Several years ago I became intrigued by a piece in Sharon Blackie’s The Enchanted Life about the stories a table holds. Blackie writes:
“The table in my kitchen has never belonged to anyone else; it was newly made for me. … Eight years on this table has scars. The physical scars are obvious: a dent or a deep scratch here, a bone-deep stain there, set in wood which has warmed and darkened through daily exposure to light. … This table has kept watch over all of our dramas, seen so many dreams unfold and so many dreams fade. …this table is my witness; there is little it doesn’t know. It has propped up humans and sheltered dogs. Heard so many stories, old and new; so many conversations, day and night. It has seen love flicker and almost fade, it has seen tears, and anger, and despair. But is has shared our joys and celebrated our triumphs; it’s offered up tea and wine, and participated in our feasts. … Who knows me like this table? …. Here we all are, the table whispers. What mysteries will we uncover and share together today?”
Think of the tables you’ve had in your home or lingered around somewhere else. What stories and conversations have you left at those tables? Sometimes it’s a matter of getting people to be there—too caught up in daily happenings, perhaps overly divided in personal beliefs, or tainted by past wounding still fresh. When we do gather around a table, whether in a home kitchen, dining room, cafe, or a celebratory gathering at a fine hotel, much can happen. Joy bubbles, laughter cascades, concern resonates regarding world situations, grief finds consolation, kinship strengthens, personal issues begin to dissolve.
Joy Harjo directs one of her poems to this topic in Poet Warrior: “The world begins at a kitchen table. / No matter what, we must eat to live. / The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table./ So it has been since creation, and it will go on.” Her words immediately took me to my family’s farm kitchen table. We eight barely fit around it. My memory still evokes the enamel top with red trim, round silver legs, and small drawers under each side. Relatives and friends played cards and hungry workmen helping with harvesting ate dinner there. Many were the times when our family sat at that table for the midday meal and we children were obediently silent so dad could listen to the farm markets on the radio.
These days my thoughts go to tables in far away places—tables whose history and use has been obliterated by bombs, tables burned to ashes in wildfires, ruined in floods and earthquakes, and tables with no one seated around them because there is nothing to eat.
Joy Harjo could be writing about the altar of Eucharist when she concludes her poem “At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.” Think of the undisclosed stories from overly-full lives and weary worries that each person brings, every one of them a remnant of life that is brought to the table of Divine Love.
So many tables exist with stories of those who’ve been seated at them in the places where we reside—perhaps you’ll share a “table remembrance” when you gather for the coming Thanksgiving holiday or at any table where you find yourself during this November.
Abundant peace,
~Joyce Rupp
If the Table Could Speak
Joyce Rupp
what would the tables where we dine
tell us if they were able to speak,
what tall tales would they reveal—
whispered secrets, gossipy truths,
stories easily sprouted and morphed
troubles told with anguished worry,
pain laid bare with hope of easement,
tears flowing like puddles of rain,
salty sorrow from grieving hearts
giggles, chuckles, and sassy sniggers,
resurrected recalls of previous pranks,
laughter so brassy and raucous
the table’s legs rattled with glee
and, oh, the kinds of food and drink
laid upon the welcoming space,
lavish festivities, cauldrons of joy,
and, yes, the days fraught with paucity,
those grim remnants of greenish leftovers
if the table were allowed to speak,
listeners would most certainly learn
of treasured delights and savored fun—
assorted pets circling the table to beg,
small children hiding out beneath
to seek their solitude and play
and, yes, the table would have complaints,
tired of pastry crumbs and coffee splotches,
sticky fingerprints, torn-off bread crusts,
emptied soda cans, foul-smelling beer bottles,
dying tea bags left to gasp alone in their cups
how strange it must seem to a faithful table
when folks gather for a Thanksgiving meal
to never consider a pause to be grateful
for that flattened ledge they name as table—
the silent, inert gift that never stops listening,
the one willing to bear what’s placed upon it,
always available for another hearty laugh
or one more telling of a lengthy tale
