Episode 08: Laura Cooksey: A Place at the Table
Transcript
Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer.
Andrew: I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.
Patsy: And you are listening to Bridges.
Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations
Patsy: One of the fun things about our guest today is that I met her before I met her. Isn’t that odd?
Andrew: Yes
Patsy: What happened was because I was part of Women of Faith and we had a regular circle of worship singers at our events, and those girls changed from season to season. The new ones that would come in would talk about others they had worked with, and Laura’s name kept coming to the surface — our guest, Laura Cooksey — with the comment of how much they loved her. They would say, “Oh, she’s my best friend.” And after I had heard that at least five different times — “she’s my best friend” — I was really curious, who is this girl. And then she came on the team, and I realized immediately the way she exuded warmth and acceptance that you were drawn into her circle of influence. I see how people would feel that way about her and immediately feel close.
Andrew: If you don’t know Laura Cooksey, you’re going to meet her today, and you’re going to feel like you’ve gained a new best friend. Her affinity not only for music, which is her background and she still continues to sing on all kinds of platforms, stages, and recordings, many things that you have heard that you may not even know that’s Laura’s voice. Very interesting career in music but also her affinity for hospitality, which is born out of a natural heart of welcoming others and wanting others to be seen and heard. So this is a wonderful holiday. This is Part One of our holiday series here at Bridges, and this is going to give you some great thoughts, ideas about how to welcome people into your home, including your own immediate family during this Christmas season.
Patsy: Yes. If you want to add some jingle to your bells for the holidays, this is the way to do it because she has ideas that are so practical. She makes it easy to think we can be just creative geniuses, and it doesn't take a big budget.
Andrew: So listen in.
Patsy: Well, I’m excited because I’ve got a bridge that so captures our guest I can hardly wait to tell you. Andrew, if there’s one thing I know about our guest today, it’s that she and her family love Walt Disney World. And some of the many, many bridges connecting one place to another in that Magical Kingdom are built around the Sassagoula River, a river that winds its way around Disney Port Orleans Resort Riverside. And they did a stellar job designing it because from that bridge, you can see all sorts of amazing views. And what I love about the beckoning of a bridge and the hospitality that says you will not be stopped by water or by a great ravine, but you’re invited to cross over the other side, is that that’s part of the heart of our guest. She is a connector of people, and she exudes a warmth that invites you to be a part of her life. So I think you’re going to really enjoy this.
Andrew: I think absolutely. If there’s one thing we know about our guest today, it’s that she is a true facilitator of hospitality. And of course, she is a Southerner, and if there’s one thing we know about Southerners, they’re definitely into good housekeeping and good hospitality. So will you please make welcome to Bridges today Laura Cooksey, our good friend.
Laura: Yay! Thanks, guys. So fun.
Andrew: Well, one, Walt Disney World. Anyone that knows you know that there’s a large affinity in your family for Walt Disney World. Do you know the bridge we’re talking about?
Laura: I do know the bridge. We love Walt Disney World. I grew up loving Disney, but I’ve really come to love Disney as an adult as I’ve gotten some opportunity to work with them and record for them. And of course, I don’t know many kids who don’t love Disney. And not that I judge you if you don’t, but I mean, I might have some feelings about that if you’re not a big Disney fan. We do love it in our family, and we’ve had the opportunity to go several times, both to Florida and California. And wow, it’s just magic every time.
Patsy: Who did you do voices for?
Laura: So there is a producer here in Nashville, Mark Hammond, and he is incredible at what he does. He’s produced a ton of records that you would know about. Several years ago, he kind of made the foray into doing some production for Disney parks worldwide, and so what I’ve gotten to do in working with him over the last decade or so is to be the voice for some different songs for castle shows at all the Disney parks and parades and be a princess voice and do lots of things. I got to sing the Disneyland theme song for the 60th anniversary of Disneyland, so just some really cool opportunities.
Andrew: Was that like a dream come true, just to be partnered with Disney?
