Mealtimes

One fall shortly after our fourth son was born, Lauren and I decided we should do a mini vacation in the mountains of Virginia. A friend had offered us a free cabin at the base of the Appalachians, and somehow the allure of a cheap fall getaway weekend overshadowed the reality of “vacationing” with a newborn. A vacation with young children is really just going somewhere scenic and working overtime shifts of parenting hours. Great memories for the kids, but hard work for you. This fit the description perfectly.

It was that Saturday morning, sitting in a restaurant with large windows at the base of the mountains, that things started to go very south. Bringing any child to a restaurant is always playing a game of chicken with chance, and we had brought four—one of whom was an infant. The odds were not in our favor, and it showed, particularly on the face of our waitress. It appeared from her pursed lips that she did not think our kids were nearly as cute as we do, nor was she impressed that we were attempting this herculean feat. Frankly, she looked like she just did not want to deal with all of us on this particular Saturday morning. Incidentally, neither did I. But there we were. So we dug in.

She hadn’t even brought out the menus and already one boy had chased another around the table and multiple pieces of silverware had been dropped (spiked?) on the floor—as if trying to emphasize the fact that this modern, mountain-chic restaurant with bare concrete floors and large wooden rafters seemed to be specifically designed to amplify and echo kid noise. Amid the chaos, Lauren sat at the other end of the table nursing our newborn, Shep, and gave me that smile that cheerfully said, “What do you expect me to do? I’m busy.” So I was on.

Being way too prideful to admit defeat, pick up some bad donuts from a gas station, and return back to our free cabin with our sense of dignity, I used the loud, deep voice thing instead to try to command attention: “Boys! Settle down!” It worked for a moment, until I remembered that this restaurant was designed to echo. Embarrassed, I shifted tactics.

“New game!” I said. “Game?” they repeated in unison. I’d gotten their attention now, but I didn’t have an idea yet. “Yes! Game. It’s called the . . .” I scanned the table; the nearest thing was pepper. “The pepper game!”

“The pepper game!” they all chirped. The echoes brought it back a few times.

“Now, the way you play the pepper game is only one person holds the pepper. And what’s very important is you cannot talk unless you have the pepper.” A knowing shadow crossed their faces—they are not amused by “no talking” games. “But!” I interjected quickly, “When you do have the pepper, you have to talk. And you have to answer a question. So the first question is . . . favorite dessert!” Before they had time to object, I placed it in front of Ash. “Ash, you start!”

We went around the table, and everyone did a dessert. Then Whit started. He picked favorite movies. We went through animals, cousins, cereals, Ninja Turtles, and more before the pancakes arrived, and in the end, breakfast was salvaged. Barely.

It still contained many antics and the obligatory I’m-really-sorry-about-all-that tip. But somewhere between the spilled syrup and dropped sausages there was a rhythm of passing the pepper and answering questions.

I have gone over and over that morning in my mind since then. A semblance of conversation stood like a small guardrail between us and total chaos. It was only a small pattern of conversation, and one that had to be practiced and learned through a child-friendly game, but it changed things. On a deeper level, I thought about my extended family and the loud and crowded tables that make life so rich. It struck me that the difference between people who happen to live together and families who befriend each other are rhythms of conversation at mealtimes.

Food, Conversation, and the Story of God

It’s remarkable how much the Bible talks about food as a spiritual matter.

Sometimes food in the Bible shows us that God is a faithful provider. (Genesis 1:29 “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”)

Sometimes it shows us that God is a generous host. (Psalm 23:5 “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” )

Sometimes it teaches us about our hunger for something more. (Matthew 4:4 “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”)

Sometimes it tells us what communing with God will be like. (John 6:35 “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”)

It was in the DNA of the early church (Acts 2:42 “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” )

But rarely is food just about physical nourishment. In the story of God, eating is not just some daily routine of cramming food that allows us to survive, it is a ritual of communing with others that allows us to thrive. It is always about driving us toward relationship with God and others. For the family, seeing the role of food in the story of God means that we see food in terms of its end goal—relationship.

One of the most loving things you can do for your family is simply to sit down, at the same time, in the same place. This is well-studied wisdom. Numerous studies have linked family meals to all sorts of positive family outcomes, from better academics to better behavior and reduced drug and alcohol abuse.

Coming to the table is a keystone habit. A keystone habit is one that supports a lot of other good habits. Exercise is a classic example. Studies consistently find that participants who were asked to exercise, even as little as once a week, without prompting started to eat better, sleep more, smoke less, and so on.7 Apparently, it is simply a human phenomenon that when we commit to certain smaller rhythms, a lot of other rhythms fall into place.

Seeing Family dinner through the practical lens

One might guess that a family dinner begins with sitting down. Not at all. Like a river, there are all kinds of flowing tributaries upstream that need to come together to make this happen. The author gives a picture of what their mealtimes look like. Before anything happens, Lauren has undertaken the unending work of grocery buying and borne the constant mental load of meal planning. I have rushed home from work even though there were four emails I was supposed to send by close of business (which will now be tasks for after the kids’ bedtime).

