Our kitchen is old and sorely in need of a remodel. However it an unwritten rule that every time someone is invited for supper regardless of where you plan to eat everyone ends up in the kitchen! The kitchen seems to always be the heart of the home, a place where meals are fixed, families and company congregate, serious discussions are held, homework is completed, and a sort of sensory DNA is imparted to multiple generations through smell, taste and tradition. As a child I recall sitting in the kitchen every evening watching my mom fix supper and just talking. Those talks were foundational to whom I have become. Wisdom came from my questions about life and the conversational answers given. The conversations around the dinner table also were nightly a debate over history, politics and ethics. My father and brothers kept the conversation lively to say the least. And despite the heated voices from time to time everyone left the table with much to consider and no one was mad.
Today we might try to convince ourselves that technology is the most important component of our lives but I would offer this thought. How many of us can find a sense of joy and connection when we think of those times spent in the kitchen? Holidays are started and ended there, company and family gathers there, the smell of mom's or grandma's special dish linger in our memory and we equate our time spent there as valuable to us and others.
It all makes me hopeful that in God's house there is a BIG kitchen. Do you suppose?
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