Grandma was looking forward to a ‘nice hot cuppa tea,’ as she would say. She spooned two teaspoons of leaf tea into the teapot, boiled the electric jug, and then she poured the boiling water into the teapot.
To keep it hot and fresh, she covered it with a very old tea-cosy she had used over many years and she put her favourite fine, white mug alongside the teapot. Grandma liked fine china and especially her white mug that held plenty.
‘Lovely,’ she smiled to herself as she put it on a tray, rested it on the little table beside her favourite arm-chair and sat down. She closed her eyes for a moment to catch her breath and be totally at ease. After a few moments and with her eyes still closed, she thought she heard voices.
“Good morning, it is so nice to see you again my dear friend,” said a bright voice down near Grandma’s left hand.
“Good morning to you too, my dear White Mug, it is lovely to see you again too,” replied a slightly woolly voice down near Grandma’s right hand. “I was wondering where you were, White Mug, because you seemed to be away for a long time,” said the woolly voice. “I have been through the washing machine again but, look, I still have all my stains with me,” and Tea-cosy sighed a sigh of despair.
“Yes,” answered White Mug, “but don’t worry, one day your stains will be vanished. I spent time with the dining room people, my dear Tea-cosy. They are refined Cups and Saucers with a very fine, large Teapot and a beautifully sculptured Tea-cosy. They were most elegant.”
“What a wonderful time to have talks with them, White Mug. You must have really enjoyed yourself,” replied Tea-cosy, drooping a little and sounding wistful. He looked at his tattered pom-pom and the stains all down his front from the many cups of tea poured from his teapot into White Mug.
“Oh, yes, the opportunity was there but they were not at all keen on conversing with me,” said White Mug, silently noting Tea-cosy’s despair. (‘I must address Tea-cosy’s thoughts again,’ he thought to himself, ‘he’s still afraid his stains will damage everything he does,’ but he did not say it aloud.) He said to Tea-cosy, “I sat there, shining and waiting, but whenever I tried to talk with the beautiful floral Cups and Saucers they told me they took tea with their own Tea-pot in his Tea-cosy every week and they were not interested in me. Then they pretended they liked what Teapot poured out to them but quite often I heard them laughing about it,” and White Mug sighed deeply.
“Then why didn’t they ask to get poured into you first?” asked Tea-cosy, aghast that nobody wanted long drinks with White Mug. Tea-cosy loved his long drinks with White Mug and could not imagine anybody not wanting the sort of chats they had together.
“They were too busy,” replied White Mug. “They loved to sit behind the glass door of the cabinet where they could be admired and where they could see everybody else. They liked to criticise the Vases for not coming to their afternoon teas, and they liked to turn their faces away from the Jugs who wandered in and out of the refrigerator in the kitchen. Some of them even cracked apart with laughter at the Vases and Jugs and even at the Sugar Basins from the pantry.”
Tea-cosy leaned nearer because there were nearly tears on White Mug’s face. Then White Mug gathered himself together and confided, “I called out them quite often but they just did not listen. Finally it was impossible not to say ‘depart from me, I never knew you,’ and that is when I was brought back to the kitchen.”
“And to our lovely Grandma and my sin-stained old self,” answered Tea-cosy.
“Ah,” said White Mug, “I know you are perfectly clean, Tea-cosy, and it is only the shadow of the stains showing. But as I have often told you, when you are poured out into me, I make everything that comes out of you perfectly clean and good. You must also remember,” said White Mug encouragingly, “that ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’? At a time to come, you will shine so beautifully it will be wonderful just to see you!”
“I must have been dreaming,” said Grandma waking up and looking at her tea tray. “And now my White Mug looks so very inviting.”
Grandma poured out through the stained Tea-cosy until her White Mug was full and what she drank was absolutely refreshing.
Then she smiled and said aloud, “What a lovely dream I had – ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.’ I think Mr. Isaiah said it in Chapter 1, verse 18.”
Elizabeth Price