At the table

           We returned home from our vacation with a new table. Let me correct myself, we returned home with a table that is new to us. It was my grandmother's kitchen table and now that she has downsized we inherited the table.

            It is a beautiful cherry table with two leaves and five chairs. My husband tells me that you can no longer find the hardware for this table. I believe him because building furniture is something his family does. I however am clueless about these details.

            I only know that this table is invaluable to me. This is the table where my mother, her sisters and her parents sat and ate. My parents ate many meals together at this table before they were married. I remember that whenever we would visit Belmont Avenue, everyone would gather in the kitchen. My grandma and her daughters had this elegant dance, which had developed over a lifetime of working in the same space, as they prepared dinner. Four chairs always surrounded the table and many more were brought in from the dining room as all this children and grandchildren returned home. The fifth chair was grandma’s chair and it sat at her desk as it sits at my desk now. It is the table where we played countless games of cards and took our vitamins from shot glasses every morning. (Don’t ask I really can’t explain the shot glasses.)

               I spent many nights and afternoons with grandma at this simple wooden table in college. I went to college not far from my parent’s home town so I spend a few weekends every semester with grandma. I learn a great deal about life, love and family sitting at that table with my grandma. She told me many stories and listened as I told mine. I’m not sure she turned me into a Republican but she did teach me to more critical of all politics, politician and mostly to think for myself.

             This table is my childhood, my mother’s childhood, my parent’s and grandparent’s long love stories. It is where I met and got to know and love my extended family. It’s also one of the places where I got to know myself by knowing them. Our lives are as much a part of that table as the grain of the wood is a part of the table.

              I realize that this sounds particularly sappy today but I was struck last night by the fact that my husband and I were yet again sitting together at that simple table. We have finished every night together sitting at the table talking after BB is in bed since we brought it home. So we are adding our own love story, family trials and triumphs to the grain of the table top.  This table is already the meeting and gather place in our home as if it had always been there.

             It was second nature for us to sit there to unpack our day with one another and to reconnect with one another. I think this is why Eucharist is so very important in the life of a church family and the individual believers. Each week we are invited back to the table to meet and reconnect with God and each other. Each time we return we bring our own trial and tribulations as a family to the table where they can be sorted out and where we are reminded that we are all in need of nourishment.

             Like my family table, everyone is welcomed and invited to eat and be filled. We are expected to return to the table when things are great and when things are terrible because “things” get sorted out around the table and in the presence of God if you stay there long enough. We are expected to return to the table warts and all so we can get to know the rest of our family and in getting know them, we will learn about ourselves. We return to the table knowing that this where those before us have returned, warts and all, for the very same reasons.

               I have been given a gift that is priceless because both of these tables hold my memories and my future. It’s laid out in the grain of the wood.