There Is A Place for You at Our Table
In Starhawk's gorgeous and haunting novel,_The Fifth Sacred Thing,_ (highly recommended reading) an elder named Maya faces the impending attack on a sacred community she has given her life to build.As their enemies draw closer, Maya and the other members of her community realize that they have two choices: fight back with violence and perpetuate the cycle of atrocity and fear which has been sewn into the fabric of contemporary society, or to invite their attackers to join them in the thriving community they have built.The invaders, you see, are used to lives of fear– of scarcity and domination, of darkness and competition and conquering. They have been born into a world which tells them that conquering and pillaging is the only way to survive.Maya and her community know that they cannot win. Not only do they lack the weapons to defeat the invaders, they also lack the hearts to continue the cycle of violence. They know, deep in their souls, that the only hope they have left is to show the invaders the safe, abundant and nurturing world they have built, praying that the call of that possibility will be enough to soften their hardened hearts. Praying that this philosophy of love will save their world.When facing barrels of the invaders' gun, Maya and her friends say, over and over, “There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to accept it.”
Jesus the Christ said similar words in John 14:2, "My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?"In this passage, Christ is explaining that there is always a place available for us in the house of light should we choose to accept it.And as we face darker and darker times in both our world and our bodies, this phrase comes to me again and again.When faced with the shadow in another, I have a choice: I can continue the cycle of blame and shame and rejection and violence, or I can look at the person I fear dead in the eye, and offer, "There is a place for you at my table, should you choose to accept it."In the same way, as I am in process of healing my deepest, darkest fears and shadows, I can do two things: I can villainize them, shame them, ignore them and fear them deeply, causing them to hide deeper in the depths of my unconscious being, only to watch them come out sideways in times of fear and pressure.Or, I can look at them and say, "Shadow, thing about myself that I reject and fear the most. Parts of me I am certain are too shameful for the light of love, I see you. I love you. There is a place for you at my table, should you choose to accept it."Swallow, now. Hard.It is not an easy task. But as the darkness in our world and in our souls rear their terrifying heads, we only have two choices-- send them away, or invite them to the table. And in my experience, one way sends us into disease, and one way brings the possibility of healing.When we can invite our deepest fears and wounds to the table of our lives, and the table of our consciousness and our love, we begin to heal. We begin to share a meal with them, listening to their stories no matter how scary, breathing deeply through the triggers they cause and the suffocating blackness they bring. We can dig deeper into our stores of awareness and compassion and let them sit at the table.This is the journey I am being called to-- one at at time each of my deepest fears, my deepest parts of shame, my deepest inadequacies are showing up at my doorstep, threatening annihilation. And each time, I get a choice. Fight and scream, knowing that I will never win, or call upon all of the beings of love and light, and welcome it into my home, making it a meal and asking it to sit at my table.Asking it to share its stories.Asking it to tell its tales.Asking it what it needs.And believing that one day, it will join me in this journey to the light, feeling safe and seen and held at my table so that it no longer needs to scream and blame and shame and hide.The next time a shadow (yours or someone else's) appears at the doorway, know that you have a choice. And maybe, just maybe, choose to make a place for it at your table.Alleluia.
