When people hear the word “communion,” they usually think of
the Christian service of sharing bread and wine (or grape juice) in
commemoration of Jesus’s last supper with his friends. Yet the first definition
of the word in the American Heritage Dictionary is not in the least religious at
all: “The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings.” The word
“communion” comes from a Latin word meaning “mutual participation,” and it has
the same root as such words as “common” and “community.” So a family eating
dinner together—an act that for many families has become rare—can be seen as a
kind of spiritual communion.
During the next 20 minutes, discuss questions such as the
following (or whatever else this topic brings up):
·Did people in your household eat together when you were
growing up? Either way, what was that like?
·Do you regularly share meals with other people today?
Either way, what is it like?
