I traveled to Austin, Texas a few weeks back, and spent part of Saturday night at the Broken Spoke. People were dancing and having a good time. One of my friends pointed out that lots of the people there would probably be enjoying themselves in other ways after they left, and I guess he was right. I kind of just enjoyed the fact that all these people were gathered together, dancing a little Texas swing, chattin’ with each other, and some chattin’ each other up. Some were there to dance, others to drink, others to talk; I don’t guess that anyone was there to be alone.
“We gather together” starts the old song, and gather we do. I gathered with friends in Austin–6 short of a minyan, but we often found oursleves in larger companies of people, either at the Broken Spoke, Louie Mueller’s, Threadgill’s, or La Condesa. We gathered for food and drink and and entertainment and company. And we weren’t the only ones.
Even though we weren’t eating with people at those restaurtants, or sharing pitchers of Lone Star with people at the tables, the experience was made better by their presence. Even more than homo sapiens we are homo congregantur; we just want to be together. Of course, it helps to have an excuse, like dinner, or, for that matter, church.
What makes gathering for church different than gathering to dance at the Broken Spoke? No, really. When isn’t there some element of the divine evoked when we gather well? We may not say that, we may not even want to acknowledge it (and for my atheist friends any discussion of the divine will cause a fair amount of consternation). And still, we gather.
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