Supper was a family ritual for the five years that I boarded on Hanover Street in Saskatoon.
The meal was served at 5:30 p.m., after we bowed for a word of thanks. There was always a white table covering, cloth serviettes, bread-and-butter dishes and salad bowls. The meat was carved at the table and veggies were dished onto our plates.
Too formal?
Maybe. But that supper period was like a healing balm in the midst of our busy, swirling lives. In the formality there was a vitality and liveliness that we hated to miss.
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There were jokes, like plotting to see who got the crust on crusty bread day. There was teasing, like suggesting, in the presence of our landlady’s friends, that it was nice to have company so we could get a square bite.
And there was dinner conversation galore, with the would-be engineer and biologist and theologian and athlete and educator and landlady each presenting their points of view. It might have been a discussion of earthshaking issues, but just as often there was enough laughter to shake the house. You only missed dinner if you really had to.
As we approach Thanksgiving weekend, I think about the opportunity it affords us to use ritual as a way of taking time from busy lives to indulge in an occasion for renewal.
You may be fortunate enough to have family rituals for a time like this. Or maybe you’ve gotten a bit lax about these things because you didn’t think it mattered.
Or maybe you need to declare this an occasion to start something special. An appropriate activity shared, or food served, or a story told and re-told can become tradition in the lives of the younger ones in the shortest of times.
From long ago, rural people have found their own ways of giving thanks at the end of the harvest, of asking God’s blessing and of seeking the strength to carry on for another year.
This nurturing helps us get through the common days and the seasons of crisis.
