Unforgettable Communion

Unforgettable Communion

I was born on the Mississippi River, in Memphis, Tennessee, and my last residence in the U.S.A.—before moving to Scotland in 2004—was approximately 900 miles upstream, in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The difference between Southern culture and northern ways is still as vast as the difference between the early 1960’s of my childhood and today half a century later.

For example, whenever I hosted a meal at my home in the Twin Cities area, guests often took it upon themselves to bring a “salad” (if a concoction of canned fruit and whipped cream and mini marshmallows truly qualified as such, but that’s what they called it) or a casserole (which should be renamed a “cannerole” since most of the ingredients came out of cans), even after I had politely turned down their polite offers to contribute a side dish. I, of course, thanked them and made room on my already-crowded serving table. Later, I had to tell myself that these Scandinavian types were not being rude by arming themselves with extra food. When I had said, No, you don’t need to bring anything, they probably thought I was just being modest and meant, You don’t need to bring anything but it’s fine if you do.

Where I grew up it would have been an insult to the hostess—not that she would’ve shown it—to arrive with an unexpected dish. Even at a potluck the hostess was in charge of the menu. However it was customary to ask a Southern hostess if she would like some assistance in the kitchen. It’s not that she needed assistance—she was perfectly capable of turning out the meal by herself—but it was a matter of courtesy. Yet in Minnesota I had to be assertive if I needed a helping hand; only on one rare occasion did a guest hop up from the table and help me clear the dishes—and I married him.

Having lived all over the United States and now residing in a foreign country, where we enjoy hosting people from different backgrounds, I like to play anthropologist and study various styles of hospitality. “Etiquette” sits right beside “Religion” in the Dewey Decimal library cataloging system—and rightly so, as religion could be defined as social organization in the big picture (that is, our relationship to God, oneself, and others), while etiquette could be defined as social organization in the details (how we behave and relate to one another in particular situations). One has to do with the world-wide table we might call Creation, around which all of us creatures are gathered by God to co-exist. The other pertains to the tables around which we gather for purposes of social recreation: the tables in a church hall for Christian fellowship, the table in a boardroom for conducting business, or our dining tables where rules and expectations are graciously set aside in favor of unforgettable communion that transcends time and place.