The Power of the Table: Fostering Authentic Connection

A season of sabbath led to the unexpected gift of finding myself as a member of a beautiful confessional community. A confessional community is a space where each member of the community has pledged to be in deep relationship with each other and pledge to be known and know each other with the purpose of becoming conformed to the image of Christ together. This is a definition I have pieced together from my experience and from Dr. Curt Thompson’s work. We call ourselves the roomies and we have pledged to stay in the room even when the room gets a bit uncomfortable.

Why do I write about confessional communities, in a post about stories around the dinner table? Well, you see it was around a dinner table that I first began to experience how nurturing and honest conversations can be when we break bread together.

Eight years before this sabbath season I began bravely setting the table monthly as a way to build community and find closeness with the women in my church. What began as a brave act of connection became a vibrant community of women who came to the table to break bread and open their souls to be truly known. I could have never foreseen the impact this small act of bravery would have, not only on the women who felt loved and seen there but also on my own life. This season felt so much like this quote from the book, From Tablet to Table.

“At the table, where food and stories are passed from one person to another and one generation to another, is where each of us learns who we are, where we come from, what we can be, to whom we belong, and to what we were called.” Leanord Sweet

The leaders of the community were becoming more than co-laborers and I began to see them as my dearest friends. It was hard at times to put down the agenda and the to-do list and make time for investing in our friendships. So, when the prompting to take a year off began to ring in my soul, I knew this would be the time we needed to pour into each other’s lives.

We didn’t originally plan to become a confessional community, we planned to make space each month around the table to meet and encourage each other. This would have been beautiful enough but the Lord’s work or molding us can only happen in proximity to other human beings who love God and each other. Dr. Curt Thompson puts it this way:

“Things change when we bring our full selves into a room. We are people who have great longing. We are people who have great grief. We are people who long to be people of joy but we are prevented by that by virtue of our fear and our shame. Life is actually very simple and excruciatingly difficult, but it’s not difficult because it’s complicated. It’s difficult because of how much fear and shame we carry with us. The mission of the confessional community is that we become formed into the image of the king. We are being formed by the community we are embedded in.”

So, as we met regularly and intentionally we began to sense and see that there was more to our stories. There was more need to bring forth to the light the shame and fear that wanted to keep us isolated and alone. We all long to feel lighter even when life is hard and to have a safe place to unburden without shame. The time and space of dining together each month and asking each other to bring our whole selves too made all the difference.

It has been a year and a half since we began our journey of roomies. We have extended grace to each other in tiny ways as well as big ways. We have worked through conflict together, we have cried together, and we have shared our longings and griefs without hesitation. We are completely embedded in this community and I know that this time of meeting at the table, bringing our complete selves, and allowing our souls to be formed by each other will have eternal fruit. All because we had a table in common and we decided to make a safe place to come and be known.

Daisy’s a writer and a bellwether table-gatherer who loves fresh-cut flowers and reading. Always reading! She writes by grace- prose, poems, and other pieces that break open a bit more the ethereal and delicate gauze that stands between heaven and earth. Daisy is a graduate of the University of Texas where she obtained a degree in Biology, Nursing, and Spanish Studies. A few evenings a week, she turns in her mom-cape for a white coat as a Nurse supervisor at a hospital in Dayton. As a self-proclaimed world traveler, she is always making lists of her next travel destination. The kitchen is her oasis for creativity and hospitality. When she’s not raising her three littles, she is dating the love of her life, cooking, and setting up Noonday Collection Fair Trade Marketplaces through which Artisans around the world are empowered.

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