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As a therapist and spiritual director, I hear a lot from my clients about times from their childhood around the dinner table. Some families gathered very regularly. Some families hardly ever sat down together. What is most amazing is how memories around the dinner table can be so different for each person sitting at the table. At the same table, one child has a memory of comfort and fun. At the same table, another child has a memory of discomfort or annoyance.
In my own family of origin, while gathered around the same table, my sister has memories of being constantly embarrassed, my brother of being invisible and my memories are of connection and conversation. As you reflect on your family dinner table, what memories come up? Were your meals engaging? Were they scary or tense? Take a moment and remember your dinner table.
There is a famous icon simply called The Trinity by Andrei Rublev. In this icon is depicted an image of God in three persons. God the Creator, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are seated around the table on three sides. What is wonderful about this icon is that there is always room at the table. There is an empty space in the foreground of the icon. I like to think of that empty space as a place where all of us can enter.
One of the hallmarks of the Way of Jesus is that all are welcome. There is a place at this table for you and for me. There is a place at the table for all of humanity. Take a moment to reflect on this icon. Imagine yourself seated at this table. Feel the welcome you get from the three incarnations of the Source of All Being. Whatever your dinner table was like in your family of origin, God has a place set for you where you are beloved, chosen, and plenty good enough.
At the heart of life and in its heights glory shines.
Within creation and beyond glory has its source.
Guide us to the heart of life that we may know its heights.
Lead us further within, O God, that we may know you as beyond.
In the sufferings of our heart and the brokenness of creation open to us further
the doors of the eternal
that through the pain that is within us and the struggles that are around us
we may be guided to you as the heart of life, that through the pain that is within us
and the struggles that are around us we may be guided to you as in and beyond all that has life.And may we know that we always have a place in Your loving heart.
- John Philip Newell, Sounds of the Eternal
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