Table Magic

I am in a strange season of life. A season of snatches. It is one I don’t dare complain about, because I know the one that is around the next corner, hiding within my next breath. The season I am in now is one my hairdresser warned me about when I announced there was a 4th child on the way.

Oh, get ready, he told me. You’ll be at the band concert. Your husband will be at the ball field. You’ll never see each other again.

I stopped letting him cut my hair shortly after that conversation. Not because he was bad at cutting hair, but because he talked too much.

For us, it wasn’t band and baseball. It was band and orchestra. And Smoothie King. And 3 schools for 4 kids. It was conference nights and open houses. It is, on occasion, a numbers nightmare. But on other occasions, there is magic.

Ordinary, mundane magic.

And as much as I’ve tried to skip steps and find loopholes around cooking traditional meals, the magic always seems to happen over a hot meal and around the 9′ table in the dining room. Not around the kitchen island that seats us all. Not in the family room with the TV on.

Around the table.

Sometimes the magic only lasts for 15 minutes, as one kid has a chemistry test the next day or a project to finish. Sometimes the magic is missing one, because my oldest had to go straight to work after school and won’t be home until 10:30.

Last Monday night, the magic was interrupted by a tech support call from Dell. Our 2nd born son had a laptop with a bad hard drive, still under warranty. So Todd took the call reluctantly, knowing if he didn’t, he might never hear from them again. He left the table. Andrew saw his dad leaving the table and looked at me with pleading eyes. He’s the introvert in the family. And though he is definitely part of the magic, he participates with some reticence.

“You can go,” I said. He was gone before my eyes could focus on the dust trail he left behind.

That left me at the table with Brady and Lucy and Jenna. For some reason, none of the rest of us moved. A conversation began about why there is evil and why things continue in the world as they do. Why does God love us? Why would He want us? There was back and forth between the older ones. The youngest wanted to shut the whole thing down and go play golf.

The table talk took a dark tone in the beginning, with a hint of hopelessness. What is the point of it all? But it ended with all kinds of light and hope. My daughter saw through all of that and piped up that she wanted to be baptized. Right then. That night. She was ready.

That night ended in the baptism of my sweet daughter, surrounded by family and friends. The moments leading up to her baptism found me in the air handler closet, because apparently I’ve never been backstage in the building where I’ve worshipped for 15 years. I had to be led to the staircase by a person deemed more “together” than myself. The moments following her baptism had me carrying around a bra wrapped in 19 paper towels and trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

Whose bra it was and how it came to be swaddled in cloths is another story for another day. Around a table, for sure. Because that’s where the magic happens.