Generations and Generations
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
Consider the road on which you are traveling. Imagine the feet that have been here before and the many that will come after.
“I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them to be reason enough and -- I wish to live. Moreover, because this is so, I wish others to live for generations and generations and generations and generations.”
- Lorraine Hansberry
Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.
Food for Thought
I wish to live.
On my desk are framed black and white pictures of my grandparents and one great grandmother. I haven’t hung them up in our new house yet, so they sit at eye level. When I am seated at my desk, they are looking at me, or I guess I am looking at them, like a zoom call from past generations. Every one of them in their brown, wooden squares, looking me directly in the eye. It sometimes feels like I could hit an unmute button and start a conversation.
All of those grandparents lived and died in India. I wonder what they would make of the life I live today. Could they have imagined an app on my watch that shows me that a human face has just walked by my front door? Would they recognize me?
The letter to the Hebrews says that there have been generations before, like the clouds in the sky, that have walked the ways we are walking, that walk alongside us today, and so we, too, can walk this journey of life and faith. I love that image. It feels like holding hands down through the generations. In this time that feels so unusually precarious, I wonder about those generations and generations and generations, the great cloud of witnesses, the ancestors, and what it means to take my place among them. It’s like a rightsizing of my life in the grand scheme of things or a genealogical perspective. I am one among many.
I wonder about those to whom I will be an ancestor, either by family or a connection unimaginable to me – a face frozen in a frame that catches someone’s attention or comforts them. Which eyes will look into my photograph in seventy years and try to understand what I was like, searching for an affirmation of who they are and what they care about or struggle against the most? Will they wonder if I can see them, or if I would see them and see part of myself in them?
I want to say for the record, yes, to those future generations. I want to understand. I want to extend a hand right now to them and practice walking alongside, as light and ethereal as a cloud, embracing, open-hearted, ready to learn from them and support them.
I wonder whether knowing that their ancestors have walked a similar path, at least of the heart, equips a new generation to move forward more boldly, confronting fear and facing unknown futures – if it will come more easily because of us. I suspect that, to do that, we would have to think about the world we want to leave them and work for it.
Plant a tree, a flower, an idea. Make your art. Write the thing. Be kind and courageous. Be curious as though you will be here for a while. Know you are an ancestor as much as you are an observer or a provocateur. Live like you want to live, because you will – for generations and generations and generations.
Name your cloud of witnesses, family and chosen. What do you want to remember about them? What do you want to tell them? How do you take them with you?
Take time to journal about what you hope to leave behind for the next generation. What are the things you would like them to know?
The goal of this series is to take small steps toward inviting others into deeper community with you. One way might be inviting others to join in for a little Table Talk. Here is a printable version of today's Table Talk, Generations and Generations, that we hope you will use in whatever way is helpful in your journey!
Blessing
May the God of the generations bring the generations close around you, to be a comfort and hope in your times of joy and your times of trouble. And may God your creator, your freedom, and your inspiration, be close for you, this day and evermore.
A little Table Talk for your table...
Share about the generations before you. Who do you consider your ancestors, your family? What do you know about them?
Who are your ancestors in faith? Why do you choose them?
Discuss what being an ancestor feels like. How do you want to be remembered?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
What is an ancestor? Talk together about what it means to be an ancestor (ancestors are the people that came before us).
Ask your kiddos to make a list of their ancestors and what they know about them.
Have your little ones draw a picture of themselves with their ancestors and the things they love.
Meet Our Welcoming Voice!
The Rev. Winnie Varghese is the rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta. She co-hosts the (G)race podcast with The Rev. Azariah France-Williams.
To hear more from Rev. Winnie throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!
Here are Five Things to Remember When Setting Your Own Welcome Table!