The Table

After wandering the planet, the maple table has returned. It has history, be it just this generation. When we rented our first apartment on Oakdale in the Keswick side of Glenside, the table was in the kitchen. We could have it for $15, with four chairs. It has a bit of a funky look to it, obviously an attempt in the 30’s to look “modern.” We paid our $15 and adopted the table.

It was covered in pure 70’s “antiquing” paint in a hideous shade of green. I remember tying it on top of our Volkswagon and taking it over to my parents garage. In the warm summer sun I set it up in the garage and back drive, and stripped off the ugly green. Underneath I found it had been stained that red of the 30’s. Talked to some friends more intelligent in refinishing than I was and they suggested Clorox, straight up, put on with a brush in bright sunlight. It transformed the table to the natural blonde of maple. Next was a good coat of urethane and we were good to go.

When we went to the Philippines the table went to brother #5 in Indianapolis. It lived with him for four years and came north to Michigan when we moved here. We set it up in the kitchen and it became the daily table for the family. There are drop leaves on the sides and those always caused a bit of consternation – more than one glass was broken by a kid accidentally kicking the flap underneath, and much milk mopped off the floor. But in terms of a table for raising kids, it was impermeable. It’s had everything imaginable that a child can drop dropped on top of it and there is hardly a dent.  A few “loved” spots.

Somewhere along the line it got small for five people, even with the drop leaves and the extra leaf, so we moved it upstairs and bought a round 50 inch table, keeping the chairs. Though it has served well for probably 25 years, it’s just not the sturdy maple of the old table. But it’s bigger, and with a leaf can seat eight. 

When the Driver got married she adopted the maple table and, with her, it went to North Carolina and then to Ohio. When she moved to Macau it came home, and then went back to Philadelphia with the Dragon when she returned from Alaska. Somewhere along the way in the late 2000’s the Driver and the Dragon swapped tables, giving the Dragon the Driver’s larger glass topped table. Then it was switched again, when small children at the Driver’s house began to knock the drop leaves down.

In late September, the Driver moved to Asia and the maple table came home again, and was put upstairs in one of the bedrooms. Most meals in this house are eaten by two people, and if there are more, there is a table that can seat 18 in the other room. On a whim, maybe of nostalgia, the maple table came downstairs  and the man of the house fixed the drop leaves with a lock on each side. Why didn’t we think of that 42 years, and a few pieces of broken china, ago? It is a bit worse for wear so the surface got a good sanding and two coats of semi-gloss urethane.

Nestled in the kitchen, topped with a poinsettia, glistening golden in the light, the old maple table reigns again.
The round table? It will stay in the Tribe. It’s already gone to the Engineer’s parents who got their house back from their third son. They need a table that will seat two, or four, or six, or eight…

Neighborhoods

Four years ago I said goodbye to a neighborhood on the other side of the world. Not my neighborhood, but where my daughter, the Driver, lived with the Tech. A neighborhood I had come to feel at home in. I remember walking those streets in south China my last afternoon, soaking up the atmosphere, imbedding it deeply in my mind so that even now, four years later, I close my eyes and am there, almost able to touch the color of the late day sun and smell the sesame and peanut bars.

Now, once again, I have said goodbye to a little corner of the world that I would never have known had not my daughter moved here. In four years of visits I have come to feel at home in the cluster of townhouses outside my nation’s campus. I find myself pausing at a window, drinking in the deep woods to the back, looking down on the greensward hill where young boys toss a football and my grands search for Easter eggs, watching for the UPS truck or the red fixit guy’s truck. Though I don’t know their names, the neighbors are familiar. The guy next door who was deployed in Afghanistan last year heads across the street with his sons following, the little Chinese girl on the other side seems to have grown a foot -- even the dogs are friends.

A neighborhood is a collection of small pieces: the library around the corner where I sat the other morning searching the children’s books on the topic of “moving,” the jeweler who repaired things for me, the Anglican pre-school, the sweet middle-aged couples in the block of townhouses who have deeply impacted the lives of Boy Blue and Mei Mei – celebrating their birthdays, finding books and magazines on bugs, bringing balloons and stashing gummy treats in their garages.

