An Invitation to the Table


There is a slang term often used about being "woke." Maybe you've seen it behind a hashtag on social media. The term is way older than hashtags and can be traced back to the 1930s. Or at least that's what google search is telling me. It's an implication that a person is enlightened to something that the rest of us are not. Urban dictionary gives one example of its usage as this: 

"While you are obsessing with the Kardashians, there are millions of homeless in the world. STAY WOKE." It means being awake to discrimination, prejudices and other social injustices. 

As I write this, I hear this children's song replaying in my head: 

Are you sleeping?  
Are you sleeping? 
Brother John,  
Brother John? 
Morning bells are ringing.  
Morning bells are ringing. 
Ding, dong, ding.  
Ding, dong, ding. 

So now it's in your head too, and I'm sorry, but not sorry because there is a point to all of this. 

Sometimes in our everyday waking and breathing lives, we have been lulled to sleep. We are sleepwalkers in the light of day. The Walking Dead with a pulse. We punch the time clock. We stroll through the fluorescent lighting of Target. We choose the messy bun and the stretchy pants again. We fill our virtual grocery carts via click list. Lulled by our routines and monotony and whatever is most comfortable and most convenient.  

Hit snooze (repeat x10). Brush teeth. Fill the tea kettle with hot water and turn the stove on. Add 3 scoops of Starbucks blonde to the French press. Take the dog out. Tomorrow, I will do it again. If I am so fortunate. I am like one of those self-driving cars. As a side note, is anyone else terrified by that thought? Yea….me too.  

We are often on autopilot. Like predictive text. Like listening to a person you know better than you know yourself and knowing ahead of time what they are going to say because you could finish the sentence. Yes, they are going to tell that one story again

There is science behind it with 95% of our brain activity being beyond our conscious awareness. But there is a danger to it on the level of spiritual and emotional well being. 

There is a low level of complacency we easily slip into where we just accept whatever we are facing as our lot in life. It's a tactic of the enemy. Carefully devised and methodical. Strategic in the fact that it is so subtle, it goes unnoticed. It isn't cryptic. In fact, the more I think about it, it's rather obvious. The plan is this: lull them to sleep and convince them that there isn't more.  

His plan for our lives is threefold: Steal. Kill. Destroy. To steal our joy, vitality, energy, peace, and trust. To kill our dreams and the hope that the change we long for will come to pass. To destroy our relationships and our future, because if he can get us to a place of complacency, we remain stuck. We are asleep. We are anything but "woke." 

Think about it. If he can get you to accept whatever it is that you're facing as just being "the way things are," then that's also the way you are going to view circumstances in other people's lives.  

This apathy I feel is never going to lift. 
I am too broken to ever be whole. 
This addiction will always have control over me. 
My family will always struggle financially. 
This relationship will never be mended. 

Like I tell my thirteen-year-old when he is fighting to get up in the morning, and I've been to his room five times already, my urging escalating to a threat…." just sit up on the side of the bed." Rub the sleep from your eyes. Take a drink of cold water. Whatever you do, WAKE UP. 

My dog gets scolded when he searches for food that has been dropped under the table during meals by my two-year-old (usually it's her anyway). It's not that he's hungry. Don't feel sorry for him. And I don't expect him not to want something other than the dry and bland kibbles he is dished out twice a day. It's the noises he makes during his search party that get him scolded. This snorting and slurping sound that grates my nerves like nothing else. You just have to hear it for yourself to understand. My husband looked at his four-month-old white and furry cuteness and named him "Pig," a self-fulfilling prophesy for his bulldog self. Here's the point: Don't be like Pig. Don't search for scraps beneath the table. You are invited to an abundant feast with all of your favorite foods. 


from my fav children's book: The Crown on Your Head 

Whatever you do, don't buy into the lie. Don't drink the Kool-aid. Don't settle for this. Whatever your this is. Don't allow yourself to be lulled to sleep. There is so much more for your one and only life than this low-level lot that you have accepted. Let's abort this mission. Let's accept the invitation we have been given to the table of abundant life. 

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