Nurturing family around our crowded table

Our women’s choir is singing a compelling song, “Crowded Table,” recorded by the Highwomen: “The door is always open, your picture’s on my wall, everyone’s a little broken, but everyone belongs. I want a house with a crowded table….and bring us back together when the day is done.” It’s family.

These visions of family shape our lives. We visualize deep, loving relationships that will last into our old age. We consider nurturing children and motivating teenagers. We savor the idea of being at a table crowded with loved ones, good food, laughter, overflowing with warmth. No wonder we want to sing about it!

But sometimes, family can be hard. Our rough edges, so visible to those close to us, can cause friction. Immaturity at any age doesn’t help. (My mother once commented on the irony of having immature, struggling teenagers being loved and taught by parents wrestling with their own midlife crises.) Patience, gentleness, and love unfeigned are precious, family-saving commodities that we must cultivate, requiring humility, repentance and W-O-R-K.

Beautiful crowded tables are created intentionally. We learn to prepare the food, create and strengthen family connections, set the table, and generate joyful conversation. Everyone who comes to the table brings something to share: a dish, a smile, a story, a hug. And we give grace at the table as well: thanks to a loving Father for providing for us, grace for the imperfections we see in each other, and patience with our own imperfections.

Nurturing the elements that make that crowded table takes time. It has been said that love is spelled T-I-M-E. Establishing relationships and being there for each other requires prioritizing the people closest to us over things or other activities. The siren song of time-consuming-but-prestigious employment has absented many a parent from their table. Even volunteer work, with grateful faces and feelings of accomplishment, can seem more interesting than spending time beautifying or enriching our home tables.

In family life, the payoffs can seem much slower in coming than outside rewards. One woman recently commented about her work with a charity organization. “That was the one that did in my marriage.” She told me sadly. Easy to forget that charity begins at home.

Why is it so easy to overlook our loved ones with their cloying, irritating, familiar needs for the fancy, big-world opportunities? I recall many years ago a conversation with a mother of many small children. The mother proudly talked about how she had helped her neighbor extensively. But her children looked sad, and neglected. I wondered how the mother could see her neighbor’s needs, but not those of her own children. In my own life, however, I see how easily this can happen. Sometimes it’s more fun to set a fancier table somewhere else, and leave my own bare.

But we are counseled to do better. In 1 Timothy 5:8, we read, “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (NASB). Strong words. We must set our own tables first.

As David O. McKay taught 60 years ago, “The greatest work we will ever do will be within the walls of our home.” It is work, but as the years have passed, with many a crowded table in our home through the years, I have found that the table I set for my children has become the table that is set before my grandchildren. If my loved ones know the richness of family life, it becomes an expectation for family life even when they wander far from home. They learn, and want to learn, how to set their own tables.

Dorothy had it right. Despite the dazzling Emerald City and unusual friends, there really is no place like home. Her crowded table in the plains of Kansas may not have been as colorful, but it beckoned to her through time and space, and she braved many a danger to return to it.

Certainly God, our loving Father, has prepared a banquet hall where, as the prophet Nephi prays that “many of us, if not all,” may come and feast (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 33:12). “Even as it is written,” Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those that love him.”

One of my choir friends shyly commented how much she loved “Crowded Table.” “My kids love it, too,” she confessed. “We sing it all the time.” I love the picture of a family singing about family, following a divine pattern as they set their own table, gathering everyone round, and serving up love. As I frequent Father’s glorious table, I better recognize the abundance at my own.

Kristin Fry is a happy family member as a daughter, sister, wife, mother and grandmother. Kristin is grateful for the many crowded tables she has enjoyed throughout her life, and is grateful to be included in the crowded table that is the Mat-Su valley.