Kitchen Table Wisdom
Mary Panke & The Rev Joshua Pawelek
January 2nd, 2005
Reading
excerpt from Dr. Rachel naomi Remen's Kitchen Table Wisdom
Mary
Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering.
Josh
Most of the stories we are told now are written by novelists and screenwriters, acted out by actors and actresses, stories that have beginnings and endings, stories that are not real. The [real] stories we can tell each other have no beginning and ending. They are a front-row seat to the real experience.
Mary
Real stories take time. We stopped telling stories when we started to lose that sort of time, pausing time, reflecting time, wondering time. Life rushes us along and few people are strong enough to stop on their own. Most often, something unforeseen stops us and it is only then we have the time to take a seat at life's kitchen table. To know our own story and tell it. To listen to other people's stories. To remember that the real world is made up of just such stories.
Josh
After we stop we see that certain of life's issues will be with us for as long as we live. We will pass through them again and again, each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding, until they become indistinguishable from our blessings and our wisdom. It is the way life teaches us how to live.
Sermon
Josh
I invite you to think about your kitchen table. How many people can sit at it comfortably? What color is it? Is it round, square, rectangular? What meals, if any, do you eat there? Where in the kitchen is it located, or is your kitchen so small the table resides in another room? Does the sun ever shine on this table? Does it vacation on the porch in warmer months? Are crumbs still scattered about from breakfast? Is it covered with junk mail and bills ready for paying? Is it a place for talking? For telling stories? For laughing? Is it a sacred space?
Mary
I grew up in a house full of children, a grandmother, an uncle, cousins and neighborhood friends. On any given night there would be eight or ten or twelve people sitting around my mother's kitchen table eating ziti and meatballs. I learned many valuable lessons there, the foremost being the basics of public speaking. It was not easy to get a word in edge wise with three older brothers, but the challenge was invigorating. I learned my story had to be interesting and entertaining, relatively quick, and my voice loud and clear. Humor always helped. I also learned important legal principals. For example, "Possession is nine tenths of the law." If I left my seat to get a glass of water the food on my plate was up for grabs. Negotiation and cooperation skills were essential. If you protect my chunk of iceberg lettuce now, I'll watch over your black olives later. I also came to an early understanding of something I'd learn later in economics. Redistribution of resources can lead to higher cost benefit ratios. I'll eat Annie's stir fry veggies if Matthew drinks my milk. Matthew will drink my milk if Annie eats his beans. Annie will eat Matthew's beans if I eat her stir fry veggies. End result, Mom and Dad are blissfully happy and everybody wins.
Even though our schedules in the 70's were not as hectic as the majority of present day schedules, with six kids, from babies to teens, they were numerous and involved. Piano lessons, football practice, soccer games, wrestling meets, cross country, basketball, field hockey, catechism, play rehearsals, political activities, home improvement projects, a long commute for my dad, college classes at night for my mom, and various entrepreneurial pursuits, like paper routes, house painting, wall building, fruit selling, child watching. Despite this busyness it was always a clear expectation that my brothers and sister and I were to be home for dinner. We would eat it together. We would sit in our regular places, pass the food to each other and argue over who would clean up. Extended family and friends were welcome. We never said an official "grace," we went directly to the stories of our day. My mother would get the food on the table and we would enthusiastically eat it. My father would tell long detailed jokes. We'd play word games or tease each other with unsolvable riddles. We'd laugh a lot, debate, argue, fight and then most often, laugh some more.
Josh
The kitchen table in my home growing up was small, wooden, brown, and creaky. It could only seat three because one side was pushed up against a built-in heater. In practice it only seated two, because the left side of the table-top was usually covered with piles of magazines, newspapers, requests for charitable donations, and the latest, dog-eared novel my mother was reading. The table sat beneath a large picture window looking out behind the house. The typical scene from that window included our dust-bowl yard and neighbor kids playing basketball in the driveway. Once a basketball came smashing through the window. Luckily no one was sitting at the table when that happened. A variety of green plants hung about three feet over the table, soaking up the sun, suspended from hooks in the ceiling. And along the window sill, also soaking sun, sat an ever-changing collection of watches, shakers of salt and pepper, post cards, post-it notes, photos, pens, pocket-calendars, calculators, cactuses, keys, assorted pieces of candy (for after dinner), letters, bills, reminders to self, and various trinkets-all signs of life, as mundane and unexamined as it may've been, coming and going from the kitchen table.