Laura: It was. It was actually really a cool thing for me because as a kid I always wanted to sing for Disney, but I didn’t really want to work in a park, you know. And I didn’t want to live in Florida or California, and so as a singer in Nashville, I thought, Well, that’s never going to happen. And lo and behold, it did.
Patsy: Dream come true.
Laura: It really was. And it was really cool getting to stand there, too, several times, either in front of the castle or watching a parade go by with my family, and seeing it through my kids’ eyes too, which was super fun.
Patsy: Wow. Speaking of children and hospitality and an open heart and an open front door, you changed dramatically the landscape of your home almost overnight. Can you tell the audience about that, first of all prior and then at that moment?
Laura: Yes. So my husband, Kyle, and I were married for about 12 years before we had children. And what’s interesting is that Kyle and I’ve always wanted to have an open home, and that’s something that’s been important to us. Even prior to having children, we had some single gals live with us for a time if they were kind of in transition or looking for a place to live for a while or just needed sort of a safe space to grow and heal. And so that’s always been a part of our story and kind of our heartbeat as a couple.
And then the Lord began to turn our hearts toward the idea of adoption. Really actually when we were dating, we talked about wanting to adopt at some point. We also wanted to have biological children, and kind of got into our marriage, several years into our marriage, and decided it’s time to start a family. We did not get pregnant, and we went through some kind of mild fertility things and felt like we didn’t need to take that any further at the time. And so we began to look at adoption and what would it look like to open our home to children.
Initially, we thought we would adopt internationally, and then just through a series of events and really God connections, we were connected with an organization in Arkansas called Project Zero, and their heart is to zero out the foster care system of waiting kids in the state of Arkansas. And at that time, they had a surplus of, like a huge amount of, multi-sibling groups that were needing adoption. They were in foster care waiting to be adopted, so parental rights had been terminated and all of that had been done, and these kids were waiting. There was just an overwhelming need.
So we found out about that, and we thought we might adopt two, but then the Lord made us aware of our three that we have now. And so we did go from two, being two only children…
Andrew: You and your husband are only children?
Laura: Uh-huh. How about that? Grew up in a very quiet household. And we went from being two only children in a pretty big house by ourselves to the next day being a family of five, and our children at the time when we adopted them were 3, 6, and 9. That’s been about six and a half years ago.
Patsy: That much time has gone by?
Laura: Yes, you can see it in my wrinkles and in my gray hair that I try to cover up.
Andrew: I remember seeing the video of your community as your children came home, just the support and the overwhelming, really, support is what I saw and excitement, people who obviously had been in the journey along with you. Take us back in that journey. So when you and your husband, Kyle, decide you’re ready to start a family — two people with very thriving careers, very adventurous life, lots of travel, lots of exciting things, a very full life in general — decide you want to start a family and biologically is not moving in the direction maybe you first thought it would. What were your feelings at that point? Was it a complete openness to, Okay, let’s go this direction. We wanted to adopt anyway. Or was there a period of having to kind of reconcile reality with what was going on?
Laura: Yeah. I think at that time there was really an openness because we thought, Well, biological children, that’s maybe not completely off the table, but for now it is. And so we just sort of went forward with the adoption process, and I think we grieved anything about biological children at that point. Now, there have been some different sort of markers along the way since then where we’ve sort of had to reckon with those ideas and where we are and the reality of what our family looks like.
But at that time, we were so desirous to be parents, and our godson and his cousin lived with us for three years, so we got to have a 5-and-a-half year old all the way until he was almost 9 live with us. That was wonderful, and we got to sort of co-parent sort of loosely in a way there. Our hearts were so wanting to be a mom and dad.
It’s a lot to take on three at once.
Andrew: From zero especially.
Laura: From zero to three. And it’s not just three. It’s three talking, feeling people who have gone through a lot in their short lifetimes, a lot. I mean, more than all of us probably have experienced combined in their very short lifespans so far. So helping to unpack that on a day-to-day basis and loving through that and nurturing through that is challenging at times, but it’s also the most wonderful thing that we’ve ever had the privilege of being a part of.
