It is a Fantastic Place to Land

We have three families that live on our property, all related of course. For dinner we all eat a shared meal – sometimes at our house and one night a week we are at Granma’s house. This is a new card for our “meal sign”. The meal sign is a series of cards each one depicting the different recipes that get rotated between our three ‘cooks’. The sign is changed (flipped) to the recipe the cook will be cooking, so they are not bombarded with the question, “What’s for dinner?” I noticed last night that we did not have one for Wednesday, which is when we eat at my Mom’s house…Granmas!

There is something that happens when people eat together. Be it at the table, on the go while working outside, or in front of the television. Conversations, discussions, questions and updates all seem to happen while everyone eats. That is a very good thing. It also forces us to see each other instead of letting our busyness separate and divide. It doesn’t happen every night, someone may have a ‘thing’ that prevents them from eating with the group, and that’s cool. Knowing that dinner is covered relieves a lot of stress on all three households.

You learn a lot about people when you share a meal. Their habits, likes and dislikes, manners, conversation skills and how they listen or do not listen as the case may be! Meals give time for extroverts to chat and introverts to think. They meet our basic need for food, and people have a chance to be around people without tons of responsibility. Clean up at our house is usually done by everyone and then we can go our separate ways if desired.

When was the last time you had a meal with your family that was not a holiday event? Just eating, talking, enjoying the food and company? Something magical happens when people eat together. Food adds a special dimension to our relationships and doesn’t have to be an episode of Chopped or a Gourmet magazine recipe. Sometimes soup is perfect. Just fellowship, good food for fuel, then back to what ever else is happening in our world. Having somewhere to land may be more about the dinner table than we think. Take time this week to ‘land’ with someone in your life, enjoy the food, their conversation and give thanks for a good meal.