We’re walking back from a frozen yogurt run one night when a neighbor two blocks away calls, “I have parsley for your swallowtail caterpillars.” Three neighbors are having a dog conference on a sunny lawn, but seeing Boy Blue, conversation turns to bug collections. He is a familiar visitor to their gardens; they relish watching a little blonde boy with a butterfly net or a Tupperware collection tub. When they hear he’s moving across the world, they express both dismay at their loss but also excitement at his future. Boy and dogs snuggle before we head home.

If it takes a village to raise a child, this little neighborhood has labored together to help raise these two little grands. Four years ago it was Mr. Wong guarding the door to keep a tiny baby from being taken out too soon into the night air, collecting moths in the mailbox for Bye-Ren’s cats, wiping tears from his eyes as I bit him goodbye my last night. Today it is the bug collectors, the dog friends down the street, and a host of others.

I wipe my own tears.

Soon they head once again across the world. The Driver and the Tech will once again do the hard work to build a new life and make friends; Boy Blue and Mei Mei will melt hearts; God will once again create a neighborhood.

Building for eternity

“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” 2 Cor 5:1

The little city that rises Labor Day weekend in the Michigan woods is not permanent. Though each year has strong similarities to the previous year, with neighbors rubbing up against last year’s neighbors, it is a fluid and mobile little community.

We arrive midday on Friday and find ourselves the first to set up camp. Savoring the silence of the wide fields and woods, we unpack, scope out the site, and begin to build our little weekend world. Slowly over the next six hours more families arrive, campers roll into place, tents are pitched, canopies raised. A small city emerges, built by human hands.

The genius is that this is a heavenly city, even if it is one built by human hands. These families gather because they want to live together once again, briefly, and share their lives and their Lord. For many, the yearly routine has stretched over decades. The little children of 30 years ago are the parents of today, and yesterday’s parents are now grandparents -- gray and a little less mobile, but here. Today’s little children only vaguely know there is history, but their very presence celebrates generational connection, year after year. They relish today, the freedom to run and yell and play, unfettered by fences and walls.

The weekend takes on a rhythm of its own. I rise early, knowing that already the Engineer is building a fire outside my tent, with either Bug or Joy Boy at his side, wrapped in a blanket. My job is to crank up the ancient Coleman stove and make coffee, and then begin the breakfast process. As our three generations gather around the table to eat, the scene is echoed up and down the line of tents and campers. Later we’ll explore the woods, the water, the slides and zipline, the bikes and bike paths. We’ll crowd into the rustic chapel and sing till the rafters rise, open our Bibles together and worship the Lord. Some in the group we know well, others are simply familiar faces we’ve seen other years. A little world, captured for a brief weekend, frozen in time.

By day children of all ages dash around the camp, parents watching and sharing the watch. “I’ve got the playground covered,” you hear, or “Anyone taking kids to the lake?” The teens actually unplug all their electronics and feast on soccer and zipline, the infamous blog at the waterfront, and messing around in boats like something out of “The Wind in the Willows.” There’s a bit of complaining at the lack of electronic media, but for the most part the sounds of their laughter almost rise above the little ones.

At night we tuck the little kids into bed and then gather around the fires, talking into the dark night about life, family, God, and more about life. As we huddle closer to get warm, we share deeply, listening and learning from each other. The messages are dissected and digested, and processed but our talk goes far beyond what is presented in chapel.


When Labor Day comes, the little city slowly disappears into the sunshine, one tent or camper at a time. By the time we leave, there is almost no one else around and once again the fields and woods stretch out untouched. We leave refreshed, restored, and renewed, even on weekends when the weather has been terrible and we’ve huddled under umbrellas.

We come knowing this will end, but also knowing, Lord wiling, we’ll come again. We recognize that living in celestial cities will never be long term on earth, but somehow, in the woods and fields and smoke, we’ve tasted a little bit of heaven.

All the while, year after year, decade after decade, we are looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.