Together at the Table

We've spent the last month traveling and in the process taking our children to eight state capitals (after all the six-year-old is currently learning them), each in which we visited the capitol building.  (Side note: If anyone can explain to me why the city is spelled with an "a" and the building is spelled with an "o" - I'd love that!)

We visited the capitals of Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Kansas (and if you can tell me all the capital cities, I'll be very proud of you!).  As much as I'd love to post pictures of my adorable children at each of the capitol buildings, I'll save you from that and get on with the main story I want to tell which happened at our first capitol building visit in Jefferson City, Missouri (there I gave you one!).

On the first day of our travel we walked into our first capitol building.  As we entered the capitol, we walked across the floor and came to the rotunda.  We were able to look up at the beautiful dome but also look down.  And down on the ground floor, this is what we saw...

Without missing a beat the four-year-old said, "Look, Mommy, it's where they take communion."

Although my cynical side said, "Yea, right" and my pastor side said, "This child spends too much time in church," I've spent a lot of time thinking about his comment.

And here's what I've been thinking.  Wouldn't we all - not just politicians (although yes, them, too) but all of us - be better off if we came around the table together more often.  Perhaps the place to do this for some of us is at the communion table - after all, the world would be much improved if just those who proclaim Christianity could actually all value each other.  But it's not only at the communion table of the church.  We also need more explicitly inclusive tables where we can come together apart from one particular profession to see each other as human, as valued, as cherished, as loved. 

What a different world we might live in if we came together at the table.