The Table

My family sat around a table just like this one for all our meals for about 25 years.  Mom made dinner almost every night (always with at least two different colored vegetables), and having dinner together was a family ritual. 

We each had our "spot" at the table.  Sometimes after eating, we'd all get up and move to the next chair over.  We'd then "be" that other person:  talking the way they talked, exaggerating their mannerisms.  We'd all end up laughing and laughing.

Eventually I inherited this table.  Now that Dave and I are packing up our house to go on a worldwide travel adventure, we are getting rid of certain items, including this table.

In response to my Craigslist ad to give it away free to someone who'd be willing to come pick it up, a man who runs a sober living home for men responded.

I told him he could have it, and thanked him--telling him that I know some people whose lives have been changed by the kind of work he does. 

He wrote me back and said he does this work because he has been "blessed in abundance."  He added, "I used to live in a converted chicken coop and wanted to die.  I have been overly compensated in life and have been clean/sober for over 23 years." And he said without the love of spirit and giving back, he would be "dead or incarcerated certainly."

What a beautiful thought:  A group of men who are working to re-connect with their inherent goodness; a group of men getting their lives back on track; a group of men sitting around this table as my family did, in communion of food and laughter and love.