Dinner and Conversation

Sitting down to a quiet, intimate dinner with someone is probably one of the greatest bonding experiences you can have. Casual talk starts as menus are handed out. Drinks are soon on their way and after you’ve decided what to eat and place your order, the distraction of printed words is removed from the table. Now, you can toast, fold your hands and sit back to have a moment with someone…a spouse, a friend, a brother, sister, a date, a lover, a great dinner does not discriminate.

If I could sit down to dinner with anyone right now, the obvious answer would be my mother. There’s no doubt we’d end up at Taco Bell sipping on pop and finishing up her favorite tacos. A conversation wouldn’t even be necessary, actually. I’d be perfectly happy just staring at her face. Forever.

I started thinking about what a great dinner would be this week, as I was reading Time Magazine in the Pediatricians office. I opened to an article on the current exhibit at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus. They had a few printed examples of this exhibit and my eyes found and stuck with one image in particular.

This one.

I must have stared at this image for a good bit of time because Courtney, who was in for her 15-month appointment, had made her way through all of the toys in an enormous bin.

This painting is titled Christ At Emmaus and it’s dated from 1625. The men in this print have just realized whom they had been sharing bread with. One of them is thrown back and the other immediately falls to his knees. It made me envious of any man or woman who was able to sit down at a table with Jesus and have an actual, real-life conversation with him.

I honestly think, if I were given the chance right now to see my mother’s face again or to sit with Jesus Christ of Nazareth himself, I’d have to go with the latter. Sound crazy to you? Yeah, me too. Rembrandt has projected so much love from this work; I am on the edge of tears every time I examine it. This painting fully speaks to me about the longing I have to talk directly to this man who fills me with so much love… so much strength… so much confusion.

Yes, confusion. I must confess, I am a skeptic at heart.

I have many daily struggles. I struggle with how not to throw any combination of kids out of the window at any given time. I struggle with NOT eating the entire bag of Oreo’s. I struggle with getting the laundry done before any one of us runs out of clean underwear and also with keeping the floors shiny so all of our feet...and baby’s hands don’t stay permanently black from filth. But the whopper of all daily struggles for me… is my faith. The foundation of what I believed to be true was shaken when my mother died.

So, if I had the chance to meet this man at a dinner table, I think I’d order a glass of wine, listen intently and stare at his face. Forever.