Teapots

Last Thursday I counted my teapots. I have fourteen. I don’t collect them; they come to me. The occasion for counting up was a new addition to the treasury.

It was a surprise. When I came to the kitchen for breakfast, I did a double take. Sitting at the end of our well used quiet wooden counter next to an early birthday card in a creamy yellow envelope was a teapot—not little, not big— a quite average sized four-cupper. It was one of the noisiest look-at-me teapots I’ve ever seen in my life. It called out, “Embrace my imperfections.”

The style was nothing remarkable. A bulging bottom curved to a narrower neck. The well balanced handle and spout were designed proportionately. It wasn’t hand thrown; it wasn’t porcelain. At first glance it looked to be a factory made spin off of fine china that was poured into a mold in an assembly line process somewhere in China. It was almost but not quite clunky. It was almost but not quite delicate and beautiful. It was almost but not quite like me. But . . .

What screamed? Sang? Shouted? Declaimed? Strongly Pronounced its presence was the decoration. Purple pansies held hints of lavender and blush. Intriguing shades of tan, beige and taupe blended with a soft gray green foliage to cover the white surface. Here and there hints of yellow brightened unexpectedly and faded into the dark purples. It was blatant and sensitive at the same time. It mixed copycat imitation and creative innovation. It was surface superficial— and yet hid something inexplicable. It was loveble. It was like the gracious pink flamingo my aesthetically sensitive daughter intentionally set in the 1980’s in the front yard of a boring, not landscaped, outwardly conventionally conservative apartment building. Yes my daughter, who ruthlessly discards anything not useful, beautiful or with proven sentimental/historical value once displayed a pink plastic flamingo on a public road in an almost upscale Chicago suburb well before it was okay to be funky or whatever the word for it is today.

And what did this purple pansy teapot shout at me? What did it slam on my heart at first glance? It said, “LISTEN UP! LISTEN UP GOOD! AND LONG. AND DEEP. GOD IS SPEAKING. HEAR, Ginny, HEAR!”

I knew exactly what God was saying. He was saying, “Ginny, you must give something up. You are holding onto to something and it’s time to surrender.” At that moment, I didn’t know what, but I knew I’d find out soon.

The friend who brought the teapot as an early 80^th birthday present was right there.

I couldn’t savor or consider my initial reaction. I had to share it, to tell her the story. My reaction to the aesthetic qualities of her gift was irrelevant—the teapot’s message to me was compelling. It didn’t matter if I liked it or not. It spoke to me. She got a quizzical look on her face? She was curious—and all ears—especially after she corroborated my hunch that it was all a divine setup.

She said that she’d been ambling through an antique/resale story when the pot caught her eye as a gift for me. She picked it up and carried it around for a while. She knew me well enough to remember that I’d more than enough teapots and didn’t need or want another one, but strangely, she couldn’t put it down. The longer she carried it, the more sure she became. With a peaceful nudge bordering on irresistible impulse, she bought it for me. She said she felt she had to. She too felt compelled.

Nailed, I began my story— why teapots came to me, and why this one was a message from God.

In the early 1930’s my mother received a lovely art deco teapot for a wedding gift. It was simple; the lines were elegant; its blue glaze was like none other I’ve ever seen in ceramics. It was neither matte nor gloss; the shade like a creamy cloudless afternoon sky. A simple band of gold ran down the handle and around the rim.

It was “our” family teapot. As a very little girl, my dad would brew tea in it on Sunday afternoons whenever Grandma Burch would bake one of her wonderful fruit pies. In the 1970’s my mom kept it on the top of her refrigerator. The children and I lived with her at the time. It was our only teapot and we used it whenever company came for tea or we wanted more than a single cup. I wanted two “things” when my mother died. My great grandma’s china and that teapot. And my mother knew it. My sisters could have her jewelry, her crystal, her silver, everything— I wanted mom’s teapot.

One day the teapot was gone. I asked what happened? Where was it? My mother said my sister was having company and had borrowed it. She would return it. Weeks went by. I asked again. Again my mom said that my sister would return it. Months went by. I asked again. The same answer. I didn’t nag— but I missed it. My heart ached for the familiar beauty. I had no teapot for tea but used a perfectly adequate quart mason jar. Finally, I asked my sister, “When are you going to bring back Mom’s teapot.” She said, “It’s not mom’s. It’s mine. Mom gave it to me.”

Back then my sister intimidated me. She had since childhood. I kept most of my hurt and disappointment inside. It was no secret that I’d treasured and wanted Mom’s teapot. It was no secret that it was our only teapot.

That Christmas, my sister gave me a teapot with a comment about my missing Mom’s and needing a teapot in the house. I wish I remembered what that one looked like. It might have been a nice teapot. I might have been blinded by comparing it with mom’s unique one. Whatever it was, I thought it was ugly. Downright ugly.

To make it worse, the pot came in a corrugated cardboard box, bent and used. Long before Marshalls, TJ Max and Home Goods, our town was fortunate to have a store that carried returned goods and merchandise that did not sell elsewhere. Their inventory was heaped on tables like the old bargain basements of big department stores. Most items cost a couple dollars or less. My sister openly tried to replace my mother’s one of a kind beautiful teapot with a cast off from our local bargain table. It hurt. It hurt that I couldn’t afford to go out and buy myself a teapot. That might have been the year I had to sell our portable dishwasher to have any money at all for Christmas presents. Or the year I waited until all the decent Christmas trees at the local Kiwanis tree lot were gone and I asked for one they were planning to cart away. I can’t recall.

But I do know it was the year that the Holy Spirit helped me reached a milestone in learning about relinquishment. He helped me to let it go. Fully. Totally let it go. And then He began to bring a scripture to life.

 And every one that has forsaken houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundred times, and shall inherit everlasting life. Matthew 19:29 AKJV

After forsaking that teapot for the Lord, the teapots started to come in— not quite a hundred fold, but at one time I had more than twenty. It became laughable. Some I bought, others were gifts from unlikely places. I went to Russia and spoke at a church conference. They sent me a teapot. A friend gave me a very special very old teapot from Taiwan. After I remarried, my husband gave me a teapot for my birthday. My daughter gave me more than one teapot. A son gave me a teapot. I began to give teapots away. At one time I had enough little ones to give each guest their own teapot, like a restaurant. After editing a book for the Lord, I refused to take payment and the grateful author said, “I have to give you something.” My first thought to reply was, “Well give me a present then.” She said, “Like what? What would you like?” Laughing, for I then needed nothing, I said, “Anything. How about a teapot?”

Months later, again at Christmas, she sent me a beautiful Wedgewood teapot from a collection called Imperial Scroll. How fitting! She knew it was for me, for I’d edited and encouraged her in writing a significant book about the Lord’s presence. And I’d given my services to Him. It was utterly humbling.

And now I have another teapot. And it is speaking to me. It is speaking of more relinquishment, of more giving. The friend who gave it came by again this morning and as soon as we’d said hello told me, “I had a dream about the teapot. It was floating, bobbing up and down in the middle of a great ocean.”

I’d already prayed and clearly sensed that at least one current surrender is to let go of my books. I’ve boxes of self-published books in the basement. I’d been saving them—until I was “discovered”—with hopes of selling them. After getting the teapot, I came to believe that it’s time to ship them off— to book aid or literacy programs in need of material.

But now my friend’s dream has me wondering. Could that teapot be me? Blatant and sensitive? Influenced yet innovative? I relate. My writing’s both free and boxed. At times threads of  creativity glint through  wrappings of  pedantic prose. Am I to surrender myself again, and even more, to deeper waters?