a dining room table
(hannah and me part fourteen)


it's been a long time since i've had a dining room table that was used for, how do you say, dining? not since my first, single stint at ascot place really, and that's been several years. come to think of it, i don't know if i ever really ate at my table at ascot place, but it was used on a regular basis. we had a dining room table at the parsonage, but it was just for show. we used it a couple times for special occasions (birthdays, youth steak dinners, supper club), but mostly it collected dust and kitty hair. there was no dining room table to speak of during the second go-round at ascot place or my time in huntsville. in both instances, respective coffee tables served as the table we surrounded and dined upon while doing something much more sacred than have a family meal time, watch tv.

and now we have a dining room table. a kick-ass one at that. one that i actually vouched for and liked a lot. it's bar height and big and pretty, and the chairs have the little underrail for you to kick your feet up on while sitting in them. it's great. aside from the asthetics, though, it's going to mean a change in our habit. soon enough, our mealtimes will move from the living room floor to the dining room table (you can actually see the top of it now). and what will that mean? we'll have to talk to each other. ask about each other's day. constantly worry that hannah doesn't fall out of the barstool height chairs to the ceramic tile floor below and bust her baby girl head (a chance we were willing to take for the table). it will be different, but my guess is that it'll be good.

my only real memories of the dining room table at ascot place consist of my conversations with chris and andy. not the meat of the conversations, really, but where they led. when we started our small group, i was content working for amsouth, pondering the idea of wanting to write for a living, and, all in all, pretty satisfied. what came out of those conversations, though, was life-altering, and i am not being at all dramatic. it was during those conversations that i decided to give student ministry a go. it was around that dining room table that i decided to work for and with God, instead of amsouth. it was around that table that my life took a different path. a path that brings me to where i am today. where i am today being a good and happy and more than satisfied place. what wouldn't have happened without that table? what people would not be in my life? where wouldn't i have traveled? what insight into my life would i be without? without that table, who, exactly, would i be?

i guess the real lesson doesn't have as much to do with a dining room table as it does talking out loud about god with friends or family and then letting god work in your life. but i do believe that table was the catalyst for many good and blessed things in my life.

and so i fast forward to now. if so many good and positive things could come from that table, what good and positive things will come from this one? only time will tell i guess, but i am eager to find out.