Dinner on the Grounds

Summer is already over. But I’m still thinking about those warm days—like that Sunday in July when we had our church picnic. I grew up going to church picnics–”dinner on the grounds” as we used to call it.

While preparing food for the July get-together, I found myself humming an old hymn while I flew around the kitchen. I had this strange sense of excitement about the next day’s picnic. And in the middle of stirring up a pink fluff salad I figured out why.

Some of my best memories of childhood are at potlucks “on the grounds.” My parents and grandparents all attended a little Bible church in Independence, Missouri. Back in the ‘50’s my family showed up every time the doors were opened. It was a place where I felt loved—not just by my parents, but by an entire congregation. I never felt more a part of God’s family than at one of those pot luck picnics.

I stopped cooking long enough to go downstairs and find a picture of me and my mother standing under the trees outside our country church. Behind us are Betty, Pansy, Mary and others arranging the tables with piles of wonderful food. My mother is young with a plaid cotton skirt. She’s holding my hand. I’m a little 5-year-old girl with pigtails, a Sunday dress and a big smile. Those picnics were a safe place where a little girl could run and play within the boundaries of God’s people. And that is why I still get excited about dinner on the grounds.

Memories like that, have kept me close to people like that, for over 50 years. At our church picnic in July, I took a lot of pictures of children standing with people who love them. When life gets tough, memories of a church picnic just might keep them connected to a safe place surrounded by God’s people.

Tagged as: Girl, God, Independence Missouri, Picnic, Religion and Spirituality