Table fellowship

Tuesday May 5th, Psalm 23: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. "War is the coward's escape from the problems of peace" Thomas Mann. All too often we rush headlong into battle and conflict rather than into negotiation, conversation and justice. The world now faces the devastation, economically, socially, and politically, that headlong rush can bring to the generations that follow such cowardly greed and self-righteousness. In contrast, the Lord sets us down in the presence of our enemies at a table. As we gather to eat, the underlying premise is that we are all the children of God gathered around the God’s table, with God as the silent listener of every conversation. Our task in life is not to pull one over on, or get the better of, those with whom we are having a snit fit, our task is to recognize that they are our brothers and sisters at the table of God and our job is to find out how to get along. It all starts with recognizing and respecting the other as a child of God. And then the real work starts. Those who cowardly avoid service only to send other sons and daughters don’t have the stomach for the real work and operate only out of fear.