There may be few today, if any, old enough to remember the old family custom of gathering around the dinning room table for daily meals—at least once a day.
My most vivid remembrance of it is during the months I spent with my grandparents in West Virginia after refusing to return with my mother and siblings, following a holiday visit with her parents and sisters, to her teaching position at the time in a rural part of Southwestern Virginia off I-81 near Wytheville. I always loved the country—but that place was MADICALOUS! (as my daughter would say when learning to talk. Even “Dog Patch,” about the most primitive of cartoons, had a road through it. No, not Pine Ridge.
After turning off I-81 before reaching Wythville, you could only drive so far before having to walk the rest of the way (or ride horseback) up to a small settlement with a 1-room school of six grades and one pot-belly stove—as best I can remember at the time). And incidentally, my mother was then a recent graduate from Ohio State University.
Prior to that we always spent a couple of weeks with our grandparents during summer months but indelible in my mind remains their rigid custom of three meals a day at the dinning room table for whomever could make it. That custom is what most attracts my attention to the increasingly popular TV series revival of “Blue Bloods” which ends every session at the dining room table surrounded by the entire family.
What an unimaginable source of communication and consultation—the simple formula and bedrock of a peaceful, respectful society, starting within the individual family and infiltrating the entire family of man. Such close communication must be jointly linked with education which is twofold, academic and spiritual. Not religious uniformity which can be divisive among different religions and especially among same religions, but religious unity which respects different progress along the many different paths to the same God. There are many routes to any given physical destination–not right or wrong, just different for different reasons. Why must spiritual paths to the same destination be identical or wrong?
Respect for the family of mankind is impossible without first taking the first step within the individual family—which in itself can be turbulent or trying at times. But a common dinner table on at least a frequent if not regular basis, is the truest way to understanding and respect for constantly changing times and circumstances that occur with time and inevitable age. It also provides moderate adjustments to impending drastic changes.
“If thou seeketh everlasting glory (as most do), choose humility in the path of the True One (however you perceive Him). “Humility exalteth man to the heaven of glory and power while pride abaseth him to the depths of wretchedness and degradation,” the Holy Writings state.
“They who are the beloved of God, in whatever place they gather and whomsoever they may meet, must evince, in their attitude towards God, and in the manner of their celebration of his praise and glory, such humility and submissiveness that every atom of the dust beneath their feet may attest to the depth of their devotion . . . They should conduct themselves in such manner that the earth upon which they tread may never be allowed to address to them such words as these: “I am to be preferred above you. For witness, how patient I am in bearing the burden which the husbandman layeth upon me. I am the instrument that continually imparteth unto ALL beings the blessings with which He Who is the Source of all grace hath entrusted me. Not withstanding the honor conferred upon me, and the unnumbered evidences of my wealth—a wealth that supplieth the needs of all creation! Behold the measure of my humility; witness with what absolute submissiveness I allow myself to be trodden beneath the feet of men…” and considered the lowest form of matter, yet everything upon the earth came from dust; will return to dust in some form and is totally dependent upon dust in between!
For the past two Thanksgiving seasons I have looked and cooked with anticipation to gathering at the traditional Thanksgiving dinner table with the entire family at the homes of others only to discover only a few adults at the table while the teens and youth filled their plates and gathered other places. This Christmas I am planning the gathering at my home where we will all once again gather at least one more time around the holiday dinning room table. — WISH ME LUCK!
