The table is a sacred space. I’m not thinking of any table in particular, but rather every table; the idea of the table.
At the table we gather in fellowship and food: in communion with provision and place and each other. At the table we look into the eyes of people we know, or want to know more. It’s where we can sit in joy or sorrow with each other, where we can help each other to feel known and loved and cared for. At the table we share stories and fears, hopes and pain, food and connection.
And at the table, we can turn things upside down through the simple-but-challenging act of invitation. We can invite the lonely or poor, the homeless or heartless, the people we find difficult to like. We can give them the food and drink we were saving for a special occasion. The table can become a heavenly host, filling emptiness and loneliness with food and love.
The table can be a space of longing too.
At Christmas I longed for talk of love and ideas, of vulnerability and care, of asking and offering. I wanted to speak about Gaza and the local foodbank, to try and share out the pain just a little further, to hold a space for peace. I wanted to speak about what we are each carrying. But instead we spoke about air fryers, and pain went unacknowledged, and hearts buried further out of reach.
The table we sat around patiently held it all. The table leaves room for sacredness, but it can be witness to other things too. It can deepen knowing or loneliness depending on what we bring to it.
Sometimes, necessarily, what we bring to it is convenience. Meals that only just pass for food but which are quick to prepare and eat. Rushed interactions that honour productivity over relationship. But when the table becomes primarily a space for convenience, when its sacredness is pushed further to the edges until it falls off and gets trodden into the carpet, then we all suffer.
I’ve been wondering though whether there might be hope hidden in the idea of convenience. The meaning we’re familiar with -"that which gives ease or comfort; a convenient article or appliance" - is, apparently, from the late 1600s. But look back further, to the 14th century; look at the elements that make the word (com, “with, together”, and venire “to come”), and a gathering space appears: “to come together, unite, harmony.” What could it mean for convenience today not to prioritise efficiency but to re-root in the idea of being together? An air fryer is, I’m told, convenient: meals are quick to prepare, and use less energy than an oven. I am curious, tempted even. But its convenience is in the later use of the word; it primarily brings ease not togetherness. And it’s an ease bought with inconvenience elsewhere: more resources used, more electric waste created.
I am not concluding we shouldn’t buy air fryers - with a baby, and other commitments, and with money stretched, I am still tempted by its time- and money-saving promise. But I want to know how the convenience of an air fryer might be reclaimed and put towards togetherness - to create more seats around the table and more courage in who I invite to sit around it. It is not always convenient - in the sense of bringing ease - to sit around a table. And yet it is by sitting around a table that we know and are known; it’s by sitting around a table that we might share in the “cup of kindness” that we sing about in Auld Lang Syne, as we bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new.
In this strange, spacious, still week between Christmas and the new year, I am thinking about that cup of kindness, and about the tables we host, and to which we accept invites. I want to know how we make room for this in a western world that asks us to equate convenience with productivity, not togetherness. In 2024, I want to live as if the table really is sacred - holy - in its ability to call forth wholeness, in its invitation to togetherness even when that feels hard. And I want to reclaim convenience as a call to that togetherness. It was never supposed to be about efficiency anyway.
What does the table mean to you? Where would you like more convenience - more togetherness - in your own life? I’d love to know. You can comment below, or send me a message.
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Wishing you peace as 2023 comes to a close, and togetherness in 2024.
Love,
Elizabeth
Acoustics & a removal of distractions around a table are important to hear and listen ie understand and then remember beyond the convening.
A carpeted floor in a dining room with just one door for a sense of confidence and co conspiracy perhaps.
At the risk of appearing like a period drama: A dark, well polished, rectangular antique mahogany table with ample space between guests, Candle light, high backed, built in cushioned chairs but who to invite / gather?
Should always be a bit like a one off, a culmination of all that has gone before but best if there is a mix of people rather than a dutiful ritual invitation of always the same people for the latest safe gossip.
There also needs to be a sense of ‘For what we have had and what we are about to receive’ in the guests; if you’re looking for enlightenment.
The mother / woman in the home is the fulcrum for so much that is good in that home and brought to the table - that sense should be broadened out to the world (also our home) which needs a total rebooting and retabling in like manner.
Good article Elizabeth and enjoyed your poem. Thank you.