Andrew: What would you say has been the greatest challenge of inviting your three children into your home who, again, have already had a history, who have already lived some life that was not together with you guys, and now joining those lives together. What has been the biggest challenge?
Laura: I think you kind of said it. Some of it is that you’re invited, we’re invited, to be a part of the healing process of some things that we didn’t contribute to.
It might’ve been our mutual friend, Anita Renfroe, one time that said, “Save money for your kid’s wedding and for their therapy.” I think it was Anita, and I was like, That is brilliant advice. We have our own things that I’m sure our kids will need to talk out with somebody when they’re grown one day, just as we all do. But sometimes it’s hard. And again, their biological parents did what they knew to do, and they hadn’t necessarily been parented well themselves. We see the effect of generational breakdown in family, and being a part of that healing process, it’s a journey. It is not overnight. It is not a snap your fingers. There’s not a magic anecdote. It is a true walking it out.
And when you’re a child, you learn to cope in a way to survive. And then having to kind of transition from that survival mode to, I’m safe. I don’t need those same tools. We can process that a little bit more as adults, but even as adults, we have a hard time. So walking that out with children, that’s probably some of the hardest things that we have experienced.
We’ve got great resources here in town, and Nashville and even where we live in our county has a really wonderful adoptive community, and I’m so thankful that we’re surrounded by a host of other families in similar situations like us. Our church has a great adoption ministry. That’s been really helpful in our journey also.
Patsy: Speaking of church, you are very active there on the worship team, which is a lovely thing, and I first met you in a circle of worship at Women of Faith. I’d heard about you long before I got to meet you. I was really looking forward to it because the word was out that you were everybody’s best friend. And I think that has to do, again, with that spirit of hospitality. I found a quote that said, “True hospitality has the power to bridge distances, however far they stretch.” Do you agree with that?
Laura: I absolutely agree with that. One of the things I’ve been working on this year is something called The Thoughtful Table, and it’s a lifestyle kind of brand that we launched, and I think the table is a bridge. One of my favorite things to do around the table is sit down with people who might not have the same experiences I’ve had or might not look like me or might not have grown up in a way that I’ve grown up and just shut my mouth and learn. There’s something so incredible when we share a meal and we break bread together because I think there’s sort of a disarming in gathering around a table.
You as an artist I think would get this, Patsy. There are different mediums that you can choose to paint with, and you know that whatever medium you choose, there will be an outcome sort of based around that medium. And I think the table is such a unique medium where conversations that might not otherwise be had can be had in a spirit of safety. The table, in some ways, can act as this sanctuary of sorts where we can let down our guard and say things that we might not say in another form, we might not feel safe to say. So I love the idea of hospitality and what it can truly do for community and for relationships.
“The table can act as this sanctuary where we can let down our guard and say things that we might not say in another form.”
Patsy: You’ve been listening to Bridges, and we will be back in a moment.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: “Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? Rely on the Lord! Be strong and confident! Rely on the Lord!” Those are the last two verses of Psalm 27 from the Abide Bible. It is a new bible that has been in my home now for several months, so I’ve had time to work with it and it to work inside of me. It offers beautiful, old art that is associated with verses, so it helps it to become a bigger picture in our mind and our retention is improved. It has places for us to journal on the side as we read. It also has instructions on how to pray this Scripture, how to meditate on it, how to contemplate it so we can sit and soak in God’s Word and allow it to dwell richly within us.
Andrew: What I love about the Abide Bible is that it’s invitational, not just informational. It’s inviting us not to just exercise the Word of God in our head but to really invite it to dwell in our hearts, which to me reminds me of John 15:4: “Abide in me and I in you.” So you can order your copy of the Abide Bible today at bridgesshow.com/abide.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: I’m excited about Food for the Hungry because they know how to get to the need of people. If you meet their needs, then their heart is open to anything else you say, so they’re feeding the children not only to nurture them and prepare them for real life but to hear about Jesus. And one of the ways that they’re able to help these families and it be sustainable is by chickens, Andrew.
