The Resilience Dinner
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” – Booker T. Washington
It was fall 2021, three years since starting Meshin with the idea of a connecting meal experience. Two and a half years since the first trial meal experience gathering Meshin’s early clients and supporters at Living Roots urban winery. In between these two dinners was the global pandemic.
I was anxious to give the meal experience another try. We needed it now more than ever. Meshin narratives bring to life the principles of intentional presence, openness, inclusion and gratitude. After all we’d been through, the emotional and life altering tumult following COVID, I realized each Meshin Meal is an opportunity to reinforce even more meaning into the narrative.
Resilience was the perfect thread to weave into the first Meshin Meal supporting a cause–just as the original idea intended. And the YWCA was the perfect organization to support during the holiday season with this theme.
We gathered as friends, acquaintances and strangers at my house in a dinner party format. Resilience was celebrated throughout the night. In the unfolding of the narrative with each course and custom, like setting the table for each other with the prompt, “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” – Booker T. Washington. And resilience was woven into the story of the wines paired with each course. One of the guests is a wine distributor for T. Edward Wines and chose wines that carried resilience in the story of their wine-makers or the terroir of the vineyards.
The resilience dinner nurtured us all, as we celebrated ideas like “Most of what we think will kill us, won’t.”* I wanted to replicate it for my birthday and invited my friends to join me for another resilience meal with each friend donating to our gift-giving fund to support the Adopt-A-Family holiday campaign for the YWCA of Greater Rochester.
Reigniting the Meshin Meal experience in this new home-made dinner party format was resilience itself. Finally bringing back to life the idea of connection around a table and paying it forward by connecting with our community.
Every Meshin Meal ends with a contemplation on gratitude, during dessert, of course. We ended this dinner with gratitude for being together in real life, connecting around a table once again with a conte that, “We’re never too far away from warmth and shelter.”
Writing these narratives and bringing them to life through a meal experience unites my purpose, my creative spirit, and my commitment to social giving. The best of joyful work! I hope to have you around the table sometime.
~Laura
*Sourced from The School of Life
