I appreciate “Breakpoint.” I go there each day as I attempt to make sense of today’s world. A recent article was entitled, “Ready to change the world? Eat dinner with your family.” The article contained an enlightening quote from Dr. Anne Fishel, the director of the Family Dinner Project, regarding the family around the dinner table. “Regular family dinners are associated with lower rates of depression, and anxiety, and substance abuse, and eating disorders, and tobacco use, and early teenage pregnancy, and higher rates of resilience and higher self-esteem.”
Even with all these benefits, only 54% of American families sit down to a daily mealtime. The article noted many family dinner times are “constantly besieged by digital distraction, such as the smartphone and tablets.” Neil Postman years ago, warned “(a) family that does not or cannot control the information environment of its children is barely a family at all.”
The Breakpoint article reflected on the dramatic shift in our collective cultural imagination. Jewish political scholar, Yoram Hazony observes a cultural shift, in which it is not so much disbelief taking place, but rather of dishonoring of our essential institutions and the traditions kept by them. “The breakdown of the family, the compromise and collapse of our religious consensus, and the loss of civil society has contributed greatly to an uncritical acceptance of bad ideas and destructive patterns of behavior,” observes Hazony.
Hazony laments conservatives having “little intention of actually engaging in those practices worth conserving.” Practices such as keeping the sabbath, reading scripture, attending religious services, and regular family dinners are seen more as nostalgic traditions. Civic duty and political change needs, however, to include how we live, especially with those closest to us. Dr. Fishel observes regular family dinners as a predictor of long-term success in family life. For school-aged kids, frequent family mealtime is “an even more powerful predictor of high achievement scores than time spent in school, doing homework, playing sports, or doing art.”
The breakpoint article ends with this challenge and encouragement. “It may sound too simple to be true, but it’s not. One way that Christians can make a lasting, significant difference in politics is by protecting and cultivating the dinner table. The future of our nation may indeed depend on whether Christians make family mealtimes, as one non-Christian sociologist has described, a “‘sacred space’…….It matters greatly who is in the White House, but it matters so much more who we are in our houses, in our houses of worship, and around our dinner tables.
I am writing this blog with many memories of having of my family, having what was called “the family altar.” It centered around the table used for family meals. The suggest was for the head of the family to use the main meal of the day as an opportunity for 1) family discussion, 2) sharing of concerns, and 3) devotions after the meal. The table is a symbol of gathering and conversation. In my recollection of those day, I saw myself, for better or worse, to be the facilitator of devotions and conversation.
My Testimony – It is vital for a growing family to have a time of open and free conversation on a daily basis if at possible. I found this commitment meant discipline and planning. I had to “lean into” the table fellowship. showing interest and compassion for my wife and kids. Sometimes it was difficult to “be present.” Most challenging was leading in devotions after the meal. Looking back I am thankful our “table talk.”
“Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table” (Ps 128:3 NLT).
Friends in Arkansas emailed pictures yesterday of 8″ of snow there. Today I plan to do food prep, later we have Bible Study, and then making a call to sing to our granddaughter on her birthday.
I love to bake when it is cold and the apartment is full of good aromas. I plan to go to Exercise class and Creative Crafts and later Bible Study at church.
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