planned it so that we could stay on a couple extra days to do some site-seeing in a part of the country we love but haven’t visited in several years. Yesterday, we ended up making a day trip across the state line into South Carolina. I used to live there 25 years ago when I went to Clemson for grad school, so it feels like going home to be able to retrace old paths and share memories with them from what seems a million years ago now.
As I was looking at the map online and planning a trip down toward Table Rock and Clemson, I accidentally came across something that immediately piqued my interest: Table Rock Tea Company. Now, if you spend any amount of time with me, whether at my home or office (or even on Zoom), you will quickly learn that I drink a few cups of hot tea a day. Being a tea drinker is something I picked up from my mom, and then the habit was further cemented when I spent a semester studying in England in my junior year of college. This habit is so important to me, and even tied into my daily prayer practices, that I even brought an electric kettle and a few boxes of my favorite teas all the way to Kanuga to ensure that I would enjoy cups of tea while sitting on the screened porch of our cottage, looking out toward Kanuga Lake.
So, all this is to say that when I looked up Table Rock Tea Company and found it wasn’t a store or a café but is, in fact, a small farm where a family grows, processes, and blends their own artisanal teas, I knew that we would really need to get ourselves there for one of their daily tours. Since Table Rock is only 45 minutes south of Kanuga, and it was a beautiful day, we headed down to learn more about how tea is grown in an unexpected place like Table Rock, South Carolina.
It turns out that Jennifer and Steve used to run a non-profit mission group, Hydromissions. And while they were in Kenya to dig wells, they grew curious about all the tea plants they saw growing there, since about a quarter of the world’s tea leaves come from there. They followed their curiosity and asked farmers there to teach them about the tea growing and making process—and when they returned to the United States, one thing led to another, and they started their own tea farm.
As Jennifer led us and a group of about a dozen others around the small farm she and her husband own and operate, we saw the Camellia sinensis bushes in various stages of development, from seeds and seedlings in the greenhouse to one- and three-year-old seedlings, to fully developed bushes planted in rows around the farm. After seeing the greenhouse operation, Jennifer led us to a place with a sign that marked it as the Lazarus Field. Several years ago, in 2017-18, not long after they had planted some 6,000 tea plants, the Upstate experienced its coldest winter in a century—a record number of days with temperatures at or below freezing. Their rows of tea plants were decimated, and it seemed like all but a handful were lost forever. But then an amazing, maybe even miraculous thing happened—the withered remains of the thousands of frozen plants, which they had left in the field to decompose and return to the earth, began to show signs of life. And within a few weeks, the plants were not just showing new growth but had quickly come into leaf at a level typical of mature plants.
As the story is recorded on a sign by the Lazarus Field, “All but 14 plants died in this first production field… . The tea company was devastated and ready to close. But God had other plans. This field is a reminder of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. God raises the dead, and because He lives, so can we.” This reminds me of the praises we hear in Psalm 92: 11-14 today:
The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, and shall spread abroad like a cedar of Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God;
They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be green and succulent;
That they may show how upright the Lord is, my Rock, in whom there is no fault.
—Becky+
Questions for Self-Reflection
Have there been times when you thought all was lost (like the frozen field of tea plants), but were surprised to see new life and hope emerge?
What does it look like in your life to be “planted in the house of the Lord”? How have you experienced “flourishing in the courts of our God”?
Daily Challenge
Learn more about the Table Rock Tea Company by watching this local news report or visiting their website.