Andrew: That’s right. It’s incredible. For just $14, you can provide a family with a chicken, and if you want to multiply that blessing, you can provide them with two chickens for just $28. And we know that chickens multiply, so that’s more eggs for the children to have the protein that they need, for them to sell the extras at market, and those chickens last eight to 10 years. It’s a huge blessing. All you have to do is go to fh.org/bridges.
Patsy: Laura, in our conversation about hospitality and extending yourself to other people, can you tell me your greatest joy in doing that?
Laura: Absolutely. I think one of my favorite things sort of around the idea of hospitality is when I know that somebody either across the table from me or somebody in my home feels really seen and valued, through either something that I’ve made for them that’s like their favorite recipe or their favorite thing to eat or through a conversation that we have or through even a gift that I give that’s maybe something they’ve mentioned in the past that they love. Just seeing someone sort of come alive in that understanding of, Oh, I mean something to you, that’s one of my favorite things about the whole idea of hospitality.
Patsy: Have you been building traditions at the table of direction for conversation?
Laura: Absolutely. For birthdays, birthdays are a big deal in our family, and even with our friends. One of the things that we do for every birthday is we do birthday blessings. We started that when we adopted our kids. The first couple were like super awkward, let’s just be honest. It wasn’t this beautiful… My little kid would be like, “I like that you’re nice sometimes to me.” And I was like, “Okay, guys.” When siblings have to bless each other on birthdays, that can get interesting at times, but we’re growing in it, and I like that we’re practicing this idea of expressing gratitude toward one another in our family. I think that’s so important.
And now our kids look forward to it. There is no chance that birthday blessings are not gonna happen at the end of the night after we have a great meal. We have everybody’s favorite on their birthday, so they get to choose, actually birthday breakfast and birthday dinner, what they want. It’s a big ordeal. They get to choose, and at the end of that time before we open gifts, we do birthday blessings, and it’s become something that we just cherish. My parents always join us too, and so I love also the idea of just multigenerational family getting around a table and speaking life over each other.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s really unique. By the way, my birthday’s July 10.
Laura: Oh great!
Patsy: April 3.
Andrew: Breakfast and dinner, we can put our orders in.
Laura: Yes, put your order in.
Andrew: I love the multigenerational thing, which of course is part of the inspiration of even why we’re sitting here today all together. The table does offer a unique placement, a unique space, not just for people from different parts of life and different lifestyles and all that but different ages. I think it provides a really not just safe space but a desirable space.
I know with my grandparents growing up, who I felt close to, I loved, but I didn’t always know how to connect with them necessarily, especially as I was younger, except around the table. Do you find that the table is this balancing the scales or an evening of sorts?
Laura: I do think so. And it’s funny, I have similar memories. So I grew up with both sets of grandparents for the majority of my childhood and into my 20s, and then actually three out of four of my great-grandparents throughout my childhood, which was such a gift.
Patsy: Wow. Oh my.
Laura: Many of them really had the gift of hospitality. Now, what’s cool is that it played out in different ways. So some of them would really love us through their food and just make sure if you were coming to Sunday lunch, didn’t matter who you were and how far of an extended family member you were, your favorite would be on the table.
My dad’s mom would do that. She grew up in south Georgia, and they had 600 roses in their garden. It was a big deal in Atlanta, and they were in magazines and stuff. But she would take those roses and set a gorgeous table every time, so that’s how she showed hospitality.
But I remember as a kid always getting excited, regardless of the home I would go to, because it was like I know I can count on this to be like this. Even with our own children, there’s something really cool around that because they feel… Year over year, they were in foster care for about three and a half years, so many homes, so many experiences, a lot of uncertainty, and those traditions around the table and that consistency that we’re building around the table also speaks to the safety, I think, in a family and the consistency in a family and why that matters. And it builds security into the fabric of their childhood.
“Traditions around the table speak to the safety and consistency in a family and why that matters.”
