Slow Brewing Tea
Literary Fiction
by Randy Loubier
Isaiah set off on a ten day motorcycle adventure in northern, rural Japan. His quest, at the age of twenty, was to photograph the quiet mysterious culture, meet a Japanese woman and find The Tao (the way). He took stunning photographs, fell deeply in love with an extraordinary Japanese woman and found an old man willing to teach him the way, the truth and the narrow gate. Over the next forty years Isaiah’s life tumbles through lessons of pain and redemption, loss and victory in search of a path of unconditional love and faith.
Be transformed by a journey into traditional Japan, a mystical land of tea ceremonies, Japanese gardens, rich culture and unexpected spiritual revelations.
Slow Brewing Tea is an epic spiritual adventure and a touching love story that will compel you to look deeper at your relationships with your God, your spouse and the path beneath your feet.
For four hundred years, the Oda clan kept a secret. In 1593, Oda Nobumasa, the son of infamous Oda Nobunaga, converted to Christianity and to avoid persecution was sent away to the remote mountains of northern Honshu to live as a hermit. For the remainder of his life he studied the mysteries of Jesus and came to a shocking conclusion: Jesus’ teachings are a perfect fit into Japan’s traditions of the Samurai, Wa, the tea ceremony, gardens and nearly every aspect of Japanese culture. Obedient to a dream from God, Oda Nobumasa hid his discoveries in his tea room scrolls, to remain a family secret, until…
Join Isaiah on this quest; finish, and you will see life, love and spirituality in a radically new way.
REVIEW
4 out of 5
Slow brewing tea was an intriguing read. I must admit at times the pacing was a bit slow for me at times, but overall, I found the read an enjoyable one. I was expecting the main character to be on more of a journey for God, with a quest for self and love as a side note. What I found was a man who, beginning in Cold War era Japan, was looking for not only God, but who he was, and maybe love. It was interesting to see inside his mind as he traveled his path, and the events that led him along it. A great read for Christians and those open to reading Christian fiction.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Randy Loubier is the pastor of a small country church in a small town in the small state of New Hampshire, USA. Slow Brewing Tea is his third book and first novel. Some of the geography and settings were sketched from memories of growing up in New England and his time in Misawa, Japan (1978-1980). For Randy, his years in Japan were an adventurous pursuit of the culture with an attitude and shy personality, not unlike Isaiah. As a slow brewing tea himself, he spent much of the first fifty years of life denying God the Father and pursuing numerous eastern and new-age faiths. He wrote Slow Brewing Tea and the accompanying series The Tea Room Scrolls as “I found something I’d like to share with the world.”
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