I get home and am greeted by the typical tackles and punches that are the boys’ standard welcome. At this point, Lauren has said one thousand “not yets” to the ravaging pack of children who have begged and pleaded for yet another snack before dinner, yet as we begin to herd said pack to the table, suddenly three out of four of them have an epiphany of something else they want to do and scatter. We ring the dinner bell again, pull one out from behind a couch, pry toys out of hands, shout threats up the stairwell, and so on.

Once finally seated, I get the matches out to light our candle, our little ritual that signals the beginning of dinner. Fight one breaks out over who will light it. I declare that I alone will light it. Groans wash in like the tide. I light the candle as we all say, “Christ is light.” Fight two breaks out over who will blow out the match. I declare that the littlest—Shep—will get to do it. Groans wash back in.

“Let’s pray,” I say. We take hands. “Jesus, we thank—”

“Stop, Ash!” Coulter yells. Ash looks baffled. “He’s holding my hand wrong!” Coulter cries.

“Okay, let’s just do it right,” I say through gritted teeth.

No sooner have we all chorused “Amen” than the fear sets in. Every male at the table including me (meaning everyone at the table except Lauren, God bless her) begins to worry that they won’t get enough food and starts grabbing grabbing for things. As we begin to eat, Coulter mentions that he hates sweet potatoes. We have a table-wide reminder about how we don’t talk about things we don’t like at the table, we only talk about the things we do like.

Lauren asks Whit what his “rose and thorn” of the day were—our parlance for a high and low of the day. Whit begins to answer, but Ash accidentally spills the water.

“That’s okay, just clean it up,” Lauren and I say in tired, rote unison.

Ash spreads the water around the table with a towel as Whit shares about some LEGO creations he built, and Coulter chimes in with an extended monologue on his rose, which was fighting with his cousin. (Apparently he enjoyed it.)

“What was your rose, Mama?” I ask Lauren, but I’m cut off because Shep suddenly spikes his bowl on the table in a signal that he’s done. There is an impressive shower of food bits at his corner of the table. He gets scolded, then excused to go play—Ash wants to join but we remind him he hasn’t shared about his day yet.

With Shep playing across the room, we finally get a few words in. Lauren shares about an email she got on one of her consulting projects and for two or three minutes, we approximate what might be considered conversation. And that’s all, because then it’s time to clean. Ash protests—“We have to clean again!?”

Lauren sweeps the two littles toward the bath as I assign the older two tasks, which they perform with varying degrees of success.

Forty-five minutes later, here we are—half exhausted and left to clean up the results of their “cleaning up,” only so we can repeat the whole thing tomorrow. One might wonder, why put yourself through the ringer like that, night after night?

But while the normal happens, other things happen too, and it is worth pulling back the metaphorical curtains now and seeing it through the liturgical lens.

Any of us relate to that? any of us feel like that was last night? First, note that family dinner is not in any sense practical. It’s far more efficient for us to each have a microwave dinner on our own varied schedules. But the tributaries of planning that lead to this moment of family dinner signal something—that communing, not consuming, is the household’s center of gravity. So we sync our schedules, even when it is not easy. Extracurriculars, sports, friends, and late meetings will always try to compete, but none of those are our center of gravity. The family cannot revolve around these things; these things must revolve around the family.

When we light a candle, mental attention is called by physical attention. We all look at the same tiny explosion of a match. We smell the smoke, watch it burn. As it turns out, kids like fire. Fire signals that something is happening here. Indeed it is. The most ordinary and sacred of traditions is unfolding: family dinner is beginning.

“Christ is light!” we proclaim, setting the candle in the midst of the table. Sure, the profundity of the statement is mostly lost in the chaos. But these things are not about the one moment, they are about aggregating moments that become new normals. I now cannot see a candle lit without hearing an echo of children saying “Christ is light” in my head. They are like little theological stones we carry around in our pockets, turning them over in our palms in spare moments.

When we take hands, we are reminded that human touch is significant. Bodies are finicky. So are hearts. We practice reaching out to each other in ways that honor each other and symbolize our unity.

Then we pray. This is one of the number of times the family will say a prayer together throughout the day. In the words of the prayer, we are reminded that gratitude is the heartbeat of our communal life. Why do we get food when so many struggle? Why is the table full of things that died just so we could live? Why did Christ die just so that we could live? These sacramental mysteries hover around us on a regular Tuesday night.

In the passing of dishes we practice delayed gratification. In complimenting the meal, we practice the power of spoken encouragement. In withholding criticisms, we practice the virtue of silence, we are reminded that lots of things we think aren’t worth saying. In roses and thorns and questions and pepper games, we practice telling stories, recalling memories, celebrating and sympathizing with each other. We practice forgiving when someone spills something (again!). And in waiting until we’re excused, we practice sticking around even when we don’t want to—the root of learning loyalty.

Finally, as we help clean and reset the kitchen for the next day, we practice the truth that the gift of communal life takes the ethic of communal labor. We grow accustomed to the rhythms of work it takes to produce the relationships we desperately need.

The most significant thing about any household is what is considered normal. Why is this so important? Because the normal is what shapes us the most, though we notice it the least.

