Make Family Dinners Normal Again

I’m a foodie. I love everything about food. I love to plan a meal.

I love walking through the aisles of the grocery store to shop for the ingredients. I love the sounds of chopping, boiling and sizzling. I love the smells that make their way from the kitchen, traveling from room to room throughout the house. But most of all, I love how food brings people together, especially family and friends.

Meal times throughout history have bonded people, families and communities in every culture.

How does your culture celebrate with food and fellowship? Do your guests knock at the door or do they come right in? Do you take their coats? Do they take their shoes off at the door? Do you greet with a hug and kiss? Do you greet with a blessing?

And I love how we group, and then come back together. Do the men group around a sports game on television, or do they set up a competitive table game?

Do the ladies gather in the kitchen? “Need any help?” Chatting away over the last minute fixings. Children popping their heads impatiently around the corner, “that smells so good…when will the food be ready?”

Do you decorate a table, with tablecloths, fine display of forks, knives, and spoons, bonded cloth napkins in chargers, waiting for the five course plates and bowls to be served within? Or do you sit on the floor, feet crossed, swapping silver utensils for wooden chopsticks? In some corners of the world, a bowl of water circulates, hands are washed, as each intimately dips into the communal pot of food with their hands.

No matter where we gather; chatter, smiles and laughter fill the room. In this sacred moment all is well. We are together, eating, and we are happy.

There is such an important connection between food and fellowship. There is a saying that goes “do you eat to live or live to eat?” We simply cannot live without food or we will eventually die, however, it appears food was not only meant to nourish the body but to facilitate relational bonding. Meaning if we ate to stay alive but had no one to share that existence with then in many ways we would not be living.

So simply put, food sustains life, but to be in relationship is living. The supper time brings these two concepts together — both life and living.

Unfortunately, the balance between food and fellowship, life and living, seems to have lost its equilibrium. Our society has rapidly become fast food addicted and fanatically obsessed with body image and health. Relationally malnourished families have abandoned the supper tables for empty calories in front of screens, or on the other end of the spectrum for health shakes and workout centers.

Which causes me to wonder: has this generation experienced the last supper? Is this sacred time in danger of become extinct?

Let’s face it, we all are in need of a deeper connection with each other. This year, let’s take the time to reignite our commitment to the daily family supper time.