We have known these couples for three decades.  The women are college sorority sisters of Becky and the husbands enjoy each others company as well.  We aren't all of the same fabric so to speak. Some of us grew up in the north, some in the northwest while the southeast does claim the simple majority.  Our political, religious convictions and practices are across the map. 

I think some conversations would have been more difficult twenty or thirty years ago.  But we are at that stage of life described by an old friend: 'going to 30 year high school reunions is so much more fun than 10th- by the 30th everyone has either lost a job, a spouse, had a kid on drugs or is in some anonymous group themselves, they have gone through some major life loss that makes the occasion more real and more enjoyable.' I think that true for this group.  Conversations that may have carried more emotional consequence years ago are now founded in lives not as naively optimistic while still full of yearning and hope.

After a week of catching up on stories sublime, absurd and poignant, we had a sense of where each other was at this current moment.  When the request for holding each other up in prayer came, it felt completely appropriate- both in the timing of the week, and coming around a dinner table.  After we had all talked about what we each wished to be remembered in prayer, the group joined hands and offered prayer.  (On a personal note:  Becky and I made the mistake of waiting to pray after our Baptist friends had done so- all of my thoughts had been pretty much covered by then and as the saying goes: me without my Prayer Book!)

Recalling this moment later, Becky and I found ourselves grateful for the kind of intimacy this friend invited by the request for common prayer.  I find it informing my thoughts about community, parish communities as well as the larger church.  What does it take to have conversations that dive deeper than 'niceties'?  What does it take to entrust to each other our deepest yearnings, fears and hopes? What does it take to invite prayer among ourselves?  As the church wrestles with what is our mission, where do we hear God calling us and how do we hear God calling us to live, can we do this in fellowship with one another, I find myself thinking about the table being the center.  I think about the trust offered in praying for each other.  I think about the life of Jesus who loved meals and prayer.

May we in our friendships, in our congregational life, and in our wider church life remember this to be the heart of our calling, the heart of our invitation from Jesus: gather the people, tell the stories, break the bread, go and live.

Peace,

Todd