Table-Talk

I remember as a child going to my Grandparent’s house almost every Sunday night for dinner. There would often be four generations gathered around the table. They had a two-door two-car unattached garage at the end of the driveway to the right of the porch that led into the kitchen. This garage (not unlike the house) was always spic and span. Accessible from the outside of the garage was a shed that ran the entire width of the back wall of the garage where my grandfather kept all of his tools. My memory of that shed was an extremely organized place where there wasn’t a spare inch left unclaimed. While vacationing at my grandparent’s winter home (a condo in Stuart, Florida) when I was about 13, I was helping my grandmother clean up after dinner. Not knowing where everything went, I was attempting to put the salt and pepper away. I remember my grandmother showing me exactly where they went. “Everything has its place”, she told me, and I agreed. Her kitchen was just like Grandfather’s garage. I come by my need for constant organization so honestly. The organized shed behind the garage allowed the garage to be empty, pristine, and the perfect outside dining hall. If it was summertime my grandmother would often set up a large table in that garage. By pulling the cars out and opening the doors there was enough room for all of us to be together around one table, outside and under one roof all at the same time. To us dinner in the garage was just what we did. It might sound odd, but it’s where memories were made. Who knows, maybe that’s where I also obtained my love of outdoor dining.

My great-grandmother lived across the street from my grandparents and one or more of us would often walk to her house just before dinner to escort her back to my grandparent’s so that she could join us. I never remember her saying much. She was always very nice to me, but never seemed all that joyful. I wish that I had known her when she was young, and I wish I had engaged her more with questions about her life growing up. Sadly, we don’t get those opportunities to go back and ask and we often don’t realize that we should when the opportunity is before us. The younger we are the less we realize the beauty in capturing the past of others. I would love to sit around a table with her today. I have so many questions about what her life was like. Just her everyday life, her childhood, her hopes and dreams. My great grandfather, her husband, died before I was born and many many years before she passed. I’d love to know how that changed her world. I would have so many questions for all of my grandparents. They lived in another time and to listen to their memories now would be priceless.

In my dining room today is the table that my parents bought about fifty years ago for $691. I even have the receipt from when it was purchased. It’s the table I grew up with. I can never remember a time when it wasn’t a place to gather. When my parents bought a new dining set after my siblings, and I had grown and moved out they gave it to my brother. A few years later when he no longer needed it, I asked him to bring it to me. On a drive to North

Carolina from Florida for our then annual beach trip, he rented a U-Haul trailer, hitched it up to his car and drove it all the way to NC for me. I remember him telling me that he was so happy when he realized exactly how excited I was to have it. It was a long way to pull a U-Haul just to get a table to me, but my excitement made it worth it. Thanks Bro.

I love this table. It has two leaves and can seat 12 people without an inch to spare. More realistically 10, but I’d like to think twelve! Many a story of my father’s crazy teen years have been told gathered around that table, many birthdays, holidays, and happy memories celebrated in those seats. I think now my father loves Thanksgiving the most when it’s at my house, because we all gather again around that same table. a few years ago pizza boxes were placed on the dining room table (unbeknownst to us) … at the end of the evening, we found the pizza box stuck to the table. The finish was ruined, and my heart broken. We took that “opportunity” to have the table, hutch, and chairs refinished and it looks brand new. You don’t want to be the person to put the first new scratch in that table.

Our kitchen table is the place where Jim goes for a quiet cup of coffee in the morning hoping nobody will talk to him, it’s been a safe space for many serious conversations, it’s where Ashley and I have sat late into the night tag-teaming on a college paper or where I’d find her studying for an exam. It’s where we sat with Kerby when he asked us if he could marry Katie and pulled the ring out of his pocket.

I think God places us around the tables in our lives in preparation for the feast we’ll have in Heaven. Sounds silly but I believe it’s true. We say grace before big family dinners because we are inviting God into that space with us. It’s where he belongs. I hope someday that I’ll be at a table of sorts again with my great-grandmother and I will have the opportunity to ask all of the questions I have. I think that table will have all of my grandparents, great grandparents, and greats before them. What an incredible occasion that will be. To realize the opportunities we have right now, each time we gather at a table, is a gift we should not take for granted. We need to remember to look up, not down, engaging those across from us as if all of those grandparents were gathered around. Pay special attention to the time we spend gathered around a table. Show up when you sit down. It’s easier to look down, but I think we’ll be glad that we didn’t.

Think for a minute about the chairs we sit in. I sat across from my friend and co-worker Suzanne at lunch almost every day for twenty plus years. That woman knew everything about me until Alzheimer’s took over. I miss those lunchtime conversations. She was the cheapest therapy that I ever received. We recently had to figure out where “our” seat would be when we joined a new church. That spot we’ll seek out weekly where we just seem to feel comfortable. I had the front row seat to watch my daughter walk down the aisle and I sit in the same chair each time I return to hunt library for a day of writing. Now that the kids are grown and it’s just us, we sit at the coffee table each night for dinner watching the news. It’s a bad habit I know, but as much as I enjoy that, I love more than anything a date night. It’s just us going out to eat where we, you guessed it, sit across from each other, no distractions, just being present at the table. It’s a beautiful thing.

When we’ve done a good job, people leave our table feeling better about themselves than us, better after having spent time with us than not. It’s not about how fancy the restaurant is, it’s not how pretty the table is set, it’s not about how good the food is, it’s not even about which table it is (even if it is a special one). It’s about time spent engaging with others. Take a moment as you gather with others to intentionally treat your time at the table as if you are practicing for that table in Heaven. Soak in the presence of everyone gathered. They all have a story to tell, and you might only get that one chance to listen.

Time at the table, any table, is a gift. Remember that next time you gather.

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Go outside and talk while playing catch because you can’t look down and be distracted.

Well, you can, but it’s not going to end well.

As much as I love my table, you do not have to keep something just because you inherited it.

You have my permission to let it go - just not "this" table...