I might be too bold (though I think I am not) to assert that it is around the dinner table that wars have begun and ended. That surely it must be paramount to the digression or progression of civilization as a whole that we sit in community and eat together. It is the dynamic combination of two undeniable (even biological) necessities: the consumption of food (and subsequent digestion of said food) and the sweetness of human contact.
It might be said that when the world, as a whole, stops sitting down to dine together (as traditional family units, disjointed friend groups, or desperate vagrants) we might as well throw our apocalyptic towels in, dump our IKEA plates and half-eaten Asian-fusion entrees into the sink to rot in a stinking pile, and retire to our individual, isolated corners of the world to slump into an oblivion, waiting for the orange fires of destruction to rise over the hills and consume our relationally starved race.
For reasons I’m not entirely sure (or qualified to demonstrate) we have become too preoccupied to bother with this timeless and holy tradition. We shovel spoonfuls of food into our mouths, our faces covered with our free hand, waiting for it to be done so we can continue living the lie that we aren’t in fact human.
Dangerous though it may be, I chose to host a dinner party the first weekend that I moved here to New York. New York City, from what I’ve learned in the time that I’ve spent here over the last year, is a city that eats. There are (at least someone told this to me today) 10,000 restaurants in Manhattan. New York eats. But I’m not sure we Eat, in the capital-E-sense-of-the-word. To sit, pass the plate, and be vulnerable with a community of people.
I think we are afraid we might find out something that we don’t want to know– either about ourselves or our friends. That we’ll find that we aren’t the people we’ve tried so hard to be. That our politics are unfounded. That we are blindly religious, or, worse yet, are blithely irreligious. We’re afraid to dine in the old, ancient, holy way, because we are terrified to find out how inhumane we’ve become.
Our dinner party last night was a success. I know this because, despite the questionable quality of my cooking, there was much eating. We were all full-to-the-point-of-sickness at the end of the night, and so I feel half the mission was accomplished. But there was also dialogue. Laughter, (good-natured) arguments, and healthy discourse flowed contiually. We Ate.
At the end of the night no one changed their political views, religious views, or social views in some drastic, life-altering way. And that wasn’t the point. But six people came together, had some pasta, wine, and ice cream, and went away a little more whole. We (I hope) moved in unison, each with our own ideals, perspectives, and dispositions, toward something. We moved toward the central hub from opposing ends of a great wheel. As we Ate (with a capital “A”), I believe we were sorting through the mist of a thing far more illusory then food… truth.
And so I will continue to do this thing (#90 on Stuff White People Like), dangerous though it may be. My family taught me it was important, and my post-college community in Long Beach, California taught me it was paramount. It’s not necessarily just about consuming food in the presence of friends and enemies.
It is about being alive, and not alone.
i agree…there’s something about sitting down at the table…the party is never the same when you adjourn to the living room for “more comfy seating” or elsewhere… the communion is broken somehow…last night, midway thru the super bowl (i was at church with the middle school kids)… i got up and left feeling very lonely in the crowd… my son, daughter and husband were home… i arrived home… andrew was lonely because Jim had taken Caroline for a drive…because she was lonely… so… we piled in the car together (once C and J arrived home) and drove to Buffalo Wild Wings… not a place where the food is that great… but just being together eating… well, it hit the spot!