The Cafeteria

On my college campus, the cafeteria was on the top floor of our campus center building.  The only way to access the food line was to climb a flight of stairs and enter a single door.  While we stood on the stairs some folks would entertain us with silly antics and others would read their textbooks.  Still other students just stood there with a shy properness about them with only one thing on their mind--eating!

The thought of waiting in that stairwell brings back a range of emotions for me.  If I was with a friend (or my someday-to-be fiancee) I enjoyed the experience.  There was laughter and friendship and chatting.  But if I was climbing those stairs alone, I was anxious and uncomfortable--who would I sit with;  would someone invite me to their table;  would there be room for me?

Once I got through the door into the food line, I would pick up a baby aspirin orange cafeteria tray (also useful for sledding in the winter months), some tinny flatware, a napkin, and I would begin to choose food from the metal bins.  Then I would get a drink, take a deep breath and go through the next door which opened into the dining room, hoping like everything that there would be someone I knew who had an empty seat at their table.  I hated that moment of uncertainty, disconnectedness, aloneness with a passion.

In the midst of those cafeteria memories I have one standout memory of a day when my Dean of Women invited me to have lunch with her.  She had become a mentor and a friend to me so I readily accepted her invitation.  She and I climbed the stairs, moved through the food line and then went into the dining room but my friend did not stop at any of the round tables.  She moved to the end of the dining room took out a key and unlocked the door to the President's Dining Room--a private dining space for the President to use at his disposal.  We sat down at the beautiful wooden banquet table in comfortable chairs and placed our modest trays down to have our meal together. 

In that simple lunch, we discussed my "after graduation" plans.  My mentor spoke of the gifts and talents she saw in me and she even affirmed something she thought I would do in my lifetime--something I still carry in my heart to this day, some thirty years later, waiting for the moment when it becomes a reality. 

Tonight Jim and I went on a "Dunkin' Donuts" date, and while we rode in the car with our coffee and smoothie, we began to talk about how we viewed heaven.  Jim asked me what my thoughts were and I told him that, to me, entering heaven felt like our college cafeteria line.  I can't see into heaven and I am worrying about who I am going to sit with.  I knew that while my answer was an honest one, maybe there was a different perspective that I needed to find.

Then tonight the more we talked, the more it occurred to me that I have the picture wrong.  Heaven is not trying to "go it alone," but rather,  it is being invited to lunch by the one who has access to the banquet room.  It is a personal, intimate time of love, care and affirmation--the whole dining room is filled with people but in that moment it's all about God, my creator, protector and nurturer and me.   In the gospels Jesus says, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”