THE MINISTRY OF THE TABLE
Shall the periods for meals be for the body only or shall we see in them
happy occasions for the enriching of the higher life? Upon the answer
depends whether the table shall be little more than a feeding-trough or
the scene of constant mental and character development. In some memories
the meals stand out only in terms of food, while pictures of dishes and
fragments of food fill the mind; in others there are borne through all
life pictures of happy faces and thoughts of cheer, of knowledge gained
and ideals created in the glow of conversation.
§ 1. THE OPPORTUNITY
The family is together as a united group at the table more than anywhere
besides. Table-talk, by its informality and by the aid of the pleasures
of social eating, is one of the most influential means of education.
Depend upon it, children are more impressed by table-talk than by
teacher-talk or by pulpit-talk. They expect moralizing on the other
occasions, but here the moral lessons throw out no warning; they meet no
opposition; they are--or ought to be, if they would be effective--a
natural part of ordinary conversation and, by being part and parcel of
everyday affairs, they become normally related to life. The table is the
best opportunity for informal, indirect teaching, and this is for
children the natural and only really effective form of moral
instruction.
The child comes to these social occasions with a hungry mind as well as
with an empty stomach. His mind is always receptive--even more so than
his stomach; at the table he is absorbing that which will stay with him
much longer than his food. Even if we were thinking of his food alone,
we should still do well to see that the table is graced by happy and
helpful conversation; nothing will aid digestion more than good cheer of
the spirit; it stimulates the organs and, by diverting attention from
the mere mechanics of eating, it tends to that most desirable end, a
leisurely consumption of food.
The general conversation of the family group has more to do with
character development in children than we are likely to realize, and the
table is peculiarly the opportunity for general conversation. Here, most
of all, we need to watch its character and consider its teaching
effects. Where father scolds or mother complains the children grow
fretful and quarrelsome. Where father spends the time in reciting the
sharp dealing of the market or the political ring, where mother
delights in dilating on the tinsel splendors of her social rivalries,
they teach the children that life's object is either gain at any cost or
social glory. But it is just as easy to do precisely the opposite, to
speak of the pleasures found in simpler ways, to glory in goodness and
kindness, and to teach, by relating the worthy things of the day, the
worth of love and truth and high ideals. The news of the day may be
discussed so as to make this world a game of grab, inviting youth to
cast conscience and honor to the winds and to plunge into the greedy
struggle, or so as to make each day a book of beautiful pictures of
life's best pleasures and enduring prizes.
§ 2. DIRECTING TABLE-TALK
But table-talk, helpful, cheerful, and educative, does not occur by
accident. It comes, first, from our own constant and habitual thought of
the meals in social and spiritual, as well as in physical, terms. And it
reaches its possibilities as we endeavor to create and direct the kind
of conversation that is desired. "Let all your speech be seasoned with
salt," wrote the apostle, and we might add, let your salt be seasoned
with good speech. That is the quality we must seek, the seasoning of
healthful, saving, and not insipid, speech.
One of the great advantages of "grace before meat" lies in this: it
gives a tone to the occasion. Its chief meaning is surely that we
remind ourselves of the ever-present guest who is also the giver of all
good. Where the grace is not a perfunctory act, but rather the welcoming
of such a guest, the meal has started on a high level. We cannot do
better than so to act and speak as those who take the divine presence
for granted. We need not preach about it; we need only to assume it and
move on the level of that friendship. Children will feel it; they will
seek to answer to it, and will find pleasure in the very thought which
they have perhaps never expressed in words.
The central idea of the grace suggests another means of helpful
influences at the table, by bringing into our homes, for the meals, the
friends whose lives will lift these younger ones. It is worth everything
to live even for an hour with good and broadening lives. There are
obligations to our guests to be considered, and their wishes should be
consulted, but one always feels that children are being cheated when
they are sent to eat at another table and deprived of the peculiar
intimate touch with lives that bring the benefits of travel and
experience. Ask your own memory what some persons who ate at the table
with you in childhood meant to you.
The wise hostess knows that even when she brings together the group of
mature folks, and even when they are wise and witty, she must be
prepared adroitly to inspire the conversation or it may flag at times.
How much more does the conversation need direction where we have the
same group every day composed largely of immature persons! When you have
thought of all the portions and all the plates, have you thought of the
food for the spirit?
Before suggesting methods of selection and direction, let a word of
explanation be said: food for the spirit is not confined to theology, to
hymns and the Bible; it is whatever will help us to feel and think of
life as an affair of the spirit. And this must come in very simple
terms, by the elementary steps, for young folks. It will be whatever
will in any way help us to live more kindly, more cheerfully, more as
though this really were God's world and all folks his family. Whatever
does this is truly religious.