Understanding that family habits is where the work of spiritual formation are actually happening—in the normal. For the most part, the place for this work is not in the moments we set aside as “spiritual.” It is rather in the messy day-to-day patterns that the real work of spiritually formative parenting is done.

Deuteronomy 6:6–9 “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

Wow, in the normal every day activities, God instructed parents to teach their children. We don’t have to wait for the “spiritual” moments, the deep spiritual conversations to parent correctly. You weave them into the every day living of your life.

But this is also challenging because it suggests that we need to be comfortable with the mess if we’re going to be serious about spiritual formation. The fact is, in family, if you’re adverse to messy prayers, then you’re adverse to prayer. If you can’t tolerate spills, you’ll avoid eating with kids. If you don’t like conflict in relationship, then you’re not going to like relationship. If you can’t handle a mess in the kitchen, you can’t handle hospitality. If you can’t stomach awkward moments, you won’t much like the conversation that leads to the great moments. And if you have trouble with fights, then you won’t be much good at forgiveness.

the spiritually significant work of the household is not happening in spite of the mess, but because of it.

Ordinary Hospitality is radical hospitality

Genesis 12:2 “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:”

When God made the abrahamic covenant, He promised Abraham a blessing. He was going to bless Abraham’s family. Abraham and Sarah, up until they turned 90 and 100 were barren. Yet God was going to make them a great nation. Here is what people sometimes miss, God was going to bless Abraham, but to what end. . . it was to bless the entire world. The Messiah was going to come from Abraham’s bloodline. That was a blessing to Abraham, but the Messiah wasn’t coming to just bless Abraham, He was coming to bless the world. In the same sense, we are blessed in order to bless others. This ethic will run throughout all the habits of the household we discuss, but there is no better place to begin than at the table, for the table is a place where we turn strangers into friends.

A few years ago, our good friend Drew asked if there was any way he could be more involved in our family. Drew was single and in his thirties and didn’t have any family in town. While I appreciated his question, I never really followed up on it because, well, with a bunch of young kids, hospitality is a really daunting task. A few months later, Drew persisted and brought it up again. “I mean, we’d love to have you over for dinner,” I said, “but I’m not sure you’d like it. You realize our family dinners are crazy, right? Like you might get punched or sprayed with food.” “Hospitality is not entertaining,” he helpfully reminded me. “I just want to be part of a normal family rhythm.”

On the one hand, I worried he didn’t know what he was getting himself into, but on the other, his words were convicting. The reason I hadn’t taken him up on the idea to join in our family rhythm was because—well, I felt I needed to clean it up before I let anyone in. I liked the idea of him and others coming by, but any night in particular seemed way too messy and hectic.

But Drew’s words helped me realize that I was indeed mixing up entertainment and hospitality. Entertaining guests is when you clean everything, make up nice plates of food and batches of drinks, and maybe get a sitter for the kids. At best, entertaining is where we honor our guests by offering an experience of comfort and beauty. At worst, entertaining is where we honor ourselves by showing off what we can pull off. In any case, hospitality is different. Hospitality is simply opening the door. Hospitality is welcoming someone into the unvarnished mess.

It is inviting someone into the chaos because that’s where real family happens. I see now that my desire to entertain Drew rather than be hospitable to him was ironically a way of keeping him at arm’s length from the family. Wanting things to be perfect often means that nothing happens at all.

Now, years later, Thursday nights are dinners with Drew. It is the day with plans we don’t need to confirm ahead of time. It is the day where it is normal for me to get home from work and find Drew trying to help manage a temper tantrum while Lauren tends something on the stove, or vice versa, I’ll find Drew cooking something at the stove while Lauren chases a boy around. The house looks the same. It’s a mess. The only difference is that Uncle Drew is in it, and that’s what they call him now. And if there’s a Little League game on Thursday night and we don’t have dinner, then Uncle Drew is there to watch from the third-base line.

To Drew, I’m sure the image of our cluttered counters, half-cleaned spills on the floor, dried food on the baby chair, and so on are normal. I imagine that’s just what he thinks our house looks like—and he would be right. It does. And many of my images of Drew now are from the back deck, while I watch him jump with my kids on the trampoline, or romp with Shep on the living room rug, or play checkers with Ash on the coffee table. In other words, Drew has become part of our household, and my boys are the better for it. In fact research shows that teenagers who gorw up with a non-kin friend who follows Jesus, are far more likely to keep to their faith when they are older.

What I’ve learned from this is that whether it’s a friend or a neighbor or a widow or a foster child or someone else, people don’t join our households just because you wish for them to. They become part of the household because there is a rhythm or a pattern that invites them in.

My friends who live a couple of blocks away, Derek and Sue, do this well. They don’t have family in Richmond like we do, so every Tuesday night they host a spaghetti dinner. It’s simple and sustainable, and everyone on the block and more is invited. Just like our standing dinner with Drew, the rhythm pulls the outsider in.

So it is that family dinners are not just about the spiritual formation of those under our roof, they are about forming the household in the right direction and trying to draw the world in.