Build a Bigger Table

“When you have more than you need, build a bigger table, not a higher fence.”

Ever wonder why South Dining Hall is host to some of our favorite memories from ACE summer? It’s not just because of the Boom Boom Chicken Salad. Meals are meant to be shared. Food and drinks present us with the opportunity to sit down with one another and share pieces of ourselves. Food can create for us a sacred space.

We don’t need to look any further for an example of the power of communal meals than the most famous meal of all time. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells His disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” (22:15). The Last Supper provides us with the pinnacle story of encounter through the sharing of a meal. Knowing His time is near, Jesus gathers His closest friends and breaks bread with them. In doing so, Jesus exemplifies His love for all of His followers and sets the foundation of His call to join Him in a sacred meal at the altar each week.

Community meals have been a staple of ACE for 30 years and counting. ACE communities are encouraged to share a meal once a week that brings everyone together in an intentional way. In my first year teaching in Brownsville, I appreciated how our Sunday evening dinners were a way for the six of us to come together and slow down in the midst of our busy schedules. In my second year, these Sunday night dinners have continued, with the five of us navigating the kitchen. However, as the Brownsville community has quickly found out just a month into the school year, community meals don’t have to be confined to the limitations of one night a week. Every moment we share food and drinks is an opportunity to grow closer to one another.

Nothing exemplifies an irregular sharing of meals better than a road trip. That was exactly the case for the Brownsville community as we packed up Aidan Anderson's (ACE 30) car and headed north for Labor Day weekend. Now, Texas is a big state, and it certainly feels even bigger when you live at its southernmost tip. After traveling five hours on night one, we enjoyed truck stop McDonald’s as we watched the sun set over the South Texas plains, discussing our weeks and expressing our excitement for the weekend to come. Our dinner table was the cabin of a car. Our witness occurred over fast food burgers (which you can get for a sweet deal if you download the McDonald’s app). The next morning in Austin, I woke up on the couch to the smell of coffee and chocolate chip pancakes cooked by Montana Garcia and Erin Smith (ACE 30s). We sat in the living room enjoying the meal and conversation about life in our new cities. Encounter has no parameters.

Upon departing from Austin and traveled three more hours north to the ACE Fort Worth house where Chris Rauchet (ACE 29) already had burgers and hot dogs on the grill. Lunch and dinner were shared with a much larger community, with representatives from all the ACE communities in Texas and Oklahoma coming together for a Labor Day barbecue. We spent hours catching up about the start of our school years and sharing fond memories from our summer in South Bend. The next day, our gracious Fort Worth hosts provided a meal again, making eggs and bacon for everyone to enjoy before saying heartfelt goodbyes. Encounter started over one meal and ended with another. 

On Monday morning, it was back to the Brownsville five as we headed home with full hearts and stomachs. Back around our dining room table, we found ourselves in a traditional ACE community meal setting again. I realized that the meals we ate in settings across the state of Texas had brought us even closer together than we were before. The sharing of food and drinks all weekend also included the sharing of ourselves, our excitement, our tiredness, our music tastes, and our stories. Community meals are great over a table, but they’re also great in backseats of cars out of paper bags, on the same living room couches you slept on the night before, in friends’ backyards on paper plates, and on the side of a busy street covered in hot sauce, salsa, and lime. Labor Day weekend demonstrated to me the real truth behind community meals in ACE: anywhere food and drinks are shared, the opportunity for encounter is present.