This past week, I’ve been thinking about tables quite a bit. Just last Saturday, I was around 3 different tables with 3 different people in 3 very different scenarios. One, breakfast with one of my oldest friends, catching up on life since she’s moved to California. Another, packing up her kitchen as she and her husband move to their new home and next chapter in their story just a couple minutes down the road. And the last, a tiny pub table with fries on top across from my friend, introducing her to my local favorites.
In each of these instances, my day was marked by the significance of the table. Without the table, we didn’t have those moments with one another. Without a place to gather – to show up with and for one another – that day didn’t exist. Tables make you slow down and be. Tables make you look someone in the eye and see their humanity. Or, if you’re like me, they force you to stop awkwardly avoiding eye contact and remove the veil of feigned vulnerability and get real real with the person who has taken their time to sit and be with me. (Shoutout to L.S. who called me on my eye contact just a couple weeks ago. Jerk.)
I think there’s something to be said about time with one another. We can learn from one another’s stories, have conversations we may not even know how to start, and sit in the tension of where-do-we-go-from-here when we’re with one another. And where better to be with one another than at a table: packing, drinking, eating, playing games…being.
I think we all need a little more life around the table. Not just a mom-dad-children, put you phone away ’cause we’re eating combination. But as a friend-friend-friend combination. As a married couple/person-single person combination. As a widow-marrieds-singles-children combination. We all need life with one another, in deeper ways than we’re sometimes willing to admit.
A friend recently said, “I don’t even know how to start that conversation….”
And I think the answer is, “With one another.”
If there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s that I need your stories. And I think you need mine. And we can’t share those stories if we’re constantly pushing back against meeting each other at the table, pausing in life to listen and share.
So, if you want to sit across a table from me and watch me awkwardly not look you in the eye for 5 minutes, then settle down and finally lean into the whole thing, you know where to find me.*
Find a table today to just be with someone, even if that someone is just you and Jesus. I think it’ll be pretty darn neat to see what happens.
*and if you don’t….well…sorry.
Kayla Smith 