Pudding
Grace
“If
you are more fortunate than others, it is better to build a bigger table than a
taller fence.”
Anonymous
At
dinner the other night, my friend David asked the question, “If you had a
really long table, with people sitting all around it, how would it affect the
conversation?” I think we were talking about how hard it is now to have a group conversation and not rile someone’s sensitive political beliefs. I confess that
I like more intimate dinners—no more than 6 people, and that is because larger
groups tend to engage in conversation with the people sitting next to and
across the table from them. That excludes folks on one end or the other, and,
of course, as we age it’s harder to hear the conversation at the other end.
When the photos of Vladimir Putin and his generals were in the news, I wondered
to myself whether they wore microphones. Thirty feet is a long way for old ears
to hear.
Of
course, that is not what the quote above is about. It’s about inclusion and
exclusion. If one is fortunate enough to have a big table (the ability to feed
many), one can and should use it to bring people together. Rather than build
structures that exclude (like fences), why not include a variety of people?
More diversity makes for more interesting perspectives.
Truth be told, I tend to invite guests that I know well and who have similar
beliefs and attitudes. There is nothing worse than angry dissention at the
dinner table. Especially, if one has prepared a delicious meal, conversation
should be equally appealing. Food and wine encourage congeniality, by causing the secretion of our “feel-good” brain chemistry. We feel happy and
satisfied. And suddenly, I feel like Martha Stewart without the bank account
(or the prison time).
Today is Friday—the kick off
for another weekend. It’s a good time to invite people over for food and
libation. Why not include that new neighbor that no one knows very well? Or the
woman up the street who lives alone. I remember sitting at my cousin Sandy’s
table not long after she moved into a new neighborhood. The doorbell rang and
her next-door neighbor, whom she had not yet met, handed her a large baking
dish of banana pudding with meringue topping, still warm from the oven. Such a
lovely, Southern way to welcome someone to the neighborhood. You could do that.
So could I. We all know that the best kind of grace is the pudding kind.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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