007_The Sixth of "7 Ways to Take a Deep Breath": Share a Common Feast

The Sixth of “7 Ways to Take a Deep Breath”:

What Keeps Us Human?

Food with a Friend

Would you like to go out for coffee, or maybe come over for tea? How about some supper?  Would you like to head down to the lunchroom together? Would you like to go out for brunch? 

It's older than the 30,000 year old paintings in caves, when early humans were forming community. We do it by sharing a common feast. 

Thank you for joining us for the sixth of "7 Ways to Take a Deep Breath".  We are going to share food with a friend.

Some time ago I concluded that beer and peanuts must be one of the common denominators that brings us together as a planet.

There was about a year and a half period when I had homemade millet beer out of a gourd in West Africa along with freshly roasted peanuts from the field just across the way.  Not so long afterwards, it was beer and peanuts in a tiny corner place in China. That was shortly followed by beer and peanuts in a big fancy place in India.

It doesn't really matter what it is, although I think beer and peanuts have probably been with us for a long, long time.

What matters is that we as humans, for as long as we've been humans, have connected together in community by sharing food with a friend.

I have been working with people in that 18-20 year old time in their lives for long enough to notice that, often, we're connecting as humans differently than we once did.

Buddhist ethics would understand there is nothing that's either good nor bad.  The question is:  is it skillful or not skillful?  Are we are working with a situation, or thing, in a way which truly serve us or not? 

There is nothing wrong with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and I warmly invite you to join us through social media. It's a miracle that we can have a conversation together like this from anywhere in the world. It would have been on imaginable even 50 years ago.

Yet, even as we celebrate new ways that we're able to connect, may we ensure that we're not using these ways in a fashion that prevents us to actually connect.

"Hey, how are you?" "I'm good; how are you?" "Yeah good thanks." That would be a standard greeting that I think we do with one another in many North American settings.  Several European countries in my awareness have variants on the same, although I like to think that countries who remember old wisdom still remember what it is to bow to one another.

Isn't it true that often there is only one correct answer to the question:  "how are you?". Although we're greeting each other, it's almost a way for us to not be communicating, if the only answer we are socially permitted is "fine".

The sixth way to take a deep breath is to share food with a friend.  Put down the phone.  Be present with each other.  Look one another in the eye.  Have a conversation.  Listen to one another.  Enjoy food together. 

To be able to be present, look one another in the eye and have a conversation:  it is what has kept humans human for so long.

So this is the invitation in the sixth of seven ways to take a deep breath.

Now, let's choose the possible.

What is the way that's possible for you to share food with a friend?

Maybe it doesn't involve food at all. Maybe what we really need to do is to go for a walk together, and that's what we will find most nourishing. 

Maybe getting together for a coffee is perfect.

Next week, I could be having a meeting with someone at our workplace, but we're going to have lunch together instead. That's lovely.

Maybe cooking food for a friend is quite out of the question, but bringing over takeout sounds fun. If you wish, consider enjoying that takeout with conversation and without some other kind of distraction. 

Can we listen to one another and allow a sharing to build our connection with one another in community?

I think some of the people that taught me most about community was a family of neighbours who have recently moved away from next door to me. There was quite a memorable stormy day – in late February, or early March, about three years ago - when the wind in my neck of the woods here was so strong that it blew down a fence.

We hadn't quite come out of the snow season, and that fence blew down in part because it was getting old.  I didn't want to have the wood of my fence rotting on the ground through the rest of the winter.   So there was I – on a rainy, windy, stormy Saturday afternoon - with my skill saw and drill, repairing the fence between the property that I take care of and the property that they were renting.  

They had relatively recently - not totally freshly, but quite recently - moved to Canada from the Middle East, and they didn't have power tools. They weren't in a position to be able to repair that fence. Besides, they were tenants, so repairing the fence was not something that it was even appropriate for them to do, but they certainly noticed that I was doing it. 

I had a tremendous amount of fun teaching two of their daughters – then perhaps 10 or 13 years old - how to use - not the skill saw - but the drill to repair that fence.   Perhaps most memorable to me is that their mother watched from inside while I was repairing our common fence.  She sent out their children to help at regular intervals: you go out and help, and come in when you're cold; then the next child would come out and help, and come in when she was cold.  Their perhaps six year old son came out to help as well.  While they were watching, and their children were helping, she was making me dinner.

By the time I finished, there was an absolutely gorgeous hot four course meal – a middle eastern style of meal - that was being carried over to me by one of their children. It was an expression of gratitude that I had repaired this fence on that stormy Saturday afternoon.

It's a part of Islamic culture that is tremendously well developed:   we share food.  It is known as "zakat".  What we have, when we have extra, we share.  

It is part of what protects our ability to be together in community. 

So, this is the invitation. Choose the possible. What is possible for you? If you cook food for people all the time, can you pick someone new this month to share food with?  Find what's right for you.  Would you like to make a donation to the food bank?

It's about nourishing, and nourishing in this context is about giving time for one another, and making a connection that's real: as real as it can be, and older than those 30,000 year old paintings in caves. 

It is the sixth way to take a deep breath:  be present with one another, sharing a common feast.

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  For a free list of the full menu of “7 Ways to Take a Deep Breath”, come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com”.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening. 

Copyright © 2018, Adela Sandness