The Table
The table is an important piece of furniture wherever it is used, especially in my home where it has always been used to share the daily bread, and where before dinner we pray and give thanks to the Lord and after dinner we share opinions, we talk and where the looks of affection make us feel like members of a united family. As Christians we continue with the spiritual rite of the universal church of the Last Supper. It is at this dinner where we receive His body and blood as we are fed. “You can not partake of the table of the Lord and the table of the demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealously? Are we stronger than he?” (1 Corinthians 10:21-22 ESV.)
Many people, especially recent generations, are imprisoned in social networks believing that in their identities, without realizing that identity is that which others are building anonymously, irresponsibly and sometimes cruelly, through digital media. They do not realize the loneliness that awaits them as they believe they have hundreds or thousands of “friends” and they arrive at anguish when they realize that all this is false and vain. The reality of our lives has taught many adults that there is no friendship as long as there is no personal and present contact. The so-called virtual realities that have been invented are only mirages for a spiritual desert.
Unfortunately, at the present time, parents and the educational system have introduced children early to an electrical device system, as if the digital system could replace the real links of face-to-face encounter. That happens in our schools when the student is going to spend a lot of time facing a screen. This screen does not know of affection, needs of incorporation to a different culture (case of immigrants) nor of affection and understanding found in the human warmth of a teacher. That determination of the system has been guided to an impasse.
These new generations have reached the point that if they are shown the painting of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci they will be amazed to see that none of the disciples are looking at a cell phone: they will not understand that there is contact in that great table — human attention to each other.
As one poet said: “The table is waiting for the food — the eternal diners do not come — it is staying alone and bored/looking at the windows.” That’s the way our tables are safe today. We are in them without being there, there are ghostly diners who go to find food elsewhere because what is offered there no longer interests anyone. “There are no traces of the grandmother or signs of the father or the mother or of the aunt — of the child you do not know — Disloyal! — They went perhaps where — this is the life — the table looks at unreal chairs.” Verses by Rafael Rubio; Chilean poet.
If a Christian ventures to certain places uniting with those who are depersonalized through digital media, and boasts of the kind of life they have chosen, they are provoking God. The disappearance of the family table implies the destruction of the traditional family unit, which is vital for society. How do we return to what is being lost? It’s time to talk at a dinner table as a family. May God bless you.