As a child and as a teen I loved sitting there. It was my spot. Unfortunately, it was also my father's spot, which meant I wasn't always able to sit there when I wanted to. But I sat there as much as I could. I ate breakfast there, usually an English muffin with butter. I ate my lunch there on weekends, frozen pizza. I did my homework there, including some miserable evenings of calculus and physics. And as a teenager I used to hang out there with friends. We would sit up late drinking tea or hot chocolate, and talking. We talked about anything: people we thought we liked or didn't like, music, parents, school, religion, sports, theater. We talked about our dreams. We talked about our philosophies. Better yet, we discovered our dreams. We discovered our philosophies, over and over again, testing them, sending them back to the drawing board, and then trying them out again. At that table we told the stories of our young lives, stories most often about figuring out how to do the things we felt passionate about, stories about what we believed to be truth, until my father informed us, firmly, "you're invading my space. Everybody out." My father got some flack for that, but in the end we listened to him. I think we understood the table was important for him too. He liked to read at the table in the late evening silence. The light was good. Insights came to him. It was sacred space.
Mary
When Dave and I moved into our first house in Vernon about 8 years ago we were preoccupied with the care of our newborn son. Max was born prematurely with very serious health issues. We ordered take out, ate in shifts and rarely found time to sit down together. Once Max began to thrive we felt settled enough to begin making the house we had moved into a home. We started with the purchase of a very large, very beautiful table. I imagined many voices around this table, the holidays we'd share, the projects we'd plan, the books we would study and lessons we would learn. My dreams were big. It turns out they were too big for this little dining room. Our new table didn't fit.
Ready to take on any home improvement project, my father and mother arrived with power tools and ideas. We took the room apart, patched and repainted the walls and put up molding. All through this process they talked to me about "kids these days." My mother was upset that some of her children were not having family meals, not sitting down together, not finding time for each other at the end of busy days. She told me I should cook more and she hoped we used this table well. My father mostly listened as he struggled fitting the corners of the molding. He built a beautiful archway. As I nursed my son and listened to their stories I began to see the room as something more. They were putting love into the walls, into the woodwork. They were helping me create a sanctuary from my everyday life, a sacred place where my family could sit in peace (yes, sometimes admittedly a very chaotic peace) and share time and food and stories. When my parents were finished our table fit. Then they gave us more chairs than we needed. I thanked them. I promised we would use them well and over time we have.
Josh
The most accessible stories seem to be those which occur very distinctly in time. They have clear beginnings, middles, and endings. In 7th grade composition class I was taught the formula: introduction, body, conclusion. Yet when Dr. Remen talks about the stories we're so used to hearing on television and in the movies, she is critical. She says they have beginnings and endings. They are not real. Real stories, she says, have no beginnings and endings.1 Real stories are the ones we tell at the kitchen tables of our lives where time somehow becomes less important. True, the stories of our lives begin in the past, but we cannot change the past no matter how hard we try. And true, the stories of our lives end, if they ever end, in the future, which we cannot control, no matter how hard we try. And thus we have no choice but to be in the present, which is in some ways so fleeting, so infinitesimally brief, that in order to experience it-in order to be fully present-we must anchor ourselves not in time, but in space. As Mary suggests, we must put love into the walls, into the woodwork, creating sanctuaries where a family can sit in peace. Dr. Remen says we must "take a seat at life's kitchen table."
I'm convinced that part of our spiritual journey as Unitarian Universalists has to do with honoring place, being fully present in sacred space, creating sanctuary, putting love into the walls, sitting at the table where we can reach out and touch our surroundings; where we can rest our hands on the soft, aged wood; where we can mingle the flavors of bread and salt, grapes and oil; where we can raise a toast to those passed on and those yet to come; where a family can sit in peace. There, in the timelessness of our sacred spaces, we can be fully present for the telling of our stories and the receiving of wisdom.
I've said it before from this pulpit, winter is the time to tell our stories, to pass on our wisdom, to make meaning of our lives. If there is one lesson winter seems to teach, it is about slowing down. Some might argue everything takes more time in the midst of slush and snow and ice. I say winter isn't asking us to take any time. It asks us to take place.
