“Around the Table,” New Era, Feb. 1996, 4
The Message:
Around the Table
Adapted from an address delivered at April 1995 general cconference.
Great things can happen when you join your family …
One of the more important furnishings found in most homes is the kitchen table. It may be small, large, or in the form of a counter with little room to place food and utensils. Its major function seems to be a place for the different members of the family to receive nourishment.
But there is a deeper, more important function for the kitchen table, where we can receive more than just nourishment for our physical well-being.
Protect this environment
A family has generally two or more members of differing ages. The family unit needs to meet—preferably daily—not only to eat, but to pray, talk, listen, relate, learn, and grow together. President Gordon B. Hinckley has stated it well: “My plea—and I wish I were more eloquent in voicing it—is a plea to save the children. Too many of them walk with pain and fear, in loneliness and despair. Children need sunlight. They need happiness. They need love and nurture. They need kindness and refreshment and affection. Every home, regardless of the cost of the house, can provide an environment of love which will be an environment of salvation.”1
Most family members are subjected to the many forces of the world outside of the home, as well as the powerful influence of radio, television, videos, tapes, etc., which we bring into our homes.
Picture a family gathering around a table to eat, talking about the gospel, talking about the sacrament meeting speakers and messages, talking about the current Ensign or New Era, talking about school with all of its ramifications, talking about general conference, talking about the Sunday School lessons, listening to good music, talking about Jesus Christ and his teachings. The list could be expanded. Not only parents, but all family members would be wise to listen at the table carefully, making certain that each person present has ample opportunity to participate.
Prayer potential
Think of the potential of a family kneeling around a table (without television), praying, pleading for help, thanking our Father for blessings—teaching all ages the importance of a loving Father in Heaven. Family prayer with little ones may well develop older ones who someday pray with their families.
President Thomas S. Monson states it well: “The Lord directed that we have family prayer when he said: ‘Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed’ (3 Ne. 18:21).
“Will you join me as we look in on a typical Latter-day Saint family offering prayers unto the Lord? Father, mother, and each of the children kneel, bow their heads, and close their eyes. A sweet spirit of love, unity, and peace fills the home. As father hears his tiny son pray unto God that his dad will do the right things and be obedient to the Lord’s bidding, do you think that such a father would find it difficult to honor the prayer of his precious son? As a teenage daughter hears her sweet mother plead unto the Lord that her daughter will be inspired in the selection of her companions, that she will prepare herself for a temple marriage, don’t you believe that such a daughter will seek to honor this humble, pleading petition of her mother whom she so dearly loves? When father, mother, and each of the children earnestly pray that these fine sons in the family will live worthy that they may in due time receive a call to serve as ambassadors of the Lord in the mission fields of the Church, don’t we begin to see how such sons grow to young manhood with an overwhelming desire to serve as missionaries?”2
As many have said, “How could you dare send your children and parents out into the world without the protection of daily family prayer?” Wise parents will examine their schedules and plan at least one time daily to gather the family for the blessings of prayer. Very young members soon learn how to take their turn and learn the precious values of family prayer.
Homework
I have stated before that “home should be a happy place because all work to keep it that way. It is said that happiness is homemade, and we should endeavor to make our homes happy and pleasant places. … A happy home is one centered around the teachings of the gospel. This takes constant, careful effort by all concerned.”3
A busy teenager in a rather large family complained about the amount of time taken with daily family prayer. As the wise mother was praying, she intentionally left out the name of the complaining child. As the prayer concluded, the busy child said, “Mother, you left me out of your prayer!” The loving mother explained that she was just responding to the complaint expressed. The busy child exclaimed, “Don’t leave me out.”
Visualize a family surrounding a table with scriptures open, discussing the many truths and lessons to absorb. This is a table encircled with love!
Educators agree that children need to read more outside of school. We can bless our children by reading the scriptures with them on a daily basis—at the kitchen table.
Plan on it
To have a time when the family meets at the kitchen table may take considerable adjustment and careful planning, but what could be of more importance than the unity of the family, the spiritual growth of the family, the bridges built between members of a family as they talk, listen, and respond, all surrounded by love? Our major success is simply trying—over and over.
There are many forces in the world today seeking to decimate the family and the home. We need to strive to strengthen family ties, increase spirituality in the home, and focus on Jesus Christ and temple activity. President Howard W. Hunter has told us:
“I pray that we might treat each other with more kindness, more courtesy, more humility and patience and forgiveness. Secondly, and in that same spirit, I also invite the members of the Church to establish the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of their membership and the supernal setting for their most sacred covenants. It would be the deepest desire of my heart to have every member of the Church temple worthy.”4
The direction given by President Hunter can be markedly enhanced by what takes place around the kitchen table.
In our homes, we should practice how to treat others. As Goethe said so well, “If you treat [an individual] as he is he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he [could] be and [might] be, he will become what he ought to be.”5
A place of worship
President Boyd K. Packer has stated: “To bring some of the things of heaven into the home is to insure that family members will graduate to church participation. The family home evening is, of course, ready-made for this—a meeting at home that can be organized to fit every need; and it’s just as much a church meeting, or can be, as those held at the chapel.”6 This counsel also agrees with what Elder Dean L. Larsen has told us: “Our church buildings are not the only places where we can worship. Our homes should also be places of devotion. It would be well if each day we could ‘go home to church.’ There should be no other place where the Spirit of the Lord is more welcome and more easily accessible than in our own homes.”7
And President Harold B. Lee said: “Remember that the most important of the Lord’s work that you [and I] will ever do will be … within the walls of [our] own home.”8
My plea today is that each of us will look carefully at our homes and the kitchen table and continually strive to come unto Jesus Christ and to bring heaven into our homes.
Illustrated by Beth Whittaker
The Savior gathered his disciples around the table on several occasions—the most famous being the Last Supper. In that private setting he taught them many great and wonderful things. (See Matt. 26:20–29.) (Painting The Last Supper by Carl Heinrich Bloch.)