This essay by Hilary Dumitrescu originally appeared in ‘The Oregon Way’ on October 28, 2020, as “How sharing food can strengthen communities”.
With the holidays fast approaching, and memes like the one above suggesting that families can’t even get through one meal a year together, I feel compelled to write about one subject: the table.
A Tale of Two Tables
I love etymology — the study of words and how they derive from our most ancient languages. There are two ancient words for this thing we eat at:
tabula: plank, tablet, list. This is why in English we use the same word for a “table of numbers” and a “table you eat at.” Italians still use the word tavolo and the French and English both say table.
mensa: “altar”. This is why modern romance languages like Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese use their word mesa to refer to tables.
In my family, these two meanings of the word “table” were interchangeable. The table was the place we gathered together each day for meals. Since there were eight kids in my family, this was no easy feat, but my parents insisted on it. Even if dinner was tuna fish and hard-boiled eggs served on paper plates, paired with twice watered-down Campbell’s soup, my family ate together every day.
Our table hosted much more than meals. It was also the place where my mother and father agonized over the bills and held hands as they received bad news. It was the center of family activities, from late-night conversations and laughter over cups of tea, to early morning breakfasts eaten in stony silence when one of my older siblings had done something bad. We gathered at the table to celebrate every new marriage and grandbaby, and together we sat there with my mom to make all the necessary phone calls after my dad died.
The table often changed, but its significance remained the same. We were a military family, so the physical tabula—the piece of furniture and all the place settings—actually changed many times over the years; but the spiritual mensa, the altar that we created with our presence for each other, did not waver. Wherever our table was and whatever it looked like, what mattered most was that it brought us together.
Tables Have Lost Their Power
The power of a table to unite families is only as strong as families make it. In other words, a table is only as powerful as the people around it… if they even bother sitting at it at all!
Unfortunately, tables appear to be losing their power. National polling points toward an American population that increasingly does not eat together. Fewer than 50% of respondents in a recent poll said they eat meals regularly, at a table, with others.
So, without the unifying force of tables behind us, it is not surprising to me that, as a nation, we have become increasingly polarized. The soft skills of jockeying for position closest to the mashed potatoes, passing food in lock-step clockwise formation, and wordlessly negotiating trades of peas for stuffing are what allowed my family of ten to regularly eat dinner together without things descending into a brawl. Coming to the table together for all those years is what has allowed us to continue to love each other, even as our political affiliations vary and the pandemic keeps us physically distanced.
The culprit? Speed.
In our rush to do what’s next, we’ve sidelined the table. The results are disastrous and widespread — even reaching Congress. In their book Slow Church, the authors John Pattison and Chris Smith hypothesize that one of the reasons Congress is so divided and, consequently, ineffective is that they do not make effective time for socializing and relationship building, favoring instead to treat their Washington, D.C. offices as a commuter stop in a nonstop whir of activities and cross-country flights. “This is a portrait of a deeply dysfunctional workplace,” say the authors. “If we don’t have time to share meals and nurture friendships, even with our coworkers, we have ceded too much ground to the cult of speed.”
Speed has attracted adherents from our officials to our domestic coworkers—also known as family members. Indeed, a USDA study reports that Americans are spending less and less time in the physical act of eating, with most of that time spent doing something else while eating. This sacred gathering of neighbors and family enjoying food together each night has been reduced to a perfunctory act: sucking a pulverized meal through a straw or scarfing down a cheeseburger while scrolling, driving, working at a computer, or watching TV.
What have we sacrificed, as a society, by leaving the table behind and prioritizing speed? A recent Pew Research Center study found that nearly 80% of us feel that Americans have too little trust in their neighbors, and nearly 60% of us think it is “very important” to restore that confidence. I see evidence in my own town that the loss of a communal table is a main contributor to that sense of mistrust among neighbors.
The Community Table
In our town of Silverton, Oregon, prior to the pandemic, we used to gather regularly for meals. Since 2008, our local First Christian Church has served a Wednesday night meal, open to all comers (the average number served last year was 450 per week). Down the street, Oak Street Church serves a Monday meal to an average of 200. On Saturday, folks who need a meal can pick up a sack lunch at Trinity Lutheran or United Methodist. These meals are simple and meant to feed a hungry crowd, and that hunger is great, but that hunger is spiritual as well as physical. It’s a hunger to connect with others while also getting sustenance.
Recently, we’ve only been addressing physical hunger. While Silverton is an idyllic town in many respects, like much of rural Oregon, at least 10% of its citizens live in poverty. Our community does its best to meet the needs of those on the financial edge; consider that our local food bank served 5,652 visitors last year. We’ve continued to meet some of these needs in COVID times. The churches responded to the pandemic by first halting their meal programs, and then converting them to take-out meals (prepared with local chef Joel Autry of Silverton Wine Bar & Bistro). While the needs of hungry citizens continue to be met, the chance for neighbors from all walks of life to share a meal together has ceased.
As our community loses these chances to come together, I see the social fabric starting to weaken. In the absence of sharing the table at these community meals, I feel we have forgotten that we share a whole town, a state, a country, and a planet. Other opportunities to share, like at town fairs, have also withered away. As a result, our sharing muscle has grown weaker. In response, our reflex to lash out has taken over. Conversations in online social media groups, for example, have become meaner and more hyperbolic, with lots of “all-or-nothing” claims and less consensus-building “sometimes/maybe” solutions.
