Strangers at the Table

Seated around the Thanksgiving table, smiling sincere but tight smiles. We are family--it shouldn't feel awkward, but somehow in their presence any social polish I have acquired is stripped away and I revert to a gawky twelve year old.  

Say something. We've already talked about how much the kids have grown, work is going well. Um, now what? Not the elections. Definitely not the elections. We didn't spend the last three months politely ignoring each others' political posts on Facebook for it to all blow up now.

Sports. Hunting. Cars. I don't even know enough about those topics to ask intelligent questions.  I'm pretty sure I should avoid parenting stuff.


 Another bite, another strained smile. Could you please pass the rolls? Wow, your turkey is delicious. What did you put in the dressing this time? We sit at the table together, while I frantically construct a Venn diagram in my mind of topics that we are both interested in.  The areas that overlap are ones where our viewpoints are diametrically opposed.  I suck at small talk.  And underneath it all is so much love and fear of hurting them or of being rejected, but we must not quite be doing it right because perfect love casts out fear and there is still fear here.



Join me at A Deeper Family for the rest of the post!  :)