Table Talk

And related prayer-thoughts

Several years ago I wrote about two specific experiences around kitchen tables. For various reasons—reflection, evaluation, contemplation—I’ve been recently reminded of those evenings and want to re-share some of my observations at the time. I should also note here, at the beginning, that not all kitchen table conversations end as these did. I am only too aware that table-gatherings can erupt in anger and accusation, or become so emotionally contained, so caged in cordiality as to vibrate with tension and strain, or by default, settle for silence: brooding, aloof, fearful. I want to hold these realities in front of us even as I reflect these two un-fractious, whole-hearted gatherings.

The first centered around a well-used oval oak pedestal table with a set of placemats intentionally positioned to hide portions of the veneer badly in need of refinishing. There were people at this table—five adults besides myself, empty-nesters realizing that the Freedom 55 thing was never more than an ad gimmick. There was food, too—a potluck-style prime rib dinner. And candles.

The second involved a large rectangular table, quite new, with white cushioned chairs. It could easily have been featured in a home decor magazine except for the fact that it also had people around it—-five adults besides myself munching on mozzarella poppers (with or without jalapeño) and pretzel chips, ex-teens realizing that the adulting ‘thing’ was so much harder than they ever dreamed. No candles.

In both situations, food was secondary to the actual feast of memories and ‘catch-ups,’ laughter and possible puns. Comfortable conversations flowed from shared pasts to be reclaimed as fortification for the present. Interspersed with and under-girding all of the light-hearted camaraderie, however, were the real reasons why these kitchen-table scenarios still resonate with me several years later.

At each table, every single person regardless of age, occupation, gender or hair-colour, brought something from their lives: heaping containers of incomprehensible grief and confusion masquerading as dip next to the pretzels, bowls laden with a variety of adult-grade hurts and discouragements clustered like condiments for the baked potatoes. These dishes, awkward and ugly in their unwantedness yet demanding in their presence, were the real feasts at both tables. We did not bring them to gorge on their bitterness or to become gluttons of self-pity, but for us to pass each dish from hand-to-hand, to season it liberally with honesty and genuine listening and loving insights and perspectives. When we finally stepped away from the tables a sweetness lingered long and deep, each heart satiated and strengthened. That the conversations spilled over with tears or overflowed into the living rooms only enhanced the feast.

I’ve never forgotten those two kitchen-table gatherings in particular, nor the faces of the people who shared in the heart-feasts served there. Since then, I’ve had many conversations around various tables and in a variety of circumstances, and it is from their combined encouragement that I voice these prayer-thoughts:

May such moments and conversations continue to spill and overflow into our lives—those spaces we literally and figuratively inhabit each day.

May we reclaim our kitchen tables for this kind of open, honest, searching, burden-sharing, praying-caring feasting that nourishes lives that are too often starving for purpose and clarity and hope.

May we sit around our tables and truly see and hear one another above the noise of daily living, the lies of depression and loneliness, the aching of loss and discouragement, the dread and despair of our news feeds.

May we unapologetically fill our tables with the messiness of life because we care more about each other than some ideal of perfection; we are doing life together and our conversations—the whys and hows and whats of it all—do matter.

May our tables become places where grace is lived, extended, and embraced, not just said before a meal.

May we move beyond our literal tables to extend hospitality, grace, and meaningful words in grocery store aisles and hotel lobbies and stadium bleachers and gyms and church pews and coffee shops and park playgrounds and walking trails and hospital waiting rooms and parking lots and on the phone or through text or email or a card or Zoom or…you get the idea.

Because genuine care for one another never really requires a table, does it?