February 2025 (Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2)

Dear Friends ~ This afternoon while slicing onions and tossing them into a pan, the realization washed over me that in four decades I've eaten more than (at this point I pulled up the phone calculator, allowing the onions a few slow minutes to soften in the oil) 14,000 evening meals. While I do my fair share of cooking these days, it's safe to say that I've personally prepared only a small fraction of those many, many dinners. If I haven't cooked all that food that sustained and satiated me, I wondered, who has?

At times the world feels like a pot boiling at too high a temperature and sputtering angrily over the edges. We stew in stories of fear, division, and the end of things. And yet, this is the exact same world where each of us has sat down to countless suppers laid before us by other hands: from loved ones and strangers alike. Many nights of our lives we have received nourishment from another person who has not asked for evidence that we deserved it or demanded that we align with them in every ideological way before we partake. The poet Joy Harjo points out the grounding nature of shared food when she writes, "The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live./The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on."

If all things begin at a table, it's not too far of a stretch to imagine that healing and forgiveness can happen there, too. It's not just a place where banter and small talk counteract the disconnectedness of modern life. It's also a place where we can experience the miracle of seeing the "other" as a guest. I wish you many warm and generous gatherings, my friends. ~ Joy