It was an honor.
It was a privilege. 
It was humbling. 

I made sure to take off my shoes before I walked into the friend of my friend’s home partly because of culture and partly because of that verse in Exodus. I still believe holy ground exists in things that seem completely mundane or simply different or quite possibly even extraordinary.  

On this night, my friends and I were completely and utterly stuffed after a dinner of curry and naan and rice pudding and sweet donuts soaked in syrup and oil. Each of us tried to stretch our pants a little before sitting on the floor around the family’s table. Kids seemed to come from out of nowhere in this Chicago one bedroom apartment. They crowded around the table with us, focusing on the cartoon playing on the iPad rather than the ragtag group in their living room. Their sweet mother and auntie disappeared into the kitchen despite our constant pleas. 

“Please come sit with us.”
“We don’t need any food.”
“Sit here.” 
“Oh, thank you for the noodles.”
“Please come sit with us.”
“We came to be with you.” 

It was hospitality at its finest, especially to our dear friends from Burma. They passed heaping plates of fried noodles and giant glasses of fruit punch around the table until we all had more than enough. We exhaled slowly, unsure of how another bite of food would fit into our bellies. But this family had given out of what they had, and we would try desperately to honor them. 

Only when we were all happily eating did the sweet mother sit with us—wrapping her beautifully colored skirt around her feet. We did not come to be served by her. We did not come for another meal. We did not come to take. 

We came to be with this family. We came to be with this sweet mother.

As chatter swirled around the room, I saw her fidgeting beside me, fumbling on her phone. I saw the picture then—her son, brand new and beautiful. She passed the phone over me to the friend she knew more than the stranger next to her. 

It was a sacred moment of pride and sorrow like how I imagine Moses’ mother must have felt when she floated him in a basket that she prayed would save him from the river's current and the depths below. 

This boy—her brand new baby—did not come out crying. He did not come out breathing. This sweet mother pushed and cried through pain to give birth to a baby who wasn’t alive. They called him stillborn, but this was not his name. 

We did not come to be served. We did not come for another meal. We did not come to take. 
We came to be with sweet mother. 

In that sterile hospital room just weeks before, there were tears. There were cries. But it didn’t come from her baby. It came from sweet mother and sweet father—refugees in this strange land trying to build a home and life for their family. And in the weeks since this story-defining moment, there would be more tears—from the pain of recovering from childbirth, from the replaying of that moment in her mind, from the moments she could almost feel her son’s body in her arms only to look down and see nothing and no one. 

Often, I write about brave living—how it turns up in the most unexpected places. I’m not going to pretend that I was brave in that moment. I was speechless; I could only reach over and put my hand on sweet mother’s knee. The chatter and the cartoon playing in the background faded. It was a moment for my friend and sweet mother and me—the random stranger who was lucky enough for an invitation to the table. 

Brave living—in that moment—belonged to this sweet mother. Because she did not continue to serve us. She did not stay busy. She did not hide in the kitchen. She sat with her friend and a stranger. And she pulled out one of the only pictures she will ever have of her baby called stillborn. She passed him to us, one of the greatest treasures and sorrows of her heart.

And all we could say was, “He is so beautiful. He is cúndoijja.” 

We made sweet mother smile at the sound of our terrible pronunciation of this beautiful Rohingya word. Her smile, another act of bravery. 

I had no business being in this room, in this space with such a sweet mother—the kind who comforts her crying children, who finds refuge in a new country for their safety, who tries to teach them parts of their culture in a brand new place so different from the old. I had been invited to holy ground that was found in the sacred ordinary. I was surrounded by bravery and humbled by my place at the table. 

We did not come to be served. We did not come for another meal. We did not come to take. 

We came to be with sweet mother—the bravest one in the room. 

The post Stumbling into Holy Ground Moments Around the Table of Refugees appeared first on Kate Berkey.

This is what I love. This is the place I love.

Recently, Troy and I made plans with friends we’d been trying to spend time with for months. We’d planned to go out to eat, maybe grab a pizza or wings or burgers or any one of the nearby options, but instead we invited them to my house. We traded a crowded restaurant for a home, and for me, I felt a silly giddiness about it all. My heart of was filled with excitement knowing that we would end the day at the table, forks and knives scrapping against one another, glasses of lemonade being filled and refilled, cups of coffee brewing well into the evening. My love affair with flavors and this place was all-consuming as Troy and I brainstormed and planned and shopped.

This, not that. What about this recipe? What if we tried that? Do these flavors go together?

Instead of rushing to make all the food before our friends came, we decided to cook together once everyone arrived. The four of us gathered in the kitchen, munching on heaping bowls of fresh cherries and strawberries as we cooked and talked and chopped and diced. In a moment, this room that was once quiet now echoed with the sound of laughter and conversation and knives hitting the cutting boards. It seemed to shrink as the four of us worked, one of us cutting sweet potatoes, the other chopping chicken, one slicing pineapple, the other squeezing lemon juice into a pitcher. We made messes and memories, bumping into one another, adjusting the oven temperature and lighting the grill.

And as we worked, we talked. We talked about relationships and about the future. We talked about hopes and dreams, about what “ideal” looked like. We talked about jobs and college and careers. But more than that, we laughed because food and joy should always walk hand in hand.

After the final timer went off, we gathered at the table where a place was set for each of us. And this is the beauty of dinners around the table. After cooking, there was a spot for each to come and sit and be. The kitchen, I’ve found, is a place of hurry and work and timing, and the table is a place of rest. This space, if you let it, is a place of contentment, of slowing down, of laughter, and of kindness. It’s a place that invites conversation and questions, a place that creates the space for friendships to form and to deepen.

In the chaos of life, in the busyness of weeks, it seems that there is little time for this space. We are a culture that runs off of fast food, microwave dinners, pre-made meals that only need to be thrown in the oven. We rarely take the time to cut and chop and dice together, let alone sit at that table.

But that evening, I found that the table created a safe place. We spent hours there, laughing and chatting, snitching food from pans instead of our plates. The table became the place where we could show our truest selves and be met by kindness and grace. Just as we found nourishment for our bodies, we found nourishment for our souls, for the parts of ourselves that longed to connect with others, to truly be seen.

Of course, the table isn’t the only place where these kinds of connections happen, but to me, it has proven time and again to be the best. Because the table invites people to come as they are, allergies and preferences and pickiness included. The table has a place set for everyone, a plate waiting for anyone, a cup, a fork, a spoon, a napkin, a knife for all. And when we take the time to create this kind of place for people, to invite people and to love people through food, through a seat around our table, something holy happens.

In the midst of laughter and silliness, joking and eating, we just may find our souls at rest, connecting more deeply with those we sit with. Our God is a God of connecting, of listening, of loving people. Our God is a God of creating spaces for people to enter. Our God is a God who invites people to himself, to come as they are, their messes and memories included. Our God is a God who nourishes us in the deepest ways, watering our parched and dry souls when we allow him to.

And in a small way, this is what dinners around the table have the potential to do. If we allow Him, if we create space and carve out time for moments, the God of the truest form of hospitality is present at the table, in the conversation and the laughter.

May we be a people who invite and create space and listen and love. May we be a people who work together, who make memories and messes as we try to create something beautiful. May we be a people who set a place, who save a chair for others.

And may we be a people who gather around the table.

The post On Dinners Around the Table appeared first on Kate Berkey.