The Historical Power of Tables
The importance of gathering around food as a way to build community isn’t a new or even remotely esoteric idea. Thomas Jefferson, a man I simultaneously admire and disdain (I am a firm believer in holding tension for good humans who do awful things, and awful humans who still manage to do tremendous good), famously held hours-long dinner parties where guests, seated “pell-mell rather than according to rank,” served themselves while they discussed important topics of the day. These efforts have been modeled in modern times. After the 2016 election, Oregon legislator Jason Atkinson launched a project called “Table.” Atkinson, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, hoped the project would bring diverse voices to a Jeffersonian-style dinner party to discuss a single topic (more on the “one conversation” rule later.) Another organization, Village Square, has a terrific primer for hosting “Jefferson Dinners” in your own home or community.
So, how do we get people in 21st-century society “back to the table,” in both the literal and figurative sense, especially in the middle of a pandemic and with competition from a bevy of technological wonders that make a dusty old table seem obsolete?
I have some suggestions that I think would work equally well in a neighborhood or a congressional meeting room.
Go for a Story Walk
It may be presumptuous to think that by simply plopping a bunch of strangers around a table, we can build community. What makes the tabula into a mensa is the stories we share around it. I wrote in my last article about the value of getting to know your neighbors. I can’t stress enough how important this is. I am firmly convinced that it is impossible to hate someone if you know at least one deeply true story about their life.
Others share my conviction. DeAmon Harges (aka The Roving Listener) of The Learning Tree in Indianapolis, Indiana, guides participants in his workshops through an ice-breaker activity called a “Story Walk.” He gives folks 20 minutes to walk with a partner (a stranger) and exchange stories on a timer—10 minutes apiece. The prompt might be “Tell the story of the circumstances of your birth” or “Tell the story of a time you faced a great challenge.” The point of the exercise is to elicit a story. The walking part is not imperative but it does have a purpose: when our bodies are actively engaged in moving, we can listen better. (Differently-abled folks can choose to story-share while stationary.) The goal is to learn something deep about another person in a very short span of time.
Story Walks are a great COVID-friendly activity that communities can engage in. Print up Story Cards (you can find some great story questions here) to hand to participants. Gather folks in a park, hand out cards, and tell everyone to partner with someone they’ve never met. Let the stories ensue! Repeat. I promise dinner invitations will follow. Congresspeople, you too—get walking! If I were in charge, I’d pass a law that said you couldn’t debate any issue with someone unless you could name three facts about their personal life that you’d learned from them firsthand.
Host an Unfancy Dinner Party
As an adult, I have aimed to recreate my childhood family table in my own home. Since the early years of our marriage, when our only table was a flimsy fold-out, my husband and I have had regular “unfancy dinner parties.” This means that the food and setting matters less than the company. The latest incarnation is something my husband calls Pizza Church. We supply the dough, a stack of mismatched plastic plates, and the space; guests show up with toppings or wine or nothing but their weary selves to share. We feed the gang of kids first. It’s quite a scramble to do this, with ages ranging from squirrelly toddlers to surly teenagers. The meal is always delicious, but the true intention of the gathering is community. After the kids are fed and occupied, the adults sit down together at that table (which my husband built) and pour out whatever the week calls for: laughter, tears, anger, deep questions, and jokes being of equal importance.
Again, this strategy of naming a time and place to intentionally gather to share food and stories can be applied to any number of groups: friends, neighbors, committees, and, yes, elected bodies. It can also be adapted to be COVID-safe. My neighborhood recently held a BYOE (Bring Your Own Everything) gathering where we met in one neighbor’s yard with our own chairs, drinks, and snacks (no germ sharing!) to enjoy time together in a safe manner.
Apply the “One Conversation” rule
At Pizza Church, we have a “one table, one conversation” policy. We strive to encourage one person at a time to speak, and for everyone else at the table to listen. Sometimes we ask a “question for the table,” which might be “What do you think is the most important quality to have in a leader?” or “Where do you feel closest to your idea of God?” The answers, sometimes shared over hours, are never the same and never boring. Other times, there is a “hot topic” of the week for our community, so the conversation might center on what’s going on with the city council or what everyone thinks about the latest plan for our schools. (If you’re new to the idea of hosting a dinner conversation, you can print up Story Cards and use them to take turns going around the table—your guests will thank you for this easy-to-follow social construct!)
Intentionality and Regularity
The pandemic has certainly put a damper on this weekly gathering, but because our original intention—to gather in community and deepen relationships—never changed, it was easy to make accommodations. We suffered in lonely silence for a while, but eventually we just decided to move the gathering outside. Sticking to a routine of coming back to the table again and again, just like we did when we were kids, is a key to turning the tabula into a mensa. One meal together won’t turn political opponents into instant friends, but I am convinced that coming together regularly, with the set intention of getting to know each other better, will make it easier to negotiate and collaborate on solutions.
Sometimes the most effective solutions are simple and deep, rather than complicated and shallow. Our young nation surely began around a table, with heads drawn together in careful consideration, fearful of the future, yet buoyed by the strength of shared stories and mutual dreaming.
We must have the humility to return to this most basic human custom: the table, and place upon this altar our stories and our trust in each other again.