Around the Lunch Table

What is it about eating that brings people together? Having been raised as a Baptist, I experienced my fair share of ice cream socials and dinner on the grounds. I have memories of racing through church hallways and playing hide-and-seek in Sunday School rooms with other church hoodlums after eating casserole and pie. A new picture of social meals has now been added to the collection: lunch in the teacher break room. My 30 minutes for lunch corresponds with the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers; over the last two weeks we've learned all sorts of things about each other. I'm not sure if it's only the draw of communal eating, or if it's that combined with the female tendency towards talk and the desire for grown up conversation after rooms full of children all morning. Either way, I now know which teachers had long engagements and which one eloped. I know about their children and who makes the lunches in the morning. They know about my family that was hit by hurricane Katrina and my current state of singleness.

So community lives. My new one isn't like the one I left in Waco. I still miss the late nights of studying, talk, and pleasant nothings with the people I love most in the world. But I wouldn't trade eating tuna fish and talking life with the women of Geneva School at 11:30 a.m. each day for anything.