March 5th, 2016

I look forward to the season of Lent; from Ash Wednesday’s reminder of the fragility of our lives to the discipline of fasting and the events of Holy Week. I appreciate this intentional time of reflection. My faith story started in the Catholic Church and there are still several aspects of Catholicism that in practicing, enrich my faith. Fasting is one of those disciplines.

Shortly before Ash Wednesday, I came across this article in Time magazine: http://time.com/3714056/pope-francis-lent-2015-fasting/. I was already thinking about fasting from sweets this year when this article broadened and challenged my thinking. The author writes, “Francis suggests that even more than candy or alcohol, we fast from indifference towards others…when we fast from this indifference, we can began to feast on love.”

Around the same time, I listened to this podcast from the Art of Simple: http://theartofsimple.net/21-2/. Its a conversation with the founder of Neighbor’s Table, Sarah Harmeyer. After realizing she didn’t know her neighbors, Sarah asked her Dad to build her a large, handcrafted table she could use to invite them over. She extended an invitation to ALL of her neighbors and ninety one showed up to her first dinner! Her experiences of getting to know her neighbors birthed the idea of Neighbor’s Table. Her Dad continues to be the master craftsman. She calls him the Chairman of the Boards! Now they deliver tables to several states in America for the purpose of sharing meals with others.

These two ideas spurred me to rethink my Lenten fast this year. After talking to Hubby, we decided as a family to open our table six times over the six weeks of Lent to others. We desire to simply invite others into our home to share food and conversation. Its a good time to try to turn our gaze outward again after all the naval gazing we have done the past couple of months. =)

We were slow to start as we fought off sickness in February and our own inhibitions. However, we jumped in with both feet this week! Heir Schmidt joined us for dinner on Wednesday, my friend Amy came over for tea and snacks on Thursday and then our current landlords joined us for dinner last night. We suddenly felt an urgency to get this idea going because we are moving into three weeks of visitors and house guests (to our DELIGHT), starting this upcoming Tuesday.

I understand again what Pope Francis means when he talks about “feasting on love.” Having our guests over this week gave us the opportunity to share life, stories, laughter, sympathy, kindness and friendship alongside food. We were as much on the receiving end as we hoped to be on the giving side. Each of our friends surprised us with gifts. We received food, wine, plants and even toys for the boys. More importantly, our guests came and shared themselves with us. We were blessed immensely.

Here are a couple of reminders of our guests and our first dinners together. We are keeping them inside for now but intend to plant them outside soon. May they continue to grow alongside our new friendships.