Sharing a meal

A…dinner table surrounded by parents and children [and friends] who share their laughter and their lives is a sacred setting, not just a place setting. Elder Bruce R. Hafen

During the course of preparing for a Relief Society lesson, I came across a synopsis written by Truman Madsen of the film Babette’s Feast. When I first saw the film nearly twenty years ago, I didn’t understand the story. Now older, and I hope wiser, I am beginning to understand and even appreciate the meaning of the film -- a film which I think is especially pertinent as we think about Know Your Neighbor: inviting someone with whom we have something in common, other than religion, into our home.

"In this film, two sisters make a place in their small Danish home for a woman named Babette, who is seeking refuge from the war in Paris. Together they live an austere life. One day Babette learns that she has won a prize of ten thousand francs. She ponders, she plans and then spends it all to import boatloads of the finest foods for one lavish feast. The little neighborhood guests gather, not knowing there is a culinary genius in the kitchen. During the dinner she never appears at the table, but remains perspiring in the kitchen, performing with meticulous skill and artistry. A young boy serves as her waiter and follows her instructions to the very letter from turtle soup, to the succulent grapes for dessert."

I have always found that when I have been invited to share a meal with someone who has gone to tremendous effort for his or her guests, I have felt honored to be presented with something prepared by another’s hands and meant to nourish my body.

Madsen continues, “The group savors her meal. Men and women who have been guilty of estrangements begin, impulsively, to revel in mutual forgiveness and fellow feeling. In the spirit of a toast a guest of honor stands. He is a uniformed general. He discourses on the glories of divine mercy, and then says, ‘This feast reminds me of a woman chef in Paris’ [of course she is standing only a few feet away in the kitchen]. ‘She could,’ he says, and this is the key line, ‘transform a dinner into a kind of love affair; an affair that made no distinction between bodily appetite and spiritual appetite’.”

Over the past few years, we have invited many people into our home. Initially it was quite difficult. We weren’t confident that our gift of an invitation, a meal and our family would be received. With practice it has become easier.

And, whether for Sunday dinner after church, for luncheons to celebrate birthdays (either my own or one of my friends), or for a fund-raising dinner prepared by our school principal, as we have come together, something magical has indeed happened. We have been fed, both body and spirit. We have come to know one another. And, in that knowing, we have come to feel a part of a community in which we love and are loved.

When was the last time that you shared a meal with someone – whether in your home, their home, or even a restaurant?

Is this a gift you'd like to give?