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Tables of Togetherness
This morning I woke feeling I was in Oz; yesterday never went so well. So I take to writing, it's a therapy. I am thinking of the Spanish have a word—Querencia. It is the place where one feels safest, most at home. For some, it might be a childhood street, a grandmother’s kitchen, or a room filled with familiar laughter. But I’ve lived long enough to know that “home” isn’t always stitched into walls or pinned to a postcode. No doorway has ever fully kept the world out, and no street sign has etched itself on my heart with permanence.
Except, perhaps, for the islands of Scotland.
Even then, they exist more in dream than in dwelling—verses of light and longing sung by Runrig, wind-blown memories I never truly lived but somehow know by heart. So maybe Querencia, for me, is not a place I’ve stood in, but a place I’ve longed for. And if longing writes the rules, then let me dream without restraint.
I imagine a long wooden table set outside a weathered cabin by the shore. The sky is thick with colour—apricot and lavender—while the sun dips slowly into the hush of waves. The faint clink of glasses, the scent of salt and heather, the low murmur of kind conversation—all of it sacred, unhurried, and full of grace.
And because dreams are generous, the guests arrive just as I would wish them.
First comes Fred Rogers, but without the cardigan; the place is tropical. I was not familiar with him until a year ago. He carries the atmosphere of gentleness with him and speaks with the clarity of a tuning fork. An old man once said to me when I was young, “Speak slowly son, then people will think you have important things to say.” Fred is the epitome of this quality. And unlike the trend in the modern world, He doesn’t compete for attention. I imagine being in his presence being deeply seen and deeply loved.
Joining us is Li Bai, slightly intoxicated on stars as he drifts in with a jug of rice wine and drunk on metaphors. Even when silent, he is eloquent. In his company, solitude feels less like loneliness and more like freedom. Perhaps he joins us not because he belongs to the past, but because his soul still lingers in the present as he reminds us of the beauty of noticing. Noticing the moon, the stars and beauty all around.
Marilynne Robinson joins us, with her calm intellect and gentle strength. She speaks wisely not to impress, but to illuminate. Her voice carries ideas the way a Scottish loch reflects light; slowly, thoughtfully, with pauses that invite reflection. She talks of God’s grace, of the lives of ordinary, of people who have been kind. She sees what’s sacred within mundane what many consider. Her words remind us what’s important in life.
And then, unexpectedly but rightly, two men from my youth appear: Mr. Abbott and the music teacher whose name I’ve forgotten. They come not with books or accolades but with a quiet kind of heroism. They were there when I needed redirecting, when the rough-and-tumble of St Gerard’s and Govan might have swallowed me. They believed in us boys, showed us a better way through music, fishing and the pleasure of nature and outdoors. Their presence is a thank-you long overdue. Mr Abbott was my science teacher, and the other, an unknown music teacher taught us that classical music was not for elegant ladies and men with bowties and dark suits. Edvard Greig and Peer Gynt put some kind of existential order into my life. Theses teachers have to be my guests to show them that seeds planted flourishes as they planned.
Sitting alongside him is Mary Oliver, another noticer, but her interests wander to migrating geese and their instinctive energy preserving orderliness. When the sun sets and the candles burn low, she reads, just a few lines about a grasshopper or a heron, how absorbing. and suddenly the night shifts. Her words turn attention into prayer. We are all more awake for her presence. She suggests ending with a prayer of praise to the creator.
I stop there—not because the dream ends, but because the table is full. I’ve never cared for crowds. There is something holy in a small gathering, where silence is allowed to settle and laughter doesn’t need to shout to be heard. And besides, the evening isn’t over. Another night, another table, new guests.
What would we speak of, beneath that slow-blinking sky?
Of everything and nothing. Of stars and sorrow. Of poetry and childhood. Of kindness and the ache of being human. The kind of conversation that drifts beyond small talk, stretches its limbs, and runs freely—talk that sounds like music, the kind that bypasses the mind and goes straight to the soul.
That would be enough. That would be home, if only for a while. There will be many more tables of togetherness.
"No eye has ever seen and no ear has ever heard
and it has never occurred to the human heart
All the things God prepared for those who love Him."
I Corinthians 2:9 (TB).
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Scripture quotations marked (TV) are taken from The Voice™. Copyright © 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.