Andrew: Absolutely. I just am resonating in so many places and partially because my childhood growing up, while we didn’t have my grandparents — both sets lived further away, so they weren’t necessarily around the table often, maybe just a couple times a year — but my parents and my older brothers and myself, it really was a tradition, and I don’t think this was based on some kind of idyllic thing. It just was my parents’ priority that we sat around the table every night and ate.
And it was wild sometimes. I mean, with three boys, and you know, just with your three kids, it’s like there was so much energy. I talk constantly, so imagine that times 10 as you go along with everyone else. But there was a sense of belonging. It was like no matter what you’ve done today — that could be a really great success or that could be a really profound failure — there was a place for you at the table. Your placemat was there, and it was permanent.
The more I look back, the more security I’ve… I think even my self-esteem, my ability to see myself differently than maybe sometimes someone else said how they saw me, was based all around that table.
You talk a lot about being seen, and The Thoughtful Table, your new brand, which if you follow The Thoughtful Table, you can tell that you are a detail person. The place settings you do, the way you celebrate people through the way you set a table and invite them into your home is both exciting, individual, unique, and profound. But talk about being seen. Like culturally-speaking, I don’t feel very seen culturally, no matter what topic. There’s too many things to compete with.
Laura: Well, yeah. Listening to you talk about growing up and just your experience around the table, the table is a no-phone zone for us, but I think about 2020, sort of all bets are off and we’re not even able to gather in ways that we have in the past, for the time being certainly. And so what’s challenging about that is that we don’t have as many opportunities to bring people outside of our family into our homes in this season. We’ve had to kind of get creative with that through technology. But what’s really cool about it in this season is I think families are getting back to kind of the nucleus of the family because we are living a lot of life together kind of in these concentrated times and spaces.
For us, I’ve seen relationships grow, even with siblings, in a way this season because our kids aren’t out playing with a million other kids in the neighborhood. We are at home as a family eating together, playing together, praying together, fighting together — all the things — but it’s together.
I think when we are getting out in restaurants, and prior to us being in the middle of a pandemic, we were out seeing people. It grieves me so much to see families sitting scrolling through phones at a restaurant. And so I think we’ve really lost the art of seeing one another, and now we can hide behind our screens even in our homes and sort of live in these echo chambers and hear what we want to hear and only allow ourselves to pull information in that we agree with or people who think like us or look like us or have the same experience we have. And so I would submit we are not doing a great job of really looking eyeball to eyeball and seeing one another. And I think the table is a really great way to do that.
And it’s like you said. Oh my goodness, some of our most heated debates happen at the table. And some of our greatest memories and funniest times have happened around the table. It’s all of the above. It’s certainly both/and.
Patsy: Well, I love the title The Thoughtful Table because I think it really captures the heart of everything you’ve been saying to us. How did that come about?
Laura: It’s interesting. I was setting a table a few years ago for a birthday dinner, and the name just popped in my head. I was like, Huh, that’s interesting. I’ve had people say over the years like, “You should do a book, or you should do a thing with your table settings.” And I thought, That would be great. I do not have any of the capacity for that in my life right now. So over the last year, I kind of began feeling like maybe this is the time to sort of explore this. So I began to dig into it a little bit more, and I sat with some people who are far more knowledgeable than I am even about the table throughout history and even the table in Scripture and how we see the importance of that.
I knew that the table always meant a lot to me and I knew that it was so much more than making a beautiful setting, even though that was a part of how I love to make people feel seen and loved, but I knew that what’s important to me about the table is what’s underneath that. And so I just spent some time kind of digging into that.
I remember one of my favorite teachers in town, Kristi McLelland, said, “Every time we gather around a table we are really practicing for the wedding feast of the Lamb.”
Patsy: Oh, that’s lovely. She’s amazing.
Laura: She’s amazing, dear, dear friend, and that just went through me when she said that. I said, “That’s right.” And she said, “Laura, for you as a singer, every time you rehearse, you’re practicing for heaven. Or every time you sing on a Sunday or sit around a piano and worship, whatever, with your family or from a stage, we’re practicing for heaven.” Just that idea that every time we get around a table we are practicing for the ultimate wedding feast is something pretty spectacular I think.
