Lunch

Thinking about the Top 10 blog posts I discovered that a word that's appeared multiple times already is lunch! What's that all about anyway?

Yesterday I talked to you about dinner, and it's true, I have been thinking about how our dinner practices shape us, what our potlucks say about us. How do we share our values and our identities at dinner? I'll think on this further I'm sure.

But for today, this last day of the year, I'm back with some of the important concepts I've considered as much or more than any other in the year 2010! Who knew? Lunch!

Over this holiday season I've had the great opportunity to have lunch with some special friends. What a good chance to stay in touch, to see what's happening in lives we care about but don't often take the time to hear about. Oh, we ask--and really mean it--but the responses to "how are you and how's the family?" still most likely evoke the quick answer, the automatic "Fine!"

It takes a slower time together, an hour or two across the lunch table to help you both feel encouraged to share the longer story. If we really want to nurture those deeper relationships, the friendships that will endure, we need to give them some time. And for my money, lunch time works just fine.

One of my friends in particular is very much a "lunch friend." While we may not speak in person for months at a time, we can pick right up where we left off and spend three or four hours at lunch every several months and continue to be the best of friends.

My New Year's resolution this year is not terribly profound. For this year of 2011, the year in which I shall truly retire, my resolve is to do more lunches! Maybe this shall also be part of my retirement practice. I know how important it is to keep these important connections with people I care about. So I shall be doing lunch more often. My list of lunch friends is about to grow longer.

Give me a call sometime; let's do lunch.

Posted by Marion