Journal of Sacred Work

Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us live a life worth remembering. – Rachel Remen, M.D.

  Dr. Remen might have added, although she implies it, that sitting around the table at dinner time is a way families signal they care about each other. But which families are eating together these days? I wrote about this subject once before and I visit it again here because of a statistic I read about the state in which I live. In 2005, most of the country saw a significant drop in teen violence – upwards of 18% lower than the previous year. In Tennessee, teen violence rose 3%.
  Is there a relationship between sitting down with your family for dinner and violence among teens? What do you think? Why are teens, or any of the rest of us, violent?…

   Some psychologists think it’s because we’re struggling for attention – or never got enough love when we were teens. Families who eat together still have troubles. But they are more likely to work them out together in an environment where they can learn real love instead of the soap opera kind.
   In 1997, my Swiss cousin’s teenage son came to the United States for a visit. He was placed with an Oklahoma family for the nine month school year. At the end of his visit, he visited our home. When lunchtime came, we sat down at the dinner table.   
   "You sit down at the table together to eat?" He asked, obviously surprised.
   "Of course," I answered. "We always do that."
   "My Oklahoma family never once sat down together to eat," he told me. "Not once in nine months – not even at Thanksgiving."
   The parents and kids just grazed through the kitchen or ate at fast food places. Not surprisingly, my relatives teenage counterparts, boys thirteen and fifteen, were often in trouble.

  Now that our children are grown, I am grateful not only for our times around the dinner table, but for wisdom taught "along the way" instead of in some kind of formal training. It’s difficult to pass along wisdom when you have to speak over the noise of the television. It’s hard to show your child you care if he or she is continually immersed in video games.
   How do children learn love? They learn it more by the quality of our presence to them than from the actual amount of time we spend. Gather with your family or loved one at a dinner table today. Invite conversation. Listen. If you haven’t done this in a long time, it can be awkward to start up again. Keep trying. Tell everyone there’s something you want to share with them. This will be an opportunity for love – especially if you face some resentment because you turned off the television set.
   Around the dinner table, or in the intimacy of the kitchen, we have the chance to share life experiences with those we love, and who love us. In this way, we learn "the stuff that helps us live a life worth remembering."

-Erie Chapman

*The images in todays meditation are both by the famed artist, Norman Rockwell