Andrew: We are speaking to the hostess with the most-ess, our friend Laura Cooksey. You like that?
Patsy: I do.
Andrew: And this is Bridges with my good friend and co-host Patsy Clairmont. I’m Andrew Greer, and we’ll be back in a minute.
Andrew: Patsy, I hear that you have a book club.
Patsy: I do. Books are what God used to help heal me, so it delights me to offer that service to others, that they could sign up, anybody. All y’alls, come on in. We want you to join in the book club, and we will read ourselves silly and sane. We’ll have different selections, one every month with a bonus. You can check it out: patsyclairmont.com. And also on that page, you’ll see that I do cheerleading for people. I coach them in helping them stir up their creativity to tell their story. But here’s what I know: You’re into a different kind of storytelling, and you’ve been set up to win awards for what you’ve done.
Andrew: I love music, and I have new record out called Tune My Heart, and it includes some of my really close friends, some of your friends, like Sandra McCracken and Cindy Morgan and Buddy Greene. And you can find that record anywhere you stream or download, or at andrew-greer.com. You know what else, Patsy?
Patsy: What?
Andrew: I’ve got another podcast. It’s not my favorite podcast, but if you like listening to Bridges, then you might like listening to and viewing Dinner Conversations with our pal Mark Lowry and myself. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Prime, or simply go to dinner-conversations.com.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: Andrew, I’m so excited that one of our sponsors is Food for the Hungry because I like people who are feeding people. I say let’s get to the basic need that a person has, and let’s build up from there. And when you feed a child, you feed their brain, you feed their disposition, you feed their ability to have strength to do the hard work that oftentimes is involved, even if it’s just their studies. If the synapses aren’t snapping, it’s gonna really be tough, so Food for the Hungry’s got the right idea, and they’re talking chickens.
Andrew: That’s right, Patsy. Bawk-bawk-bawk. You can give a family a chicken or a pair of chickens to help them find the nutrition they need on a daily basis, as well as these chickens are producing eggs all the time. We know that, right? We have friends and neighbors who have chickens now here in the States, and they provide those eggs, which then can be sold at market. So a chicken is this warehouse of opportunity for a family. Now, get this: You can provide one chicken for a family in need for $14. That’s it. That’s the chicken. That chicken lives for eight to 10 years and provides those daily eggs. It’s incredible. You can provide a pair of chickens, because we know chickens multiply fast, to help that family on an even deeper level for $28.
Patsy: Yes. I love the idea you can double the blessing for just $28, and this goes to countries like Bolivia, Peru, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the Dominican Republic. So it’s a wide reach, and it’s something that God spoke to us about and that is giving to the poor and offering something that will help their life. Let’s feed the hungry.
Andrew: Go to fh.org/bridges to provide some chickens for families in need today.
Patsy: And every chicken you purchase for our friends across the world, it becomes an entry into our first ever Bridges giveaway.
Andrew: That’s right. One winner and a guest will receive roundtrip airfare, one night’s lodging, and ground transportation for a getaway in our hometown, Patsy, of Franklin, Tennessee. Plus, we’ll take you to dinner and interview you on a special episode of Bridges.
Patsy: The winner will be drawn on March 31, 2021, so get your chicken before then.
Patsy: Crossing the bridge back over to you, Laura, and your gift of hospitality. Invite us into the holidays with this thoughtful table.
Laura: Sure. Well, the holidays are interesting this year because I’ve heard from a lot of people who are hosting their immediate family for maybe the first time ever. They’re used to going and traveling, and people are adjusting plans again this year because of the uniqueness of many of our situations. So people are coming to me like, “Help! What do I do?”
What I would say is that you don’t have to overcomplicate things, and do what you love and do what your people love. And so if that is lasagna and Caesar salad, if that’s your favorite meal, then have that on Thanksgiving. I feel like if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that the rules don’t really apply. I would just encourage people to do what they know.
