The Art of Gathering: The Invitation

Words & Photography
by Brooklyn Wagner

THE INVITATION

I recently heard someone say that a good gathering isn’t really good at all unless there is someone present that we don’t actually want to be there.

Let me reframe that.

Oftentimes, the best kind of dinner party isn’t actually the best if you have only invited people that do something for you. In fact, the best guests to have around a dinner table are those that need each others’ love, words, listening ears, laughs, time, and friendship…not the ones that need each others’ Instagram followers. These are the ones that need to hold your hand when all the other guests have gone, not the one who can tell their story the loudest. The ones that need to believe they are wanted, not the ones that you need to want you back. The ones that check their phones to see a text from you to go ice skating and wonder if you sent that to the right person. The ones that sit quietly waiting for an honest question, rather than an intellectual argument. The secretly funny, quietly ambitious, patiently strugglin’, marvelous people that don’t like to tell you all of these things about themselves until you incline an ear. The ones that you don’t get along with sometimes. The ones that do not always get your jokes. The ones that show up late or wayyyy too early. The ones that live alone. The ones that live...alone.



I am a loud, obnoxious know-it-all sometimes and can push these people right off the edge of the bench so that my ego can have more breathing room. So, as life would have it, I am encountered by the smack-me-like-a-brick-in-the-face awareness that I must overcome myself to love others deeply, widely, intimately, and naturally…especially when they completely deserve it and I can be the lucky one to give it.

The secretly funny, quietly ambitious, patiently strugglin’, marvelous people that don’t like to tell you all of these things about themselves until you incline an ear.

All of our great intentions can be, and likely will be, swept away by the wind unless we land them. And while I can live 10,000 feet off the ground with most of my ideas, people in my life have taught me that my integrity will always be eroded until I say yes to less and pick the right things to give energy and time.

So, practically (there is a word I do not always want, but always need) how do we include? How do we invite the right people to the right things at the right times? Sounds like a task that no one could possibly get right.

Honestly, planning a gathering with people just means you have to care enough to think about who ought to be there, care enough to act on what you discover, and care enough to follow-up with them, over and over again. Yes, that is it. It’s hard, but it’s valuable.



I am about to say something pretty (incredibly) ridiculous, but bear with me. I think we should strive for a mentality similar to Harry and Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber. I think we can laugh our way through our learning to invite the right people into our lives by slowing down enough to see who we are passing by, and “Pick ‘em UP!” That’s real.

But remember to invite the oft forgotten, overlooked, and overshadowed. These humans are the best to prepare a table for, because they need it...

Fill your table with people you like, by all means, and enjoy each other! But remember to invite the oft forgotten, overlooked, and overshadowed. These humans are the best to prepare a table for, because they need it, they want it, and they cannot give you something in return. It changes every life involved, little by little, meal by meal, as you gobble up each helping of love, grace, tenderness, thoughtfulness, and relationship. May your invitation be as whole-hearted as it can, in the end, and make every present heart whole.