The Table

What more could we want?

“The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.”

-C.S. Lewis

This coming Thursday the majority of Americans will be gathering with loved ones to celebrate the yearly day of gratitude. In dining rooms and kitchens throughout this great land, hundreds of millions of our fellow citizens will be sitting down to break bread at the one place still capable of uniting us—the table.

These old, familiar pieces of furniture are made of a variety of materials and come in all different shapes, sizes, and styles. Their roles have evolved well beyond their intended purpose since they were first devised, serving as places where homework is completed, mail piles up, and the quest to finish 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles comes to fruition.

In recent years, their prominence and importance has undoubtedly been in steep decline. A place that was always the focal gathering spot for a household has been slowly fading away for various reasons. Our lives have become more and more complicated, and the fast pace at which we live has rendered the time spent eating together almost non-existent. With its diminishing daily role in our lives, the guidance, lessons, and humanity we have always gleaned from a daily meal together has also fallen off significantly—and that’s not a good thing.

The daily meals from my childhood were common in most houses. They were like clockwork. They could be counted on. From our family meals we learned more important lessons than we probably realized at the time, and it all started and ended with setting and clearing the table, a word which originated from the Latin, tabula, and means: a board, plank, flat top piece. The word itself—when viewed as an acronym—can serve as a reminder of the importance of the following:

Togetherness. Looking back, I have no idea how we were able to fit all nine of us at such a small table. The high water mark of those years had to be 1984-1986 when my oldest brother was an upperclassman in high school, and my younger sister was in a highchair. Everyone usually sat in the same spot as we dined on everything from tuna noodle casserole to beef stroganoff. It was the one spot in the house where we could all be together in the same place at the same time.

Accountability. “How was school today?” It’s a simple inquiry we were asked maybe more than any other throughout our childhoods. If we were lucky, there was a caring adult asking us this simple question every day. We learned accountability this way, particularly when we made mistakes. It’s a question that has a better chance of being asked when folks sit down to share a meal. It’s a question that makes a difference more than those asking it realize. It’s a question that needs to be asked of all our youth, now more than ever before.

Hall of Fame high school football coach Ted Ginn, Sr. has often preached about the importance of “the table” in all households and believes it is the first place we learn the core values needed to help us be successful in life. He adamantly believes, “We are in trouble in this country because there are not enough people at the table.”

Banter. It seems more and more of our youngest generations have no clue how to engage in banter. The first place we learn this skill is at the dinner table with the adults playing the role of referees. You learn about boundaries and how far they can be pushed. We learned how to apologize when we went too far by laughing at a sibling’s expense in front of everyone. Conversely, we had to develop thick skin when our forgettable actions brought on the teasing of those we were dining with. There was no escaping the microscope that was always present at the table, a place where things both good and bad always came to light.

Lineage. As the sharing of daily meals becomes more and more a thing of the past, we are in trouble of losing knowledge of family lineage. I’m not talking about stories from hundreds of years ago, but those of more recent times. There is no better place to tell a story than at the table. Most of the things I know about my grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins were learned while eating with my immediate family. Many of those stories have since been passed on to my own girls while we were doing the same thing. The art of storytelling was undoubtedly conceived not long after the first meal was served on a tabula.

Empathy. If there is one thing I am convinced of after almost twenty-four years in the classroom, it’s that empathy—or the ability to share in another’s emotions, thoughts, and feelings—is a characteristic that is either taught or ignored at home. It is not something learned by looking at a screen for hours and hours, but a trait we acquire first and foremost from our parents and siblings at home. I’d bet no place more so than at the dining room or kitchen table.

At the top is a quote attributed to the author C.S. Lewis. Usually before sitting down to write, I will search for quotes that enhance or complement the week’s topic. In this case, the quote inspired the topic. The older I get it seems to be that the simple things in life—like meals at the table—make up some of my fondest memories. Hopefully our younger generations get a glimpse of that this Thanksgiving and put a renewed importance on a household laughing together over a meal—because the sun looks down on nothing half so good!

-Tommy O’Sionnach