Grace at Table: Small Spiritual Solutions to Large Material Problems, Solving Everything

by Donna Schaper

Overview

Grace at Table advocates prayer at table as a way to solve everything. By everything we mean the dismay, dis-ease, and fear of the future that permeates way too many human souls. Addiction is one response to the moment, fear another, and despair a third. Widespread immobility and lack of focus come to mind as indications of over-stimulation by the negatives and under-stimulation by the positives. Prayer at table stimulates the positives. It is a pause that refreshes the spirit, reorienting us to a sense of gratitude and grace for whatever we may face. Prayer doesn't have to be hands folded or knees bent--although there is nothing wrong with folding hands or dropping to our knees. Instead, prayer here is understood as pause to give thanks, to look around, to interrupt constant action with reflection, allowing the table and our food to be our nudge. Changing the general atmosphere of despair and decay to thanks and appreciation is a big change, made in a small way. Like a wheelbarrow, prayer carries the heavy load, lightly, giving us the lift we need to manage what we fear we cannot. Prayer at table resolves the appreciation deficit disorder, which goes on to make us strong for climate change, recession, and a mounting sense of debt. It replaces shame and blame with gratitude and grace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620329900
Publisher:	Cascade Books
Publication date:	06/05/2013
Pages:	124
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper is Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City and the author of thirty books, mostly about keeping Sabbath while gardening and being an activist. Best known for being dismembered by a garden club, she spends her days loving parish ministry in New York City. She also grows a great tomato and gathers sticks to build evening fires at her country shack in Fishkill, New York.

Table of Contents

1 At Gatherings

Glimpse 1 The Dinner Party 3

Glimpse 2 At Second Glance: More Ways to Pray at Table 6

Glimpse 3 Accidental Gatherings: The Grand Canyon 8

Glimpse 4 Just a Pear and a Plate 11

Glimpse 5 The Potluck Supper 13

Glimpse 6 Less-ness as Thanksgiving: Advice for All Gatherings 16

Glimpse 7 Guilt and Grace 17

Glimpse 8 Foraging as a Form of Prayer from the Forest 19

Glimpse 9 A Truckload of Turnips Gathered on the Church Lawn 21

Glimpse 10 A Gathering of Chickens 23

2 On the Road

Glimpse 11 Rice, Tea, and Global Naiveté 27

Glimpse 12 Chinese Food in China 29

Glimpse 13 Chinese Women Know How to Eat 32

Glimpse 14 Always Go to the Eastern Hospital in Beijing 34

Glimpse 15 First Class Home 36

Glimpse 16 Gobsmacked and Grateful: Eating in Australia 38

Glimpse 17 Walking Ten Miles for Water in India 40

Glimpse 18 What I Have Been Trying To Tell You So Far… 41

3 Ordinary Life

Glimpse 19 Everybody has a Deer Story 45

Glimpse 20 Coming from a Place 50

Glimpse 21 Three Strawberry Shortcakes in One Weekend 52

Glimpse 22 The Eucharist of it All 54

Glimpse 23 G. K. Chesterton, Putting Even More Ordinary… 56

Glimpse 24 Trust at Table 57

Glimpse 25 Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime? 59

Glimpse 26 Prayer is Not an Olympic Sport 61

Glimpse 27 Appreciation of Appreciators 63

Glimpse 28 Are You Still Working on That? 65

Glimpse 29 You Don't Have to Farm in Poughkeepsie… 67

Glimpse 30 Calorie Counting 69

Glimpse 31 Utopian Ideas for the Road 71

Glimpse 32 Tomatoes on the Vine 73

Glimpse 33 Fast Food Your Way 75

Glimpse 34 Coffee Breaks with the Spirit 76

Glimpse 35 The Sick Care System 79

Glimpse 36 Eating on the Road 81

Glimpse 37 Food and Grocery Stores 83

Glimpse 38 Manna, the Modern 85

Glimpse 39 Beyond the Purists 87

4 Special Graces, Special Tables: If You Only Pray on Holidays

Glimpse 40 Don't Schedule the Unusual, Engage the Usual 91

Glimpse 41 Prayer at Thanksgiving 93

Glimpse 42 Praise is the Purpose of Christmas 95

Glimpse 43 Episodic and Diachronic Holidays 98

Glimpse 44 A Prayer for the Easter Ham 100

Glimpse 45 A Prayer for the Passover Lamb 101

Glimpse 46 Do Something Odd 102

Glimpse 47 A Prayer for My Birthday Cake 105

5 Prayers for Me, by Me, with Me

Glimpse 48 Prayers I 109

Glimpse 49 Prayers II 111

Glimpse 50 Prayers III 112

Glimpse 51 Prayers IV 113

Glimpse 52 Forward, Not Back, to Nature 114

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Pastor Donna Schaper takes what is all around us, namely food and eating food, and joins it to what is deeply but invisibly within us, a hunger for meaning and joy. She develops an imagination that lives the unity between the inner and outer: namely, prayer. Read this witty and generous book. There is not a dull sentence in it; [the] words will quicken your taste buds and revive your spirit."
—Eugene H. Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College

Editorial Reviews

"Pastor Donna Schaper takes what is all around us, namely food and eating food, and joins it to what is deeply but invisibly within us, a hunger for meaning and joy. She develops an imagination that lives the unity between the inner and outer: namely, prayer. Read this witty and generous book. There is not a dull sentence in it; [the] words will quicken your taste buds and revive your spirit."
—Eugene H. Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College

From the Publisher