Have you ever joined or hosted a potluck? When was the last time you invited neighbors, friends, and strangers to break bread and talk for an hour about just one topic? Does the thought terrify you? Make you anxious? Indifferent? Or just say, “No thanks, not my thing”?
When I lived in Chicago, I was inspired by author Christoper Phillips’s Socrates Café. He was on a mission to spark curiosity and get people not just talking but asking meaningful questions. With his inspirational thoughts fresh on my mind, I mustered up the courage to work with a very popular independent bookstore and to host the conversations in their cafe.
The bookstore posted flyers, and every other Saturday, I would arrive early with chairs in a circle and sit with the fear that no one would show up to my party. But they did. A small group of brave strangers came together to talk about ideas like “What does it mean to live a purposeful life?” and “What does genuine friendship feel like?”
The groups got so large we had to increase our frequency to weekly gatherings and create a waiting list for cancellations—a sign of just how thirsty everyone was for real connections.
What my Saturday regulars and I experienced was that good conversations are hard to find. It’s difficult to have deep interactions with differing opinions, let alone participate in a genuine dialogue where you feel seen and heard.
Today, there’s always some “side” you have to choose to get any sense of belonging. What’s more, when front stoops evolved to backyards, some of us lost our sense of connection and conversation with our neighbors. Our ability to text or call via smartphone further caused our face-to-face interactions to feel surreal and occasionally awkward simply due to our lack of practice.
When the bookstore closed down, I moved the Socrates Café gatherings to Dinner Dialogues, and our apartment became known as the best place to have a meal and a meaningful conversation. I share my mom’s desire to cook something that nourishes the body and makes you want the recipe.
As a professional facilitator, I couldn’t help but create some ground rules, ensure that everyone got a chance to share and be seen, and make space for emerging dialogue—not just opinions or debate. As the meetings evolved, so did our philosophical and heart muscles. We became well versed in sticking to one topic, really listening to each other and to the emerging conversation, and being curious and inviting about different perspectives.
Last week we hosted a potluck and had a newcomer join the conversation. When I shared one of the ground rules—that we ask everyone to kindly not speak twice until everyone has a chance to speak once—our new guest took a breath and said “Just hearing that made me know this was going to be so different.”
My reason for hosting Dinner Dialogue is purely selfish: I have great joy in seeing how connected and fulfilled others feel afterward. It’s such an incredible feeling to break bread, share thoughts, learn from each other, expand our perspectives, laugh, listen deeply, become more curious, and focus our attention for an hour in dialogue.
Would you be willing to host a potluck?
It might be a little scary, but I’m a big fan of challenging ourselves to expand our ability to sit with discomfort—not the push-harder-and-up or to-the-right and do-better discomfort we get everywhere we go.
I’m talking about the discomfort of inviting people to a party and hoping they show up or the discomfort of wondering whether people will have a good time and not being able to control if they do or don’t.
The discomfort of sitting in a genuine dialogue with people and not chatting about the weather or work.
The discomfort of sitting with people you don’t know and listening from a different place.
The discomfort of sitting with a pause, when no one says anything for a minute. If you’re up for it, I’ve created a handy and easy guide to hosting your potluck dialogue. It includes dos and don’ts for a good experience and various topics you can choose along with suggested text for an invite! Click here for the guide!
