Angels at Our Table

The stars once spoke to man. It is world destiny that they are silent now To become aware of this silence Can be pain for earth humanity. But in the deepening silence There grows and ripens What man speak to the stars. To become aware of this speaking Can become strength for Spirit Man.

Rudolph Steiner

At Harvard Business School they probably don't instruct students to discuss strategic business decisions with their customers, particularly in terms of the evolution of the consciousness soul and world destiny. Perhaps they are right. Confining such conversations to the realm of "what" engenders a certain sense of solidity. Embracing woo-woo and the murky realm of "why" does have its downside. I posit here however that the concepts of what and why are best understood when packaged together. It's all about Faith.

Faith is much misunderstood. The word "faith" typically refers to knowledge and convictions that are not supported by material evidence or proof. It would be more useful if folks would simply settle for believing something without invoking faith in order to recast their beliefs as knowledge. Using faith to transmogrify beliefs into facts provides a false sense of security and often forestalls additional reasonable inquiry. It becomes a means to shelve some of life's greatest riddles.

Properly understood, Faith is not a substitute from of knowledge; Faith is an actualizing force. Faith was not essential in earlier epochs of evolution when "the Stars once spoke to man" and the relationship between human beings and the hierarchies was ordered much differently. But that was then, and this is now. Now we are left with only our own volition and powers of divination. Our angels no longer actuate their will directly through us but instead are chained to our bumbling and dithering. It is only when we act, when we take the "right" next step, that these angels are set free to do their work and to fulfill their own destinies. This freeing of the hierarchies is called Faith. Faith occurs when we use accurate intuition, or divination, and combine that knowledge with our courage and, accordingly, our Will. Faith is an actualizing force that unleashes the hierarchies and sets all manner of events into motion. Now that's leverage!

The real trick is to do our work and take the necessary steps before the angels get fed up with waiting and attempt to force our hand, usually by inspiring events to beat the tar out us. We have all had experiences in our lives that seemed so upsetting at the time and now, looking back, we see perfect wisdom. We look around and see people we love that we wouldn't have met or find ourselves doing fulfilling work that we would never have discovered but for these upsetting events in our past. Yet wouldn't it have been nice if we could have found our way without the beatings?

Such is the perusing of ownership these days at Bethany's Table as we chart our next steps. It was seemingly serendipity that landed us in this business when the previous owner, David's sister Shelley, threw in the towel. In just a year we have danced and gyrated our way into an enterprise that bears very little resemblance to the business we acquired. We have been clinging to the original conception of our core business to be selling prepared meals. Since Janet is a trained chef, we distinguished our offerings as upgraded from the Dinners Ready menu by branding them as "restaurant quality meals". We started serving lunch to better use the space that was once filled with stainless steel carts and to get people through the door. We started hosting wine tastings in order to feature meals from our menu. One thing lead to another and we started the "What's For Dinner" program with nightly offerings of four to five entrees from our test kitchen. Now we have a full menu and serve dinner five nights per week. Wine tastings and group events are common occurrences.

The transaction volume from lunch and dinner has outpaced prepared meal sales by a significant factor. Yet we have continued to define ourselves as a prepared meal business that is also a restaurant. But this is no longer true. We have unwittingly become a restaurant that also sells prepared meals. We no longer need to brand the meals as "restaurant quality". Of course they are restaurant quality. We are a restaurant; and a good one. So we have decided to remake the meal business to into a more natural offshoot of the restaurant. This singleness of purpose will simplify our message and enhance creativity. The prepared meals menu will be pared down but more flexible with a greater emphasis on seasonality and fresh foods.

Let's hope this makes the angels happy. We could use the leverage.