§ 3. METHODS
Plan for the food of the spirit as seriously at least as for the food of
the body. Learn to recognize poisons and also indigestibles. The first
are subjects of scandal, bitterness of spirit, malice, impatience,
tale-bearing, unkindly criticism, and discontent. The second are
subjects too heavy for children: your formal theology would be one of
them, your judgments on some intricate subjects may be among them. It is
seldom wise to announce negative injunctions, but we can make up our
own minds to avoid the conversational poisons and, when they appear, it
is always easy to push them out. Even when the unpleasant subject is so
common to all and has been so impressive in the day's experience that it
threatens to become the sole, absorbing topic, we can say, "We won't
talk of it at table! Let's find something better." But we must then have
ready the something better; that will be possible only by forethought.
First, save up during the day, or between the meals, the best thoughts,
the cheering, kind, ideal, and amusing incidents. Cultivate the habit of
saying to yourself, "This is something for us all to enjoy tonight at
the table."
Secondly, expect the other members to bring their best. Ask for "the
best news of the day" from one and another. Encourage them to tell of
good things seen and done and of pleasant and ideal things heard and
spoken.
Thirdly, use the incidents as the basis of discussion. Let children tell
what they think of moral situations. Often they will quote the opinions
of teachers and others. Always you will secure under these circumstances
the unreserved expression of what they actually think. A free, informal
conversation of this sort where opinions are kindly examined and
compared is the finest kind of teaching.
Fourthly, do not forget the grace of humor. To see the odd, whimsical,
startling side of the incident or experience trains one to see the
interplay of life, to catch a ray of light from all things, and to
moderate our tendency to permit our tragedies to pull the heavens down.
Fifthly, use this period to strengthen the consciousness of family unity
by recounting past happy experiences and discussing plans of family
life. In one family there are few meals from October to Christmas that
do not include reminiscences of the summer in the woods and by the
water, or from Christmas to June without plans for the next summer in
the same place. Then, too, if you are contemplating something new, a
piano, a chair, an automobile, talk it all over here. Let each one have
his share in the planning. The effect is most important for character;
the children acquire the sense of a share in the family community life.
They get their first lessons in citizenship in this group, and they thus
learn social living. Then when the chair, or what not, is bought, it is
not alone the parents' possession; it belongs to all and all treat it as
the property of all.
Sixthly, introduce great guests who cannot come in person. It is fine
fun to say, "We have with us tonight a man who loved bees and wrote
books." Let them guess who it was; help, if necessary, by an allusion
to _The Life of the Bee_ and _The Blue Bird_. They will want to know
more about Maeterlinck and they will joyously imagine what they would
say to him and how he would answer, what he would eat and how he would
behave. In this way we may enjoy knowing better Lincoln, Whittier,
Florence Nightingale, and an innumerable company.
Seventhly, this is the place to remind ourselves that table-manners are
no small part of the moral life. By the habituation of custom we can
establish lives in attitudes of everyday thoughtfulness for others, in
the underlying consideration of others which is the basis of all
courtesy. Children's questions on table-etiquette must be met, not only
by the formal rules, but also by their explanation in the intent of
every gentle life to give pleasure and not pain to others, so to live in
all things as to find helpful harmony with other lives and to help them
to find and be the best. It is not only impolite to grab and guzzle, it
is unsocial and so unmoral, because it is both a bad example and a
distressing sight to others. It is irreligious, because whatever tends
to make this life less beautiful must be offensive to the God who made
all things good.
If we ourselves seek to maintain beauty, order, and kindliness in the
conduct of the table, our children acquire a love of all that makes for
beauty and order and kindliness, for righteousness in the little things
of life. A clean tablecloth may be a means of grace. You have to try to
live up to it. Order and quietness in eating are not separable from the
rest of the life. To lift up life at any point is to raise the whole
level. To let it down at any point is to let all down. But to lift up
the level of conversation at the table is to raise the level of the
entire occasion and to make it more than a period of eating, to convert
it into a festival, a joyous occasion of the spirit. The meal should be
in all things worthy of the unseen guest.
How near we all come together at the table! In its freedom how clearly
are we seen by our children! Here they know us for what we are and so
learn to interpret life.
I. Reference for Study
_Table Talk._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life,
Philadelphia, Pa.
II. Topics Tor Discussion
1. The relation of mental conditions to digestion.
2. The relation of table-etiquette to life-habits.
3. The table as an opportunity for the grace of courtesy, and the
relation of this grace to Christian character.
4. Training children in listening as well as in talking at table.
5. Do you regard table-talk and table-manners as having any
directly religious values? Why?