Daily Devotion - Monday, October 31

Table Fellowship

“We need not climb the mountain to see into the valley.
All things to be seen can be found in a simple shared bowl of rice.”
--Leo Buscaglia (The Way of the Bull), p. 159

A few years ago I was privileged to journey with a mental health team to Rwanda. As I prepare today’s devotions, I’ve been taken back to that experience.

While in Kigali, Rwanda our group had the most pleasant opportunity of eating in an Indian restaurant. The atmosphere was wonderful, the food was excellent and the conversations about our table are still memorable over three years later! Sitting around tables with new friends from across the US and Canada, we enjoyed Indian cuisine in an African nation still recovering from a horrific genocide. The question for me that night and the question that still puzzles me is, “Why can’t we live peacefully?”

I believe fear, rational and irrational, holds us back from becoming a peaceful global village. I feel sad when I think about the ways we inflict pain upon another-- through warfare, by rushing to receive the latest medical treatment, by imposing our values on others. The list is long!

Is it possible to sit down and through dialog and listening become better people, making the world a safer place? It seems to me life is more about seeing each other through than it is about seeing through each other. I would challenge each of us to spend some time in dialog with people, whether they are homeless or unemployed, your neighbor or a resident from another country, a dying person or a little child teeming with life. All you really need is a shared bowl of rice, unless you’d prefer oatmeal!

--Ben Keckler
10.31.11