Journey arrival with waiting and finding the table

The journey was long, full of what felt like moments of waiting. Waiting for the bus to depart from the suburb next to ours. Waving as the semi-familiar car departed aware that the journey forward would be walked with new companionship. The bus pulled out, travelling along familiar roads dashing and curving around what has become familiar landscape. Arriving at the airport, waiting in the check-in que that took over an hour. Are all these people going to the same place? When did the airport become more popular than the train station?

Waiting to arrive at the airport, followed by a lot more waiting.

As the waiting que shifted from check in, to bomb scanning check, security check, passport control check, bag clearance check, to waiting in departure lounge due to flight delay…. the feeling of waiting washed over me. Living in the familiarity of waiting is hard! Living in the waiting! 

I mean seriously, while I know its a given at the airport, it is rather counter cultural really. At what point do you stop waiting, what point do you just put a foot in front of the other and deal with all consequences after that moment… I wonder… 

Destination reached, flying in the early hours to see the landscapes of forest, brown mud river bending like a ribbon through the landscape. Concrete breaks the flow creating a modern jungle that is all too familiar. Just when did this disharmony in landscape become so vivid? 

Joyous union with the girls on arrival. Talking and laughing knowing that the next few weeks will be full of wonder and adventures. The unfamiliar rhythm of the house taking a bit to adapt.

This morning the invitation to go to Mass at 4.30am rested with me with good intention, yet fading rumbles of the girls made me realise that the body won out on this occasion. 

Leaving me one option to lay embracing the dream of attending the celebrations….. 

A long table stretching out under an open sky. The heavens are coated with stars, so many stars that we don’t need to light any candles that sit placed on the table. The table is covered in white linen that gently blows in the summer breeze, and all the people are laughing and engaging with joy. 

I walk along in the grass, carrying plates. My hands smell like honey and the air smells like lilacs. The grass moulds around my feet with their soft blades gently encompassing my skin. The feeling never eases as I pace between the table and kitchen, preparing for the celebrations. 

Children are running around, climbing trees, boys burping while girls are playing hand clapping games. Some of the women are dressed in gowns, like they got diverted from some marbled room somewhere. Sitting beside them? New friends who came wearing their dirty, tired t’shirts with screen printed saying like, “Go Bulldogs” or “Life is Good” 

There’s a rich tapestry of faces - in ebony, creamy white, olive, cocoa - and everyone is smiling and carrying on like old friends because all the bad things got made right somehow. 

Everyone is invited and almost everyone turns up. Signs waved in the air “Come One and All” We had hoped and prayed they would, we had wanted them to taste the feast. And we know for sure that someone had hoped and prayed for us, too. 

There was this awareness hanging in the air: It cost someone a lot to make a space for us at the table. 

We came with empty pockets, because the Host told us that this was all a gift. 

The price of admission? Our hunger. 

There was room for all, and all of us had been waiting our whole lives for this. We didn’t know it until now. The table seems intimate yet stretches for miles because the Host didn’t pick favourites. He wanted us all. 

When I touch the table, it feels like it has a heartbeat. 

From the grass, I watch them come ‘round the corner, out by the oak trees. Some have tears in their eyes. A gentle soul in a three piece suit drops to his knees on the sidewalk when he sees a chair with his name on the back of it. An old woman throws back her head and starts singing a song I’ve never heard before, but somehow know all the words. There’s a poem hanging from the branches, and music slides down from the sky. It falls like dew on our skin. 

I see no masks. No one pretends or tries to prove a thing. We showed up fragile and hungry. We are happy - the fullest happiness we have ever known. Or maybe we had simply forgotten that this kind of happiness was possible, because of all the pain in the busted-up world we’d been living in. 

Someone clears His throat, and the sound echoes down the table, a hallowed rumble. He says “Have a seat please” 

……. while Im sorry that I missed Mass this morning, it was a great rich blessing to be embraced by the rich meaning of coming to the table of the Lord. Something that is easy to forget when the table is opened everyday and the waiting in life distracts from the riches in life…