A Table for the Roundtable Gathering
Posted on | October 15, 2009 | 1 Comment
The Roundtable Worship Gathering has met at First United Methodist Church in Waynesville for over six years. I finally got around to making them a table! While other communion tables have featured grapes, wheat, doves, and related symbols, I decided on a simple, abstract design that I had already developed for a smaller table used in the Cornerstone Class at First Methodist. Constructed of walnut and maple, its top contains two crossed mandorlas, ancient womb symbols used to frame the Christ and Mary. They also remind us of the fish — the earliest Christian symbol. The extended arcs reach out to embrace all at the table and beyond. The circle motif at the core of roundtable worship is carried through in the design of the pedestal. The circle of purpleheart at the center symbolizes the love at the core of all creation.
FUMC Table
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William J. Everett
In my teaching career I authored eight books and numerous articles in social ethics and religion. After over thirty years of academic work — in Germany, India, and South Africa as well as in the United States — I wanted to turn my hand to a poetically written novel to probe the issues of ecological and human reconciliation.
When I am not writing, I create furniture for worship settings. For more about my work, go to www.WisdomsTable.net, where you will also find galleries of artwork by my wife Sylvia, whose ancestors were the original inspiration for Red Clay, Blood River. Click to read my complete bio...
Red Clay Blood River
Red Clay, Blood River is a story told by Earth about two brothers from Germany and an enslaved South African woman whose lives bind together America’s “Trail of Tears” and South Africa’s simultaneous “Great Trek” of 1838. Memories of their journeys through oppression, estrangement and reconciliation reverberate in the lives of three contemporary students brought together by their interests in ecology. Through their often difficult friendship and a surprising discovery they begin to unravel the mystery of their estrangements, struggles, and deep connections to each other and to the earth.
Based on extensive research in the United States, South Africa, and England, this book takes readers through a sweeping saga of love and conflict in the context of emigration, invasion, slavery, and exploitation. Through its stories we are invited to see our fractured human history from within the sensibilities of an earth that seeks the flourishing of all creatures and transcends their deaths within its life.
I welcome you to read Excerpts from Red Clay Blood River.
You can also view some Reader's Responses to the book.
If you are already reading Red Clay, Blood River, check out the Reader's Guide and Glossary of Names.
If you are in a Book Club, go to the Guide for Discussion Groups.
If you want to know more about people who helped me in writing this book check out the People Present at the Creation.
October 15th, 2009 @ 8:44 pm
Bill, what a rich and powerful collection of symbols in one round table! I did think of fish as I first looked at the table. I had not realized that these were womb symbols. Great piece of art!
The beauty of this is that a round table does not create a round table community; it is the other way round – a round table community creates a round table!