My table is too full

I love my dining table. When I bought my first (and only) house, it was almost the first piece of furniture I bought. It's actually a desk, but too beautiful to be covered in paper. It's glass and it has a black design on it with flowers and butterflies. When I bought it I got everything else in my dining room to match - from pictures to chairs it matches. I bought lights to put under it so that when the main lights were dim, the lights would project the flowers and the butterflies onto the ceiling.... but they're long gone now because the batteries leaked and I couldn't find a screwdriver to get them out. 

I enjoy inviting people round to sit at my dining table (impractically small though it is, and despite the green carpet in my current house which really doesn't go....). I enjoy cooking for people and eating with people and talking to people and sharing with people and generally being round the table. 

But right now my dining table looks like this.....

And that's not unusual.

It's an easy dumping ground for washing before I get round to folding it and putting it away and despite the promising chopping board in the middle that is calling out for beautiful crusty bread to be dipped in homemade soup, it doesn't seem like a dining table anymore. My table is full, but not with food to feed others - it's lost its purpose, its focus, its meaning. 

I can't have anyone round to eat now. The table is too full.

A huge barrier to building community - which we can do so beautifully by sharing with others round the table - is when our tables are too full, or we don't make space for a table at all. 

Our busy lives mean that a quick bite is all we can manage and the less people around for the quick bite the better. 

Our schedules mean that we don't get to the room with the table at the same time, so we eat alone, or just with those whose schedules match ours. 

Our aim for perfection means that nobody can come round until we're tidy and we've got the time to cook our best food, otherwise they'll judge us, holding up Come Dine with Me score cards that shame us to never invite anyone again. 

We worry that we won't like the food and our hosts would be offended if we brought our own. 

We fill our lives with stuff so we don't have to do the things that are of most value. 

But why? 

I passionately believe that's not how it should be. Community is built through trust. Community is built when we learn to live and eat alongside one another whether we have tidied up or not. 

Jesus regularly ate with all sorts of people. He invited himself to Zacchaeus' for tea (I wonder if Zacchaeus panicked about all the piles of money on his dinner table). He went to Mary and Martha's, and Martha tidied and fussed so she didn't have time to sit at Jesus feet (her own pride and expectations piled up on the table).  

And after he was raised from the dead he sat and cooked breakfast on the beach for the dirty, smelly, tired fishermen who were his closest friends (I suspect they didn't even wash their hands).

If we're serious about being part of a community where trust and friendship that is like family comes naturally, where we learn how to live in a way that reflects our faith and values and where people can be welcomed whoever they are, then we need to clear all that stuff off our tables. 

And eat.

And talk. 

And laugh.

And let go. 

Because when we eat together, good things happen. 

(and just to note - my table will be cleared next week, and even before its clear, if you drop in, I'll feed you and if it has to be on the living room floor, then I'll give you my best cushion to sit on).

Slooowwly does it.....

I love eating out. Sitting down with friends, chatting as other people serve us and we savour what is hopefully good food and don't do the washing up afterwards. For me particularly good eating out generally has to be a bit of an experience - the food needs to be good, the atmosphere needs to be right, the company engaging and I do not need to be rushed. 

Never rush me. Please never rush me.

I love the places where I am able to sit and be as I eat - where plates aren't taken away too early and nobody hovers to see if you have finished. The best people to eat out with are those who are happy to take their time and not worried about getting to the next thing. That's not always possible, but long and lazy lunches or dinners are something I really enjoy. The best food is food that is not what you would normally cook at home and brings an element of surprise or pleasure. I love tiramisu and I savour every mouthful as it reaches all of my senses. Desserts are not made to be gobbled down but are made to be savoured.....

I've gradually learned the art of quality and not quantity. It's never about the amount of food you get but it's about the taste, smell, look, feel and even sometimes sound of the food (there is something exciting about the sound of a sizzling dish as it is brought over to your table). 

One of my favourite meals out was in a restaurant in the Algarve. It was bizarrely an English country restaurant (as you do) but was the closest one to the flat in which we were staying. We'd watched the flambeing of the pancakes of the table next door... but then they came to my Creme Brulee (second favourite dessert - the crack, the smoothness) and the waiter put whatever alcohol it was in the jug, set fire to it, and poured the blue flame from jug to jug. It was spectacular. 

My nightmare meal out is at a £3.95 carvery. Pile high, eat fast, cheap food, cattle market. You know what you are going to get, but it's all the same. 

I spotted someone buying a book called 'The Art of Curating Worship' by Mark Pierson and bought it because it looked interesting. He relates this contrast of good and bad eating experiences to our experience in worship. He talks about the 'slow-food movement' which 'involves valuing time to prepare, eat, and build community through food'. He begins to explore what he calls 'slow worship' where worship is based around the culture of the community rather than around a pre-packaged worship meal that is the same all the time. The time taken to prepare, experience and build community through worship is really important. Pierson says that the idea of 'slow worship' might mean that we come to worship with a real expectation that we will encounter God. 

When I eat out I savour the experience. 

When our worship services are clinical or pre-packaged or something to get over with so we can get on with the day then we might as well eat at a cheap carvery..... it'll do, for a moment, but is it an experience worth having?