Table Talk

During Sunday's service, which held outdoors at Tower Grove Park, the theme was tables - a rich image if ever there was one - and as part of the service we read a poem by 2nd Pres member Ellie Stock (written in 2008).

It's an expansive poem that explores that literal and metaphorical tables in our lives, held together with the refrain, "Here at the table - the table of our lives."

Rather than a sermon, what followed was a series of fascinating discussions in small groups (seated at wooden tables around the edge of one of the pavilions in the park) about how tables appear in our lives and various meanings we give them.

If you were part of the discussion, and have an observation or insight that you'd like to share - or if you seeing this poem, for the first time and any lines or images strike a chord with you - please drop me a line at timwoodcock AT speedpost.net.

I will gather these together in a follow-up blog post.

Here at the table -- 

the table of our lives --

The greeting table,

the meeting table

the eating table.

small table, large table, 

round, square, and rectangle table, kitchen and dining room table, 

coffee, picnic, restaurant and bar table, 

planning table, work table, 

calming table and impassioned table, 

pondering table and playing table, 

surmising table and wedding table, 

birthing, baptizing, and legacy table, 

neat table and cluttered-high table, 

simple table and elegantly-clothed table,

ordinary table and festive table, 

street table and eucharistic table, 

solitary, intimate, and crowded table, 

chaired, floored, visible and invisible table  

where tears and laughter transubstantiate into bread and fruit,

heads bowed, 

hearts animated, 

hands clasped and grasped amidst 

aromas and sounds, 

textures and tastes, 

familiar faces, a smile that graces,

nourishment received and nurture given,

sharing and caring in silence or singing,

listening and saying 

praying 

conveying a bond, 

kin and neighbor, 

colleague and stranger.  

 

Here at the table -- 

the table of our lives --

The greeting table,

the meeting table

the eating table.

where dramas bold-stories untold or retold-unfold, scold, and behold in  

dialogue and debate,

encouragement and conversation,

negotiation and arbitration,

rumination and conciliation,

reflection and decision, 

all present.

 

Here at the table -- 

the table of our lives --

feast or famine

present as guest, serving as host, 

giving and receiving, 

Hologram of the Table of Life-

the Banquet, the Feast, 

abundance overflowing.

 effulgence never-ending,

the Table Eternal, the Table Universal

where time meets space as 

full vessels are toasted and poured, 

whole loaves are broken and partaken, and 

memory is restored and transformed in reconciliation; 

 

where all are welcome and all invited­ --

rich and poor, 

meek and boar, 

young and dying, 

old and borning, 

maled and femaled, 

friend and alien, 

lost and foundling 

beloved and enemied, 

struggling, stumbling, suffering, sacrificing,

compelled in trust, wonder and fearless vitality,

embraced in diversity, individuality, mutuality, 

humility, egality, and open commensality-­

stardust and galaxies billioned 

moonbeam and gravity blackened 

new earth and new heaven, 

alpha and omega 

water and air, 

rock and fire, 

tree and winged, 

creeping and swimming, 

creature and Creatoring and rainbow concoction

bartering, co-opting, connectivity's auction, 

matter of waves and quarks and particles and strings,

of elements and atoms and unimagined things, surging, diverging, converging via 

path, orbit, current, and trajectory--

­Heartbeat's elegance expanding, contracting,

creation's stewing, startling, sustaining Awe­ --

beneficent spread--enough for all, 

lavishly laid by internal call,

 

where indicative subsumes imperative's brawl, 

where Being's transparency ls sacred law, 

where minds know in strange communion, 

where souls dance in deep emancipation, 

where wills surrender in one commission, 

where energies merge through hearts' evolution, 

where luminescence radiates, sparkles through incarnation­ --

 

Hope unbounded, 

Love unconditional, 

Joy and Thanksgiving unceasing,

Peace surpassing. 

 

Here at the table -- 

the table of our lives --

The greeting table,

the meeting table

the eating table.

Every table of our endeavor--

Mystery's Agape endures forever! 

 

 

[Apologies for not being able to reproduce the spacing exactly as it is in the original]