Crowded Table

This week Governor Gary Herbert told the people in Utah we have to limit our contact to people within our household. And since Thanksgiving is coming up soon, I’ve been thinking about how I feel about this.

I have been listening to the Highwomen’s song “Crowded Table” on repeat lately.

You can hold my hand, when you need to let go.

I can be a mountain when you’re feeling valley low.

I can be a streetlight showing you the way home.

You can hold my hand, when you need to let go.

I want a house with a crowded table and a place by the fire for everyone.

Let us take on the world while we’re young and able and bring us back together when the day is done.

If we want a garden we’re gonna have to sow the seeds.

Plant a little happiness let the roots run free.

If it’s love that we give, then it’s love that we breathe. If we want a garden, we’re gonna have to sow the seeds.

The door is always open, your picture’s on my wall. Everyone’s a little broken and everyone belongs.

I want a house with a crowded table and a place by the fire for everyone.

Let us take on the world while we’re young and able and bring us back together when the day is done.

(Words and music by The Highwomen)

In Utah, we had 4,000 new cases of covid yesterday. We need to do our part to stop the spread. I have no problem with that. I’m just thinking fondly of times when we’ve had a crowded table, and I’m looking forward to having those times again. I am truly grateful to this pandemic for helping me to value social gatherings again. I promise you I hated them before. It has taught me the value of gathering.

Last night, we gathered around our dinner table, just me and the people who live under our roof. I wanted to make a BLT pasta salad. Antonio decided to help sweat the onions and ended up cooking the green peppers and tomatoes with the onions, so instead of having a cold pasta salad–we had a delicious warm bacon pasta salad. We gathered around and Antonio asked my brother Matt to pray over our delicious food. He shared kind words of thanks and joy, using the language that best suited his beliefs. We shared about our day and delighted in one another.

I am so fortunate to live under a roof with family right now. I am sick inside for friends who have to continue quarantining in homes alone. I want to reach out. I want to change things. I want people who have been quarantining so carefully to get the first shots of a vaccine.

I think about my cousin who is so sick in Vernal. We want to go and visit her, but we know we shouldn’t, and that kills me. I want her crowded around my table too. I want to gather her children and tend to them during this time. But we can’t.

I want a house with a crowded table. I want everyone to have the crowded table. I want all of us to be able to open our hearts and our homes whenever we like. This is what I want. This is not what is right now. And that’s okay. This experience is expanding my heart’s desires and my “want” grows larger with every passing moment. Just the wanting makes life sweeter.

I wish you love and warmth at this time. I hope your table is crowded with phone calls, cards, zoom chats, silly videos, and delicious food. I feel like children are learning how to learn in new ways through online and hybrid learning models. Perhaps this trial will help us to learn how to love in new ways too.