Lessons For Life & Work From The Dinner Table

(Posted by Tana Kjos) We are not sure when it happened, but children’s menus have taken over the restaurant landscape and our psyche as well. The messages they send have invaded every aspect of our lives:

• Don’t try anything new. 
• Don't try anything that looks weird or scary. 
• Take the path of least resistance (i.e., don't try to get other people to try anything new or scary, either!); you don't want trouble.
• Keep it painfully simple (even if it's boring and bland). 

An article in the New York Times this week got us thinking about the way children's menus are sucking the creativity and courage out of people. There's a reason our moms told us to “Try it. You’ll like it.” Their approach to the dinner table has shaped the way we do life and work. 

Here are four more helpful things we've learned from the dinner table:

• Doing it together makes it easier to take on the scary stuff. 

There is something to be said for gathering around a dinner table. Eating together is a participative process. When gathered together we build relationships that allow us to try things that otherwise might seem to risky, far-fetched, and maybe just plain silly. There is nothing quite like watching someone else taste that first bite of unidentified food, break out into a huge grin and declare it incredible to get you to try something you never thought you would dare. 

• Diversity makes you stronger.

The dinner table often spans many generations. Today we spend so much time trying to figure out how to deal with the various generational perspectives in the work place. The dinner table never seemed to have that trouble. It was a given. And it never seemed to be a quiet place, either. Conversations spanned those generations as people listened to one another and discovered points of interest and connection. It is here that passions get ignited. Take time to get to know someone that thinks different than you, looks different than you, and has different experiences than you. Expect to be impacted by them and expect that you’ll do the same. 

• Nobody wants to stay in the safe zone forever. Really.

As a parent, the children's menu has maybe made your life easier. But even your kids are going to get sick of it. It is exciting to reach for something new, to order the burger that takes two fists to hold, to have so many possibilities appear before you, to buy your first beer. Growth and change are a part of life. What are the milestones you’re reaching for? What lines do you want to cross? What new possibilities are you seeing? Embrace them. 

• Most good things take time.

We want everything fast these days. But once upon a time we expected to spend time together around the table. Time to learn. Time to love. Time to experiment and try new things. Not any more. We think the faster the better. Simpler, awesome. We want everything right now, immediately. But the things that ail us can’t be fixed in the drive-through. We need each other around tables, talking, risking, laughing, learning. We need to take the time to pay attention to the details that create space for us to do things that matter.

What have you learned about life and work from the dinner table?

Comments

[Asacredrebel.wordpress.com]

Great thoughts on a wonderful article in the New York Times. After reading that article I wondered about the church. What does this say about how we are as the church? Do we want to stick with the things we have always known and dumb it down because we think visitors and some members may not actually get it…
Are we willing to push people to become disciples and learn new things, or simply succumb to the ways society want us to be, and live in our safe little box?
But your comments are ways we can move out of that box, and possibly become the disciples Christ has called us to be...

[Kelly]

Interesting questions, rebel. Here are are few more:

+ If scary things are less so when done together, what is happening to help new folks come to the table? Doesn't this mean that our job is to pay more attention to hospitality, to be more graceful and gracious, to make space for those who are new so that they can find a meaningful place in our community?
+ If diversity is about being impacted and changed by those who are new and different from "me" or "us," how are we allowing ourselves to be challenged BY those who are new (rather than assuming that it is we who must change them)?
+ If good things take time, are we willing to put in the energy it will take to grow TOGETHER without getting impatient because someone isn't moving at the pace "I" think they should?

Thanks for the conversation - you've really got me thinking! :)