A Table Before Me
How is it that one of the first things we Christians learn in our religious education also turns out to be one of the most enduring and consistent messages we need to hear?
I am referring of course to the 23rd Psalm, so simple a child can memorize it, so complex and apt that as adults we can, indeed, need to, remember it!
This morning I awoke with: Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies... And I'm imagining this actually happening! At the height of adversarial tension, God arrives like a waiter, calls a pause to the hostilities, and spreads a tablecloth, and a meal-- but not for everyone, necessarily! Maybe just for me! Then it would be up to me to share... Could I be that generous? Ah, the rubs...
When I was growing up, mealtimes were sacred. We didn't realize it at the time. At the time we were just all showing up to put on the feedbags. I don't think we realized while it was happening just how much our mealtime interactions were shaping our senses of family, of ourselves, of the importance of being together once a day, of the experience of eating (sharing bread) together, and so on...
I am, you know, at a time of mourning and remembering my mother. Many of my most enduring memories of my mother happened over meals. At our family gathering last week, we remembered how my mother would take it well when she was the one being kidded, how she would laugh, and then how we would conspire to keep her laughing, so that when her laughter would die down, and she'd let out this little squealing sigh ("ooohhhh.."), we would renew our efforts to make her laugh, and this would go on until all of our sides hurt! We took such joy from my mother's laughing, we could be almost cruel in sustaining it...
So "spreading a table" meant engaging in engaging interactions: like laughter!
Of course it meant many more things than that, as well, but today I am remembering the laughter part-- because I wonder whether when God spreads the table before me in the presence of my enemies, does it not mean more than just eating? Maybe it also means that the atmosphere changes, that the adversarial seriousness evaporates and is replaced by an ability to see the absurdity amidst the conflict. Maybe when God spreads the table, we, both those who make themselves my enemies and I, have our mutual humanity restored. Maybe we even come to laugh!
After all, there's lots of ways we can hurt each other, but if our sides are hurting from laughing instead of the many other ways, maybe we can more easily find a way to forgive each other?
At the end of the day, indeed at the end of our lives, I believe it's all about the giving and receiving of forgiveness. My hope is that that forgiveness is mutual-- but then, maybe the laugh is on the one who is unforgiving? We only know when God prepares the table...
May your life be full of laughter, even amid the adversities.
I am referring of course to the 23rd Psalm, so simple a child can memorize it, so complex and apt that as adults we can, indeed, need to, remember it!
This morning I awoke with: Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies... And I'm imagining this actually happening! At the height of adversarial tension, God arrives like a waiter, calls a pause to the hostilities, and spreads a tablecloth, and a meal-- but not for everyone, necessarily! Maybe just for me! Then it would be up to me to share... Could I be that generous? Ah, the rubs...
When I was growing up, mealtimes were sacred. We didn't realize it at the time. At the time we were just all showing up to put on the feedbags. I don't think we realized while it was happening just how much our mealtime interactions were shaping our senses of family, of ourselves, of the importance of being together once a day, of the experience of eating (sharing bread) together, and so on...
I am, you know, at a time of mourning and remembering my mother. Many of my most enduring memories of my mother happened over meals. At our family gathering last week, we remembered how my mother would take it well when she was the one being kidded, how she would laugh, and then how we would conspire to keep her laughing, so that when her laughter would die down, and she'd let out this little squealing sigh ("ooohhhh.."), we would renew our efforts to make her laugh, and this would go on until all of our sides hurt! We took such joy from my mother's laughing, we could be almost cruel in sustaining it...
So "spreading a table" meant engaging in engaging interactions: like laughter!
Of course it meant many more things than that, as well, but today I am remembering the laughter part-- because I wonder whether when God spreads the table before me in the presence of my enemies, does it not mean more than just eating? Maybe it also means that the atmosphere changes, that the adversarial seriousness evaporates and is replaced by an ability to see the absurdity amidst the conflict. Maybe when God spreads the table, we, both those who make themselves my enemies and I, have our mutual humanity restored. Maybe we even come to laugh!
After all, there's lots of ways we can hurt each other, but if our sides are hurting from laughing instead of the many other ways, maybe we can more easily find a way to forgive each other?
At the end of the day, indeed at the end of our lives, I believe it's all about the giving and receiving of forgiveness. My hope is that that forgiveness is mutual-- but then, maybe the laugh is on the one who is unforgiving? We only know when God prepares the table...
May your life be full of laughter, even amid the adversities.
posted by TRXTR | 11:23 AM
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