Sunday Night Potluck Suppers and Deep Conversations: Tuesday's Reflections

Every six weeks or so friends of ours gather in our home for an old-fashioned potluck supper. The menu recently was meatloaf, green beans, scalloped potatoes, fruit salad, and cheesecake. All delicious. 

The conversations are just as rich and satisfying, and the ease we have developed with each other is its own kind of comfort food. We eat quickly, complimenting each other on whatever dish we brought to share, and then we settle in to talk, really talk and really listen. 

Eventually, the conversation turns to politics and the state of our country. Along with our own reflections, hopes and fears, we share what we have read and heard and who in our mind makes the most sense. While we don't agree on everything, we do seem to share common values and political orientation. 

I knew our conversations Sunday evening would include, perhaps even focus on, the upcoming hearings about the accusations against the Supreme Court nominee, and while I looked forward to having our own forum, a place and time of safety in the midst of such shakiness, I also knew I needed -- for myself-- to offer a reminder to look for and respond to the movement of God in our hearts and minds. 

I turned to Marianne Williamson's book Illuminata, A Return to Prayer, and her "Prayer for America." Here is an excerpt:

          May violence and darkness be cast out of our midst.
          May hatred no longer find fertile ground in which to grow
                  here.
          May all of us feel God's grace upon us.
          Reignite, dear God, the spirit of truth in our hearts.
          May our nation be given a new light, the sacred fire that
                  once shone so bright from shore to shore.
          May we be repaired.
          May we be forgiven.
          May our children be blessed.
          Dear God, please bless America.
          Amen. 

If I were involved in the upcoming hearings, I hope I would remember to pause, take a deep breath or two or three and remember what keeps me grounded and what gives me light. I hope I would call upon the spirit of truth that lives in my heart, even as darkness attempts to quench it. 

So much is broken. So much needs to be repaired, and at times wholeness and healing seems totally out of reach, but the love felt around the table at our Sunday night potlucks gives me hope. 

An Invitation
Where do you find hope? Do you have a "Sunday Night Supper" kind of group where you can share at a deep level? I would love to know.