Mary
A hot topic at our house is babies. If you have ever met my eight year old son, Max, then you know he derives a great deal of inspiration from the very young. He scans playgrounds for carriages and charms most parents with a heartfelt and sincere, "Oh, she's so cute!" He spent his Sundays last summer in the RE Nursery hoping and praying a baby might show up for him to watch over. Any story that has a baby in it is a great story. For those of you familiar with A Series of Unfortunate Events, you will not be surprised to learn that Sunny is his favorite character. As a reward for a difficult task last week, Max asked to visit Austin, Dori Harrington's new baby, Christian's little brother. He called Dori himself and asked if he could come for a visit. Max truly loves babies.
Max wants Dave and me to have another baby. He has been lobbying us for some time, mostly at the dinner table, to make him an older brother again. True to my promise to my mother, we try to sit together every night. We have developed a ritual where we light a candle, hold hands and each share something we are grateful for from our day. Everyone has a turn. Quite often the boys have gratitude for something material. The movie they have been waiting for arrived in the mail. They located a lost toy under the bed. They were happy to be able to go on a special outing. Dave and I often share less tangible blessings, like our relationships with family and friends or a day of good work.
The other night Max said he was grateful that he might someday have a new brother or sister. Our four year old, Sam, immediately spoke up against this idea. He doesn't want a baby and he doesn't want Max talking about getting a baby. Sam is not shy about showing his feelings. Max got up from his chair and went to Sam's side. He put his arm around his little brother and said, "Oh Sammy, I know what you are worried about, but a baby would never replace you. A baby means there would be more love to share." Sam wasn't buying it, but of course I knew Max made a wonderful and wise point. While I couldn't promise Max that he would get the baby he wished for I thanked him for reminding us there is always room for more love, there is always another seat at our table, and there is always a space big enough and safe enough to share our most precious dreams.
Josh
That kitchen table in my parent's house was the place of authenticity. It was also the location of the mundane and the commonplace-the routine and ritual of our daily lives. But the mundane and the commonplace were immediate and real. At the kitchen table I was immediate and real. No fantasy, no vicarious living, no holiday festivity. Just myself, doing what I had to do before going to bed or getting ready for school. Just living. Sometimes the immediate and real version of ourselves is a difficult person to get to know. We don't always notice that person in action. Perhaps they strike us as boring, or a little neurotic, or not as disciplined as they might be. We don't always like to admit our lives may not exactly mirror the excitement, success, glamour, or bliss of the people we see on TV, the people whose stories have tidy beginnings and endings. When you sit at your own kitchen table-your own place of authenticity-whatever space in your life that may be-do you pay attention to the story of your life? Are you aware of the wisdom at the heart of the things you do every day, your own narrative, your own journey? Like Max lobbying his parents to have another baby, is there a voice inside you yearning to uphold life in some special way? Look and listen closely for that voice.
Our statement of Unitarian Universalists principles speaks about making connections to the forces which uphold life. We encounter these forces when we face our mundane existence in the present moment, when we come face to face with who we are, when we tell the real story. I can picture myself as a teenager, getting ready for school, having just buttered my English muffin, concerned as to whether my hair is adequately combed and parted. Maybe I have a Spanish quiz first period. The crumbs from the act of buttering are scattered across the table, the butter dish and knife lying to the side, the butter softening in its dish, waiting to return to the fridge. My mother is speaking to my brother about the schedule for later that afternoon. My father is in the other room, just getting back from his morning exercise. Signs of life. Morning ritual. Each day is new; each day the sun rises in a slightly different place at a slightly different time. Nevertheless, each day the sun rises. Within the mundane aspects of life reside the eternal aspects of life. Bread and butter-the fleeting crumbs a reminder of life nourished and sustained. Daily family interactions. Communication. Caring for the body. Daily family patterns, shaping us into the people we have become, shaping us in ways we never quite understand. The forces that uphold life. And there, in the midst of it all, the kitchen table, soaking up this story, holding it until we take the time to tell it, to tell the wisdom which rises with the sun each day.
Mary
In this season of winter may each of us find the opportunity to pay close attention to the story of our lives.
Josh
In this season of winter may each of us find the opportunity to take a seat at the kitchen table and tell to another some piece of that story.
Mary
In this season of winter may each of us find the opportunity to leave behind beginnings and endings, to step out of time, and be fully present in sacred space.
Josh
In this season of winter may each of us discern at the heart of our story the forces which uphold life.
Mary and Josh
Amen. Blessed Be.
1 Remen, Rachel Naomi, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996) p. xxv.