daily java

Daily Java: Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife. (Proverbs 17:1)

We have always had the rule in our family that no one is to gripe or argue or talk negatively at the table. There is nothing worse that the coupling of argument and food. It makes either indigestion or fat children. After all, it is easy to hide in your dinner  while someone is griping.

When I was growing up, we argued a fair amount at the table. I remember my father hollering at my brother and my brother leaving the table in tears. I can still see the plate of food. I don’t remember everything, but I remember the peas. When I see peas to this day, I will think of that.

Rancor is unpleasant. No amount of gourmet food or chocolate can mitigate that strife that comes from arguing.

Occasionally we will go to someone’s house and it will be apparent that the dinner table is a battlefield. Snarking and sniping, criticism, anger, disappointment – all come out at the dinner table. And it is so unpleasant. What I would like to do is just leave.

Thank you we had a nice visit. but it is still the middle of dinner. Yes, but I just cannot stand your idea of dinner-time conversation.

We have never done that, but have wanted to on occasion.

Dinner was a time of peace at our house. We tried to keep the conversation light and pleasant. We laughed and stuff. It was good. When my kids come now, we will sit around the table among the food corpses (food as it gets older and older on the table) and talk and laugh. It may even be a couple of hours.

I want peace at the table. There may be strife everywhere else, but there will be peace at my table. We set the table with a tablecloth all of the time now, and use cloth napkins at all our meals (we even have a collection of napkin rings).

Of course, there are real dishes and glasses, and there is even a table decoration that stays on the table with candles sin it. I want peace at my table.

It’s sad to me when people come over and you can tell their dinner time is not fun. I don’t know how to stop them from ruining my dinner so I just sit back and wish they would do something, like maybe drop dead. They do not realize how much they are hurting their children when they do this.

I understand that my paternal grandfather was a bear at the table. Evidently, it was the time when all of the anger of his life spilled over. He had, after all, a captive audience, and at dinner time, they paid dearly for being his children.

Not in my house. I would rather eat a peanut butter sandwich with peace and love than a full-on gourmet meal with fighting. No food in the world is wroth that.