And also, if you do have maybe wedding china that you’ve registered for that you’ve used all of one time in your life, pull it out for the holidays. And involve your children. It doesn’t have to be a big over-the-top thing. It can.
What’s interesting is I’ve heard kind of from people on both ends of the spectrum this year. Some people saying, “I’m tired of being in my house, and so I need my house to have some sparkle this year. So I kind of want to take the holidays to the next level.” And people are decorating for Christmas before we have Halloween. And there is no judgement. I love it. And there might’ve been a hand raised in the room.
Andrew: To my right.
Laura: So it’s either that, or people are like, “I’m exhausted. How can I do this and love my family well but kind of do it simply?” And so what we’re doing at The Thoughtful Table is I’m kind of offering both ideas for a more elegant, sort of over-the-top table setting and then something that’s super simple where you can really use what you have.
I love mixing textures. I love mixing and matching china. It doesn’t have to all be the same. I also love if you have any family heirlooms that have been passed down to you, either glassware or dishes or stemware or linens, whatever.
Andrew: Someone’s ashes.
Laura: Uh, maybe not their ashes. That could get a little interesting, Andrew. But table heirlooms. Are we going to recover from that?
If you’ve got some things like that. Like I’ve got my great-grandmother’s stemware and my great-grandmother’s flatware, and so I love incorporating those around the holidays because they’ve both gone on to be with the Lord, but it’s a way that we can still kind of represent their legacy and I can talk about stories and times around the table at their homes growing up with my kids, and it’s sort of passing on those traditions and legacy to my family.
Patsy: And there are some people who go, “But I don’t really have any idea who my great-grandparents or beyond was, and I don’t have any of their things.” Let me tell you. I ended up with a box of pictures I have no idea who any of those people are, and I just couldn’t throw them away. It wasn’t in my heart to throw people away. So I took some of the pictures and I put a picture at each plate, and I had the person who ended up sitting at each of the place settings to decide a name for that person, an occupation for that person, a state for that person, and their favorite food. So by the end of dinner, we all had conversations about these strangers who we had now made someone we knew.
Laura: I love that.
Andrew: I think creativity is what both of you are talking about is the key. It’s endless. I also think some families think, Well, my kids will never do something like what you just mentioned, Patsy. They would never be that imaginative. I could never capture their attention. And I think there’s two things with that, and Laura, you can confirm or de-confirm this in your experience.
I think what you were talking about earlier, the exercising of it — it’s not always perfect, the kids don’t always want to participate like you wanted them to — but it’s just the exercise to say we’re going to try this and we’re going to try it as a family. And so that parental leadership, and then I think the kids feel safe to go to imaginative places and fun places that they thought might be embarrassing at first, but with the practice, they find it to be quite fun.
Laura: Absolutely. And I think it’s teaching them life skills. This generation of kids coming up doesn’t do a great job of looking eyeball to eyeball and really seeing people because they are so trapped in their phones and behind a computer screen.
One of the most important things and jobs I think that my husband and I have with our children is instilling this idea that we see you and we want you to feel seen so that you can in turn see other people. And we want to raise children who are able to sit around a table and be creative and have the hard conversations and take it all in and do more than just sit down and have a meal and get up and leave, because we’ve seen relationship thrive in those settings in our own family and certainly growing up.
Andrew: And at Christmastime, I think especially for people with our belief set, who believe in Jesus and the friendship of Jesus that is what we celebrate at Christmastime, the ultimate seeing, the ultimate example of seeing is Jesus. During the holidays especially to take the time to be around each other.
And the china and all that, I say go for it. I grew up with all boys. I mean, my mother is a woman, but the rest of us were boys in our family and she still would ask us to get dressed up occasionally, and she would still exercise her feminine bone and say, “We’re using china today.” And you know what? I’ve found that my brothers and I all were made better men to delight the woman of the household for a minute who we adored because she was our mother too, and hopefully, that’s helped us treat women throughout our life in different ways. The possibility of getting around a table is endless in how it influences our lives.
