I read this to my family at the dinner table at Thanksgiving this year:
"I want to entice you to sit down at the Dinner-Table-of-Life, calling to you by wafting pleasant aromas from the other room, providing an attractive visual presentation on your plate, and to excite you to recognize and to feed your own "family hunger"! I want you to honor the feast that is your family! I hope my story will be an inspiration for you to search out your own ancestors, to talk to your living relatives, and leave morsels for your descendants and other relatives to find you by recording your own story!
"Did you get that part about “talk to your living relatives”? While this is about dead people, it is also very much about living people!
"I find that this process has been fulfilling for me. As this seems to be a time when reading and writing is somewhat a lost art, I want this to make you hungry for more of both. It can also be said that being with family has fallen into distaste, and the move away from sitting down regularly with family at the dinner table is related to the failure of the fabric that holds our society together. I want to show you how gathering and writing family stories can help connect and preserve our identity as individuals and as family members, and also to restore the fabric of our community and culture, and society as a whole.
"What would the smells (or other senses) be that would flood your family feast? Mine might be the smells of fresh, home-made breads baking in the oven, or maybe the smells and sounds of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner gathering with the family. And there might be stains from food or drink, stains from Life, on the table cloth and on our family books as we open them and tell stories and connect more deeply with each other by doing so." (from my Preface)
And then I had to say "Sit down, Nathan! I'm not done yet".
Home and the Dinner Table
"Where is your “home”, the source of what you really need? What does “home” mean to you? Expand on the idea of “home” to include this question: What did your dinner table look like when you were a child? What does your dinner table look like now? Do you sit down together as a family tradition, giving you all a chance “be in relationship” on a regular basis that you can count on it most evenings, giving you all a chance to talk about how your day went or what your hopes and dreams are? Or are you isolated with your dinner plate on your lap and the television on or cruising the Internet on your smart phone?" (from my Introduction)
"I want to entice you to sit down at the Dinner-Table-of-Life, calling to you by wafting pleasant aromas from the other room, providing an attractive visual presentation on your plate, and to excite you to recognize and to feed your own "family hunger"! I want you to honor the feast that is your family! I hope my story will be an inspiration for you to search out your own ancestors, to talk to your living relatives, and leave morsels for your descendants and other relatives to find you by recording your own story!
"Did you get that part about “talk to your living relatives”? While this is about dead people, it is also very much about living people!
"I find that this process has been fulfilling for me. As this seems to be a time when reading and writing is somewhat a lost art, I want this to make you hungry for more of both. It can also be said that being with family has fallen into distaste, and the move away from sitting down regularly with family at the dinner table is related to the failure of the fabric that holds our society together. I want to show you how gathering and writing family stories can help connect and preserve our identity as individuals and as family members, and also to restore the fabric of our community and culture, and society as a whole.
"What would the smells (or other senses) be that would flood your family feast? Mine might be the smells of fresh, home-made breads baking in the oven, or maybe the smells and sounds of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner gathering with the family. And there might be stains from food or drink, stains from Life, on the table cloth and on our family books as we open them and tell stories and connect more deeply with each other by doing so." (from my Preface)
And then I had to say "Sit down, Nathan! I'm not done yet".
Home and the Dinner Table
"Where is your “home”, the source of what you really need? What does “home” mean to you? Expand on the idea of “home” to include this question: What did your dinner table look like when you were a child? What does your dinner table look like now? Do you sit down together as a family tradition, giving you all a chance “be in relationship” on a regular basis that you can count on it most evenings, giving you all a chance to talk about how your day went or what your hopes and dreams are? Or are you isolated with your dinner plate on your lap and the television on or cruising the Internet on your smart phone?" (from my Introduction)
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