Pull Up a Chair: Your Invitation to the Father's Table

Tables hold some of our best memories and some of our worst. In his recent field note, Noel traced the word back to the Latin tabula, the blank slate where so much of our story gets written. This episode picks up where that essay left off.

Luke gathers three Canyon brothers around a virtual table. Peter talks about a culture that swapped the family table for the drive-thru and ended up with connectivity but very little connection. Andrew shares how a retreat in Spearfish Canyon, with no ask attached, cracked open the door to resting and receiving after fifteen years of being the provider in ministry. Eric, who serves hundreds of meals a day at the Union Gospel Mission in Sioux Falls, explains why he refuses to serve rubber chicken at a retreat, and why his own scarred-up kitchen table is one of the most sacred things in his house.

Along the way they wrestle with what it means to hear the word son as a gift instead of a grade, why Psalm 23 sets the table in the valley and not on the other side of it, and why the table is a place you are sent from, not a place you leave.

Pull up a chair, brother. There's a seat with your name on it.

Scripture and references

• Psalm 23:5: "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies"
• Luke 15: the prodigal son, the father's celebration, and the older brother
• Matthew 26: the Last Supper, a table of correction and love
• Matthew 11:28-30: "Come to me... my burden is light"
• Field Note: Table by Noel Bouché
• Heart of Man (film)
• "Come to the Table" by Sidewalk Prophets

Lines worth sitting with

"We have connectivity without connection." Peter Glynn"It's a gift that we give our son, not a grade." Andrew Bacon"If Jesus can't eat it, we don't serve it." Eric Weber"Resting and receiving is not the absence of doing. It's a state of being." Peter Glynn

Resources

• Subscribe so every episode drops right into your feed.
• More field notes: canyonpathways.org/blog
• Bring our table to your inbox — the weekly devotional: canyonpathways.org/meditations
• About Canyon Pathways: https://www.canyonpathways.org/about
• Learn about our retreats: https://www.canyonpathways.org/retreats
• The Heart of Man Film: http://heartofmanmovie.com
• The Canyon Pathways Spotify playlist: https://canyonpathwayspodcast.com/cpspotify
  
  

Produced by the team at Maroon Harpoon LTD. Thank you to our donors who make this venture possible — and thank you, friend, for being part of this Canyon Pathways community as we together live like sons and lead like fathers.