If we really want to learn someone’s story, sitting down at the table, breaking bread together, is the best way to start. At the family table we make memories and learn things we don’t learn anywhere else. The most important thing anyone can do to strengthen our families and reproduce the faith in our kids is to bring back the dinner table.
Here are some practices our family has established to remind us of the grace of a shared table:
1. Taste everything. Children like what they like, but how will they know what they like if they don’t give every food a try? You don’t have to eat anything, but you have to taste everything. We celebrate the joy of new discoveries.
2. Offer grace and gratitude. God is with us at our table. We offer thanks for the animals and plants that gave their life for our sustenance. We remember family members who passed on their recipes and the cook who prepared the meal for us. Our table is a time to be grateful and to celebrate gratitude in all things.
3. Ban distractions. Whether books or cellphones or iPads or computers, the table does not make room for tablets. When we come to the table, everyone is expected to be present in every way. Dining is not a passive experience.
4. Refuse to rush a meal. At the table we slow everything down to enable our souls to catch up with our bodies. We catch up with each other, converse about life, share stories, and laugh. Coming to the table together is an event.
5. Meal time is story time. This is where we share our stories and invite visitors to share theirs. If table conversation isn’t readily forthcoming, we play a game: Stump the Storytellers. Guests or the kids find something in the house–an item of furniture, or something hanging on the wall, something displayed in a bookshelf or hidden in a cabinet or cupboard–and see if my wife and I can tell the story behind it.
6. Two desserts. The Sweet table makes a point of preserving dining rituals of the Victorian era, one of which is the tradition of two desserts. Dessert fits the character of the feasts that Jesus described and affirmed. When guests grace our table, two desserts are mandatory.
The table gives us and our family the security, emotional stability, and spiritual maturity to recognize God as the giver of every good gift. When you set the table in your home, you “taste and see that the Lord is good” together (Psalm 34:8).
