‘When you have more than what you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.’ (anonymous)
My wife Val and I have just returned from a trip to KwaZulu-Natal for the main purpose of eating with people.
Okay, that’s not entirely accurate so let me maybe give a little more detail. Our main reason for visiting the Durban area – apart from getting to hang out with some of our favourite people in the world – was to engage with some people around some significant topics as we shared meals together.
We call these meals Deep Dive Conversation Dinners, excepting for the rather larger one (50 to 70 people I think) that we hosted at Westville Baptist church. But the idea is gathering a number of people around a table, eating together and then exploring a specific topic together in-depth.
GENEROSITY DINNER
One of the dinners we hosted was called a Generosity Dinner where we invited all the participants to donate money towards a common pool and then share dinner with us. As we ate we shared some stories of people we cared about who were facing some needs at the moment.
As each need was shared we leaned into what we love to call ‘the wisdom of the group’ to see what creative solutions we could come up with as well as deciding where the money would go to. I can honestly say that every single need that was shared had a next step or two in terms of meeting or addressing the need in some way.
Some needs were met through the money, some through great ideas and still others through relationship capital (in other words “I know someone who can help”).
If you are ever wanting to get creative with how you do giving with a group of friends, you should get hold of the folks at Common Change and ask them to hook you up.
DEEP DIVE RACE DINNERS
The other three dinners we did (and one afternoon session) dealt specifically with conversations about race.
The first one was a group of white people wrestling with what it means to be a white person in South Africa in terms of responsibility and learning and walking towards.
The other meals all involved a more racially diverse group of people sharing stories of encountering privilege or prejudice, grappling with what it means to pay a living wage rather than a minimum wage to someone who works for you, and what is an emotion you are feeling as someone living in South Africa right now.
THE POWER OF STORIES MIXED WITH FOOD
I find that social media is a great place to start conversations (or arguments) but real life is a great place to finish them, or at least move them on.
The idea of hosting a Deep Dive Dinner is to get people to really engage with an important topic for hours rather than a few minutes, or not at all, as might normally be the case. Doing it around a meal feels like a really safe place to work through things together.
We celebrate our peopleness by eating together and then we honour each other by taking time to listen to stories and share some thoughts.
The heart of the Deep Dive Dinners has been stories, because it is hard to argue against someone’s lived experience. But it is a powerful tool for learning when someone is vulnerable and shares their hurt or excitement, fear or anger and you take some time to really just let it penetrate you.
THE VOYAGE OF THE DEEP DINNER
In the C.S.Lewis fantasy series ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’, the character Aslan, who is a lion, is described in this way:
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Which is often how we introduce the space to people who have chosen to deep dive with us. We are seeking to create a safe place but that doesn’t mean it won’t be uncomfortable or awkward, or at times painful.
The idea at the end of the evening is not that everyone will leave thinking the same thing or having drawn the same conclusions. But the commitment is to engage with people and ideas that are different to you in the hope that you will either learn something new or feel stronger in a belief you already had.
Our hope is that Deep Dive Dinner Conversations will happen all across the country and throughout Africa and beyond. Not as a brand or with any kind of “right way” of doing them. But just the invitation for people who desire to see life move forward well together, committing to spend some time wrestling with things that matter.
Is this something you would like to do? What topic of conversation do you think you would position yours around?