Have you ever noticed how certain stories keep reappearing in your life?
Tales of experiences that changed you and change you still?
This is one of those stories for me. It was first written almost 20 years ago and it still has a lot of energy. In fact, it’s been whispering in my head for the last few weeks! Read on, and I’ll tell you why at the end…
Some folks collect coins or stamps or baseballs or shoes. I’ve got a thing for tables.
I painted a table not long ago. It has wild colors and quotes from many of my favorite folks all over it. It sits in the room where I write and pray and ponder. The coffee table in our living room is an antique claw-footed bathtub with a quilt draped in it and a piece of glass on top.
My very favorite table, though, is one I don’t own. In fact, this “table” is actually a huge hunk of granite that sits deep in the catacombs of a Catholic church in Hungary.
I “met” this table in the late ’80’s, just before the Berlin Wall fell. I was traveling with a group from Columbia Seminary. An English-speaking priest gave us a tour, taking us down flight after flight of steep stone stairs. It was cold, dark, and unfamiliar.
Finally, we gathered in a tiny room where the priest explained that the Eucharist had been celebrated there, on that table, every day for 1,500 years. Every day! It didn’t matter who occupied Hungary at the time, or what they called that nation. It didn’t matter whether religion was illegal or merely ignored. Still folks came to claim power beyond that which seemed to rule their world.
I just had to touch that table. It should have been rough and cold, but, instead, it was warm and polished by all the countless hands that had lifted bread from it and poured wine over it. Every day. For 1,500 years.
by Sue Boardman, Monday Morning, March 8, 1999
I suspect the reason this table has been whispering to me in these days is that I’ve just been invited to a new table.
Wisdom’s Table.
It’s a two-year long program in which women will gather from many cultures and faith traditions to explore Wisdom and the Divine Feminine.
Frankly, I have no idea what will happen!
I do know that the notion of Intentional Creativity, as I am just beginning to experience it, has sparked new questions and new understanding within me.
Part of the invitation to Wisdom’s Table reads:
Prayer. Painting. Poetry. An experience using our Ancestors’ Stories and the mystical teaching of the Tree of Life to explore our relationship with the feminine mysteries.
We start January 1, 2018 and there’s still time to learn more…
I’m excited about this new table in my life and those who will gather around it.
For now, though, there’s a pot of soup to make and a painting of a very special tree, which found me in Key West, to begin.