Please To The Table is the name of a Russian cookbook that has been on my shelf for years. I have used it little but love to see that title! It seems so enchanting to say ‘please to the table’ when all is ready and your guests can come and dine.
As a little girl, not much higher than the dining room table, my Grandmother would give me the task of setting the silver ware in the right places as she prepared a meal for those coming to dinner. Being the oldest of six children with 5 male siblings after me, it was often my role at home to set the table for breakfast and dinner while we were in school. Out of this ritual of preparation came a love of making sure the table looked inviting, along with the aroma of food adding its own welcome invitation. It is no different for me now - the preparation of food and table go hand in hand in creating a welcome for those who will come to eat.
There are many layers to this ritual, many traditions that add facets to it, but no matter what your culture requires of you, this is a sacred part of mealtime. Layers that I am exploring at present, seeking to understand more deeply.
Hence when I read the following explanation from the book Radical Hospitality - Benedict’s Way of Love (Father Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt), it brought the word ‘yearning’ into this sacred ritual.
“Hospitality becomes a way of life as we become more open. It will not happen without preparation and unless you intend it to happen. When we speak of ‘preparing a table,’ we refer to the intention and the work of making space for another human being.
Preparing a table has sacramental meaning for Benedictines. Every meal, like every encounter with a human being, has the potential to reveal God present in Creation. The table represents the unknown yearning of every human heart for communion with ‘something more’ that infuses all the exists.”
Please, won’t you come to the table?
2 comments:
What an awesome post! Reading it made me want to invite people to the table. I don't think I could ever look at a set table again without thinking about: The table represents the unknown yearning of every human heart for communion with ‘something more’ that infuses all the exists.
There's so much in all of this post. I love how reading your words brought my heart back into the Light. I sometimes forget to look for God in the small things!
Neritia, good to hear from you.
the table is a place of learning as I never expected it to be and I am discovering how it is so for others too. Sad how fast food ideas have so robbed us of this kind of learning that is deep and rich.
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