Crowded Table

Orientation in Chicago

I have arrived in Chicago to start orientation with the entire 2025-2026 cohort! I have packed one large checked suitcase, one carry on suitcase, one medical bag and one backpack. That visual itself is wild to me and highlights the true necessities of life.

The last few weeks have been an emotional to say the least. Full of anxiety and emotions running at an all time high. I spent the first week of August figuring out logistics: calling the bank, figuring out medication, going to appointments, farewell gatherings with close friends and family etc. That part was ‘easy’, but a 9-5 job that I wasn’t expecting.

The second week of August, I had allotted for packing, cleaning/ organizing my spaces at home and finishing up my pain course work. What I hadn’t planned for was that my body was completely exhausted, from off-boarding at my workplaces, cleaning out the garage the week prior and the errands upon errands that needed to be accomplished. I ended up needing to give my body an intentional time of rest, which was good.. but paired with the heavy emotions of leaving my communities of support, felt very overwhelming.

One song that has helped me ground myself, and ease into this new life transition is called ‘Crowded Table’ by The Highwomen. I heard it first at the August Twin Cities Gather (young adults group, a ministry of the ELCA) and have had it on repeat since. It pretty much made me cry immediately when it was a worship song in our first opening worship at the retreat center last night.

“I want a house with a crowded table

And a place by the fire for everyone

Let us take on the world while we're young and able

And bring us back together when the day is done”

These lyrics from the chorus are simple, yet immensely powerful and highlight community care and togetherness as the main pillar of life. A call for building a longer table (not a higher wall), and an open invitation to come as you are. A call for coming home to love and care.

Living as a young adult in 2025 is pretty scary. It feels like we are fighting against heart breaking evils left and right, everywhere we turn. From local and global political leadership that has created monumental undue harm— to the increasingly vast amounts of environmental and geographic devastation, it all feels pretty hopeless.

At the end of the day, life is hard, the trials and tribulations of injustice are ingrained in the systems we’ve either created, or have let slide by. Whose story is being told? and whose story is being weaponized, demonized and villainized?

When it all boils down, I think everyone has an enate desire to stay in community and light. That is what matters, that is what needs to be focused on. That is what brings me hope, and what I look forward to the most this year. Being a part of, and creating a crowded table that will bring us together when the day is done.