table fellewship's psychospiritual dynamics

For a number of years now, I have idly reflected on the kind of intimacy that is created when people share a meal together. I suspect that it is part of the dynamic that makes the Alpha course good at helping people to consider important questions together. So I found it helpful to read this from Henri Nouwen.

We all need to eat and drink to stay alive. But having a meal is more than eating and drinking. It is celebrating the gifts of life we share. A meal together is one of the most intimate and sacred human events. Around the table we become vulnerable, filling one another's plates and cups and encouraging one another to eat and drink. Much more happens at a meal than satisfying hunger and quenching thirst. Around the table we become family, friends, community, yes, a body.
That is why it is so important to "set" the table. Flowers, candles, colorful napkins all help us to say to one another, "This is a very special time for us, let's enjoy it!"

It's no surprise that Christian faith was nurtured in a meal the fossil of which we still have. However, I can't help thinking that we ought to be doing more with it. I feel that, for example, the Essence course would do well to have a meal as a regular part of it.

The point is well made about vulnerability, mutual aid, the give and take that awakens community, sharing and relating at depth. Though not always, it's not automatic. We can create the conditions but people still have to go through the process and be prepared to let the setting work its 'magic'. It must be about the way that God has made us: we are made for community; we grow on one another when we share activities; we grow deeper when those activities are to do with bodily pleasures and when there is the opportunity [actually, to avoid awkward silences, there is a bit of a push to communicate] to share things that are on our hearts and minds. The sharing in something tends to create a non-adversarial dynamic so that eating together and co-operative conversation tend towards creating or 'feeding' community. It is in eating together that we actually show forth more fully our createdness-in-the- image of God.