THE QUICK SUMMARY

Sitting down at a table to eat is an activity so grounded in the ordinary, so basic to the daily routines of life, we rarely ponder it beyond the simple inquiry, “What’s for dinner?” However, scratch a little deeper and you discover in eating one of the most meaning-laden activities of our lives, one so immersed in human longing and relationship it’s a practice of sacred dimensions.

In this age of culinary infatuations, global food crises, celebrity chefs and Biggest Losers, the need to reflect more seriously upon eating is pressing.

A trained chef, teacher, social researcher, minister of religion and homemaker, in Eating Heaven Simon Carey Holt draws on experience and research to explore the role of eating in our search for meaning and community. To do so, he invites us to sit at the tables of daily life – from kitchen tables to backyard barbecues, from cafe tables to the beautifully set tables of our city’s finest restaurants – and consider how our life at these tables interacts with our deepest values and commitments.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION 

According to author Simon Carey Holt, it is through the table we know who we are, where we come from, what we value and believe. 

At the table we learn what it means to be family and how to live in responsible, loving relationships. Through the table we live our neighborliness and citizenship, express our allegiance to particular places and communities, and claim our sense of home and belonging. At the table we celebrate beauty and express solidarity with those who are broken and hungry. Some of us express our vocation at the table, the calling to create, to provide and to serve. At the table we initiate, welcome, celebrate, mourn, farewell, scheme, covenant, form alliances, and hope for reconciliation. At the table we tell our stories and listen to the stories of others, embracing difference, celebrating heritage and welcoming the stranger. At the table we express faith, confess our failings, remember our obligations and reach out for grace and community. Could we live without it? Yes. Would we choose to? No. For life without the table is no life at all.

In the words of author and theologian Leonard Sweet (From Tablet to Table), “It’s time to bring back the table!”

The table beckons. It beckons because, at its core, the table is about such fundamentally human things as intimacy and family, identity and communication, reconciliation and romance, covenant and community, redemption and friendship, sustenance and celebration, beginnings and endings. The table beckons because it plays host to so much more than biological necessity.

Eating is a sacred business. Whether it’s eggs on toast in a café, cornflakes scoffed down at the kitchen bench, a sandwich shared with colleagues in the cafeteria, or a leisurely family dinner at the dining room table, eating is a spiritual act.

You discover in eating one of the most meaning-laden activities of our lives, one so immersed in human longing and relationship that it’s a practice of sacred dimensions.

I have a growing sense that the tables of everyday life, whether in or out, are potentially holy places, altars at which sacred transactions take place.

Eating is never just about the food. More often than not, eating is the lubricant that makes so many other things possible.

Our table stories will be as unique as we are, some recalled with warm reassurance, some with pain, and others with indifference. Regardless, we have been shaped by them and profoundly so. I once heard the Catholic writer Henri Nouwen describe the table as the ‘barometer’ of our lives. Sitting together at the kitchen table can be hot or cold, heaven or hell, and sometimes both in the same sitting. Its daily-ness and intimacy make it a place of power, a potent and shaping influence in our lives.

According to common wisdom, sitting together at the kitchen table is an endangered act, edging ever closer to extinction. This belief flourishes when the mistiness of our rear view is matched by the jaundiced nature of our perspective on the present. The trouble with misty eyes is they keep us from seeing clearly.

Jesus was a man of the table, not just the one he shared with his disciples with offerings of bread and wine, but the multiple tables of daily life. How he lived and ate at these tables was a profound demonstration of the ‘good news’ he embodied and a call for his followers to do likewise.

At its best, the table of Jesus informs and implicates every table at which we sit, for it’s a table of remembering and not forgetting, a table of connection not separation. Should we allow our church’s tables to be places of forgetting, places disconnected from life beyond the church walls or secluded places of private spirituality, our tables will become nothing more than self-serve filling stations that ultimately gasp for spiritual breath.

Our life at the table plays host to some of the most important aspects of what it means to be human and what it means to live a grace-filled life in community with each other and with the earth.

A vibrant and life-giving spirituality is found in the congruence of heaven and earth, or, to use more pragmatic language, the point of intersection between our deepest values and the way we live our lives each day.

It is through the daily practices of the table that we live a life worth living.

Simon Carey Holt, Eating Heaven: Spirituality at the Table

A NEXT STEP

Most of us understand the importance of sitting around the table as often as we can with families, and extending that hospitality to friends. How about expanding that to neighbors – friends you haven’t met yet. While it’s not always easy in practice, it’s worth the time and effort.

Here’s a brief of ideas from Alexandra Kuykendall (Loving My Actual Neighbor) on how to connect with your neighbors and then connect with them around a table:

• Set a calendar reminder to follow up with a neighbor about something they mentioned earlier.
• Research a news story that doesn’t impact you but does impact one of your neighbors.
• Make note of your neighbors’ dress, habits, and preferences.
• Put your phone in a place out of sight and arm’s reach when talking with your neighbors.
• Go out of your way to meet a neighbor thirty years older or younger than you. Challenge yourself to find two common interests.
• Answer the phone or door when a neighbor calls. Allow yourself to be interrupted.
• Make a list of the qualities you appreciate about that hard-to-love neighbor.

Four years ago, First Baptist Red Oak established three rhythms of gathering around the table. First was the family meal, gathering for intentional connection and influence as a family once per week. Next, the community meal, inviting other families not attached to church, but connected through sports or hobbies, to eat once a month. And last, the church family meal, gathering as a body once every quarter for fellowship. Circle up with your key leaders and create a plan to be intentional about the tables in your church.