The Lost Table

When I was growing up we ate breakfast and dinner together as a family, every day. As I got older, gathering at breakfast became too hard as my mother went back into the workforce. But dinner at the table remained a constant.

By the time I was a mom, gathering our little family was hit and miss. I worked 12-hour shifts as an RN and got home after Jasmine was in bed.

Looking at most American lives, it appears that the dinner table has been lost. It’s been replaced with hastily chomping on something on the way to volleyball, or some other extracurricular activity.  As a nation, we have lost more than our dinner table.  We’ve lost cherished family time - hearing about each other's day, learning about and discussing current events. With no table to gather around, our meals are not as appreciated or relished.  I find this tragic.

There are only two of us at home now and I’ve recently reinstated eating at the table, not in front of the TV. We put our cell phones away.  We are present and eat joyfully. It’s been nice. We give thanks for our food and ask for it to be blessed as well as ourselves. We look into each other's eyes and have a real conversation.  It’s wonderful.

I encourage you, as hard as it might be, to gather at least twice a week. Find your lost table. Take off all the books and bills and miscellaneous stuff that has been stockpiled there. Dust it off and use it to establish and deepen relationships with your loved ones. You’ll be so glad you did. I want to change the way you cook and the way you experience your food. Making mealtime a daily ritual of slowing down, connecting to Source, making the time to be grateful for what you have, it’s all a step in the right direction.  The results of this simple act of eating at the table will have rewards that enrich your life and the lives of those you gather with for generations to come.