As a boy growing up in Michigan, I remember dinner time being one of my favorite moments of the day. Our whole family would gather around the dinner table to share stories and what we had experienced; good and bad. It was a sacred place. It become for me a sanctuary and comfort from the chaos that begged for our attention throughout the day. Each of us had a role to play and a purpose to be there. As I got older dinner time changed. We started to eat in different places around the house. Dad would work late and sometimes not make it to the dinner table at all. Eventually our stories merely amounted to fragmented conversations and our dinner table became a decorative piece standing lonely in our kitchen. These days I often wonder if things would have been different for our family if that table had remained a place we gathered to pause. By the age of sixteen, my father had left the family and my mother was working a minimum of two jobs at a time just to keep up with the mortgage and to simply survive. Our new normal was far from desirable and our home never regained its feel of refuge.
It doesn't take much to pull a family apart. Each of us have stuff pleading for our time and stirring our dreams. The competition for our hearts will always have something persuading it and asking for its surrender. The reality is everyday we sacrifice something to capitalize on something else. When we choose to rush, we sacrifice breathing space. If we take on overwhelming debt, we lose generous freedom. The ramifications of our rhythms leave an impact on our legacy. More often than not we do this unintentionally and not realizing the wake that is being created.
Most of us never start out saying we want to jack up our family and mess up our children. I've yet to meet someone that said, "I've waited my whole life to have a family just to blow it because that's awesome!" Yet it's happening and subtle choices are causing families to slowly fade apart.
Our dinner table was nothing fancy. It was made with faux wood and covered with marker stains from childhood art projects. Even though it wasn't the most attractive piece of furniture, it stood for something noteworthy. It pulled us together and nurtured our family's soul.
I'm a parent now and we have a dinner table. Our family is psyched to close the day around the table sharing stories. It's usually a beautiful mess. There are times when I get hit with a meatball or hear a Frozen song that can be unsettling, but I still want to come to the table because it offers something truly worthy of sacrificing for.
"Fight for your family, for there is always an over-promising and under-delivering world fighting to take you from it." - TDB
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