A Liturgy for the SDR
"Going back to the SDR made me so sad!" My friend grimaces as she moans this lament, and I mirror her. Most of us feel the same way.
For many, the Student Dining Room is one of the most overwhelming and difficult places on campus. It means awkward small talk and conversations you don't want to have and maybe even people you want to avoid. It means leaving the warm, safe, productive cocoon of your room, or Joe's, or the first floor of Culby, and trekking to the basement, where the sun doesn't shine much and everything is an assault to the senses. For some, it means potential sickness afterward, the product of a mysterious intolerance that heals only for homecooked meals.
Many lose their appetites there, and I am one of them.
"Do you have any advice for how to cope?" Suddenly, my friend is looking at me, and I am taken aback.
I shake my head. "No. I wish I did. I should, by now. But I can't figure it out." I ponder a little bit more, remembering a conversation with another friend about the grace of small talk, how it helps people know that they belong. "Sometimes..." I hesitate. This sounds like over-spiritualizing, but I don't think it is. "Sometimes it helps me to think about going to the SDR as a sacrament, a way to participate in the building of community."
She nods. We spent a whole day this week focused on spiritual disciplines and we are warmed up for this kind of talk. If eating in the SDR can be a way to participate in God's work, then maybe it can be bearable.
We talk for a little longer and she nudges me to write about it. Maybe it would help some people. So later I sit down and write an honest liturgy, in hopes that even a place where the sun doesn't shine can be a place where God's grace is brought to bear.
May it bless you at your table, especially when it's hard to be there.
A Liturgy for the Student Dining Room
We pour wine to remember your blood.
You call us to our places at the King’s table,
And you give sustenance to even the birds of the air.
To eat is to know your grace.
Yet here we are,
Dragging our feet to plainer tables,
Resisting even our own hunger
In dread of the place we are fed.
We dread bland food and stomachaches,
Awkward conversations and the indistinct din,
A thousand people looking like they belong,
And ourselves, feeling overwhelmed, unseen,
Starved for safer places.
Remind us, Lord,
That you are the safest place,
The Preparer of tables before enemies,
The Server of Communion representing our salvation.
And you go with us to the table.
To eat is to know your grace.
Draw us near, then,
First to you,
And then to each other.
Transform our plainer tables
Into altars of worship,
The place where we present ourselves,
Alive and sacrificed,
Broken open and poured out for the sake of those around us.
Bless bland food to broken bodies,
Bless small talk and the lingering hum,
Bless each one around this table,
Let them know that they belong.
And let this humble dining room
Be a sanctuary where you dwell,
Ever a reminder of your outgoing love
And a chance to imitate you as your children.
To eat here is to know,
And to give,
Your grace.
Amen.
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