Fridays At Avalon

Fridays at Avalon

The clock over the long serving counter at Avalon Diner says it’s 7:30 a.m. Booths and tables have already filled just an hour after the diner doors opened. Cups clink and conversation hums. With her smile and hairnet in place, Patsy stands at the grill, scrambling the lightest, fluffiest eggs you’ve ever eaten in your life. Cassie, Sarah, Brenda, and Ronnie deliver breakfast orders amid the cheerful chaos, their moves as smooth as syrup flowing over a hot short stack.

For twenty-five-plus years, my dad and I have met in this midtown diner on Friday mornings and shared what we’ve come to think of as our table—the fourth booth on the right, nearest the kitchen. The space between us—two feet of scarred and slightly greasy Formica—has been filled with conversation, easy silence, tears, and laughter. The distance between Dad’s face and mine is measurable. The height and depth and breadth of our shared connection forged over time is not.

Now if one of us sits down at our table without the other, we’re quickly asked, “Where’s Mac?” or “Where’s Leigh?” My oldest niece began to join us when she attended college nearby, and to our friends at Avalon she is “Baby Girl.” When she married and had a baby girl of her own, my grandniece made delightful guest appearances. Once, a gentleman dining alone in the booth opposite ours took off his glasses, folded his paper, smiled at our intergenerational gathering, and said, “I’m just enjoying your breakfast.” It never occurred to me before that what we were doing was anything but ordinary.

My connection with my heavenly Father is meant to be just as real and intimate and life giving as any ordinary Friday at Avalon. Every day, God lays a meal before his children, and his winsome hospitality beckons us to come and eat and enjoy his presence and love. I know that I belong at that table. I am expected and wanted there, just as I am each Friday in the fourth booth on the right, the one nearest the kitchen, where my earthly father waits for me.

I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.

Revelation 3:20