Slow Down and Make Meals Community Time
Posted in The Simple Life
It was my birthday yesterday. No big deal. It happens about once a year.
My wife and I went out to a local restaurant for for a birthday dinner. As I looked around the restaurant, I saw a number of groups who were there celebrating some event.
Today, at work, we’re saying goodbye to someone who is changing jobs. How are we going to do that? With a meal.
While we recognize that eating together is a good way to celebrate special occasions, most meals in North America are treated as a pit stop between calendar entries. We drive through for hamburgers, because our next event begins in 17 minutes. At best, we plop ourselves down in front of the television, plate in lap, prepared to ignore family for the vacuous noise coming from the box.
Once upon a time, a meal was an event, not just fuelling up between points on a schedule. Whether it was the family coming in from the field (or home from the factory) at the end of the day, or the extended-community celebrating, the meal was a place of sharing, fellowship, laughter, tears and love; something that took time.
Have we lost the art of gathering together to “break bread”? Maybe we need to take a leaf from the Slow Food movement and make the meal a focus for community, taking time to get to know family, friends and neighbours.
We need to slow down and smell the pasta.
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Happy birthday Ian! This is a great recommendation, to slow down and have a home cooked meal for a birthday celebration instead of going OUT to eat. Great point!