Featured: Elbows on the Table
Five times a year, I share my writing in Cultivating, a lovely publication offered by Cultivating Oaks Press. Each edition is an absolute feast for the soul. Below are the opening few paragraphs of first essay for my new column, “Cultivating Character in Young Oaklings” for the Winter 2026 edition about Renewing Gratitude. You can read the full version of my article exclusively in the online edition. While you’re there, I hope you will enjoy the thoughtful, deep work of my fellow Cultivators. They are kind, wise, and stay close to Jesus’s side, and they have beautiful words to offer. Enjoy!
Cultivating Character in Young Oaklings is a column that celebrates the good gift and the sacred charge to the people of God to participate with Him in nurturing the youngest among us—our oaklings—toward transformation into the image of Jesus Christ. As those who belong to the One who called children to Himself and proclaimed that “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Luke 18:6 NIV), we will explore what it means to invite children into Story of the restoration of all things, and how they might grow in Christ-like virtue as they take their God-given place in that Story.
One Sunday morning each year, in an act teetering on the edge of unfettered chaos, my church’s priests and deacons invite the children of our church to crowd around the communion table for the weekly eucharistic liturgy. As the shortest ones nudge their way to the front and the big brothers and sisters stand behind them barely balanced on tiptoe, the priests ask the kids what they observe (“Bread!” “A fancy cup!” “Are those candles real?” “What is that spoon for?”), and explain what it all means and how each element helps us to receive the gospel (or, in the case of the spoon, to retrieve bread that gets accidentally dropped into the cup).
Later comes the most glorious and nerve-wracking part of this once-a-year celebration: the deacons place the plates piled high with bread and the chalices filled to the brim with wine into several pairs of small, eager hands. These children stretch their growing limbs high above their heads, offering these elements to the congregation.
As the lower edge of tilting plates receive an upward nudge from a priest, an adult hand ready to spring into steadying action hovers near the cups, and the congregation holds its breath, I notice a little girl standing at the table’s edge. Her small, round face is raised in wonder, and her elbows are planted firmly on the table as she leans toward the Bread and the Wine. Where I come from, the position of her elbows would have received a raised eyebrow and a gentle correction from whichever adult noticed first. But I recognize in her posture not what manners experts (and my grandma) would have seen as a breach of table etiquette, but rather the comfortable assurance and settled un-self-consciousness of belonging. This little girl knows that she is welcome at this table, and that what is offered upon it is for her. As I watch her, gratitude for the kindness of the Lord of this Table washes over me afresh.