Foodie Friday: Table Fellowship

Because the days of my food blog, Sustainably Kaity, will soon be coming to an end. I thought I would make Fridays my "Foodie Friday" days where I could reflect back on my short-lived career as a food blogger.

This post was originally published on June 1, 2012.

Today, I come to this blog feeling slightly ashamed. The first reason is that quite simply, I have not been keeping up with this site. The second is because since my blog's inception I wanted to capture not just the culinary aspects or the nutritional stuff you can simply Google. I very much wanted to make the connection between the social and spiritual dimensions that accompany food.

As part of the Summer Reading challenge I've sworn myself to, I've started reading The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. Manning's book attempts to breathe new life into a gospel that has been claimed by the self-righteous and religious. In reality, the Bible is not a book of laws, but a book of grace. In his chapter, also entitled, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning explores Jesus' model of table fellowship.

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During Jesus' time on earth he spent zero time trying to win over the hearts of the high priests, scribes and other well-educated and high-class members of society. On the contrary, he devoted his time to simply hanging out with prostitutes, beggars and the utmost despised people in society. He invited them to dine and break bread with him. There was no ulterior motive. He simply wanted to love them like few people had done before.

There is so much to be read into these stories of Jesus spending his time with a bunch of "ragamuffins," but what has inspired me today is Jesus' use of meals as a means of reaching out. Manning writes, "...to share a meal with someone is a guarantee of peace, trust, fraternity, and forgiveness: the shared table symbolizes shared life" (59).

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In this day of Drive-thrus and delivery vs. Digiorno, are we missing out on a fundamental time of fellowship that Jesus has exemplified so clearly?

There are even studies that illustrate family meals are linked to "less risky behavior in teens." I, for one, can count the number of times Chuck and I have have prepared and sat down to a meal together in the last week, and likely still have ten fingers left. I believe aside from the fact that we should be eating breakfasts, lunches and suppers that respect the environment and our bodies, we should be eating together.

Every month, my group of friends in Ohio joins together for the "Last Sunday of the Month Club." On the last Sunday of each month, a small community of people in the small town of Wilmington joins together to break bread with one another. Themes have ranged from All-American BBQs, to French on the Farm and Mexican Night. But the underlying assumption is that we can join together and share the fruits of our culinary labor with the people we love. No one is excluded, bellies are filled and love and laughter shared.

Yours truly and my friend, Rachel at Last Sunday of the Month Club!

If Jesus were to come back today, I think he'd enjoy Last Sunday of the Month Club. We'd show him to the stack of reusable plates, grab him a beer and catch up on his latest miracles. But why wait for Jesus? Why not strive to break bread as our Lord did and engage in some good ol' fashioned table fellowship today? Fancy tableware and a clean counter need not be present for a time of friendship and love between a few ragamuffins.