Table Conversations

Some of my favorite times of the day are meals. Partially because I like to eat, but I also love the chance to sit and talk with everyone. Whether it's about everyone's day or something completely off the wall, it's almost always a good time. I think it's the best chance to learn about people, chatting away over a meal. Isn't that how any family does it? Sitting around the dinner table and catching up on whats going on in everyone's lives.

Different from a typical family set up is that here at the Mount there's about 60-something of us, and chances are good that you won't sit with the same people two meals or even two days in a row. And you never know what combination of people you're going to get. This evening at dinner Alyssa and I both set our dinner trays down before heading up for a salad. Upon returning, there were two Sisters at our table, one of whom said "It's a big gamble taking a seat at a table where you see two trays and empty seats, you never know who it's going to be."

The group at my table tonight had a very lively discussion about many different things, but seeing as 5 out of 6 of us maintain blogs, we chatted a lot about that topic. 3 of us post regularly twice a week on the same days, and we talked about the pressure involved in those constant deadlines. Sometimes a topic just won't seem to come, and in that case I usually have no problem skipping that day altogether, or just pushing it off a day (like this one for example).

The Sister who writes the Light Through Stained Glass Windows blog for the Mount said it's a discipline to post faithfully on the same days every week, and to have good topics. Because, ya know, I could just get on here and post about whatever, but that doesn't mean anyone wants to read it! Or sometimes, your ridiculous table conversation turns into a blog post. And that's always helpful :)

I always link to Alyssa's blog on my sidebar to the right, but here she is again for good measure: One Year at the Mount

Here's a link to the Oblate Blog maintained by another Sister that was at my table tonight. The other Sister's blogs can't be accessed unless you're a member of Monasteries of the Heart, which you should also check out :)