“The possibility of getting around a table is endless in how it influences our lives.”
Patsy: Reminds me of when my son was a teenager and I had all his buddies come over and I set a big table, and then I taught them how to seat a woman and which piece of silverware to begin with and how to use their napkin and how to interact with people at the table in a conversational way instead of throwing the biscuit and bouncing it off of the back of their head. And it was so much fun, and they still talk about it today.
Laura: Of course. What’s funny hearing both of you talk is my boys actually get more excited about dressing up for the table than my daughter does.
Andrew: Well, your boys know how to dress. They’re adorable.
Laura: They do. They get excited like, “Can I put on my suit?” And then, you know, they like to pose. They’re like, “I look good. I look good, and I know it.” So we’re also working on humility in our household.
Andrew: It’s always a balance.
Patsy: But it is a mix of lessons you’re learning. You’re learning to feel good about yourself, and you’re also learning to make space, grace space, for other people at the table.
Laura: Absolutely. Yes, I love that. Grace space — that’s a great term.
Patsy: And the table is really quite sacred because it’s where a level of intimacy happens that we might not otherwise experience with people we deeply care about.
“And the table is really quite sacred because it’s where a level of intimacy happens that we might not otherwise experience with people we deeply care about.”
Laura: That’s right.
Andrew: I feel like, Laura, hospitality is not only a practical thing for you that you do at your table but you do it within your own demeanor and spirit. Patsy and I have talked several times about looking forward to you being here, and I know so many people in your community and who have met you along the way always look forward to your company and the company of your family, and that’s something from deep within. So I think following The Thoughtful Table on whatever social platforms, going to laura-cooksey.com, you’ll experience that with Laura even through those platforms and hopefully will be inspired in your own way to make room at the table for others.
Patsy: Yes. The carry through of all of that brings us to your ability to connect with people as friends, and I think you take the same principles you use at your table and you use that in relationship with people, which is how I met you because every other person who knew you told me you were their best friend, and I thought, Who is this woman that is the best friend of every other person I meet, and how has she accomplished this? And then I met you, and you exude warmth and kindness, as does your husband. How did you two find each other?
Laura: Thank you for that. We actually met at Baylor University. It’s funny because we lived in the same apartment complex and did not know each other, and we were both there for summer school. We are a year apart in age — I’m an older woman — but two years apart in school.
So he actually was cooking for a bunch of his roommates because he loves to have all the people and do all the things. My friend kept coming over and saying, “This guy is making…” Like one night it was his mom’s pound cake and something and having people over. I was like, “That’s weird. I’m not going.” Not interested. And then she came back another time, and she’s like, “Okay, same guy. He’s making peach cobbler.” I’m like, “I’m not going.” And my roommates were like, “Well, we’re going, so bye.” So it’s like, Ugh, fine. So I went and we met that night, and we just hit it off as buddies really first and kind of just started spending tons of time together.
I was going into my senior year of college, so I was looking to get out of Waco. Waco was not what it is now at the time. Chip and Joanna had not made their mark yet on the town, and so I was looking forward to getting back to a bigger city and moving on and doing some things with music. So I was like I’m not interested in this guy who is in his sophomore year of college.
Andrew: Who’s a child.
Laura: Right, exactly. Turns out the Lord had other plans, and so we got married before Kyle’s senior year at Baylor and spent a lot of time in Waco, and then we moved to Nashville about a year after he graduated. So that is how we met.
And we do share a love of people and hosting people. We both have been beneficiaries of people who have loved us really well in our lives. Kyle’s mom was sick growing up and struggled a lot with mental illness and physical illness, but he had kind of a lot of surrogate women and mothers who stepped in. I think that really made a huge, tremendous impact in his life. And I had a grandmother who was the best listener in the world. I could call her and tell her anything, and she would listen and take it in but never with judgment, not offering advice unless I asked for it. And I think we both learned so much from those people in our lives, and that really informed how we wanted to be as people to other people that are important to us. I’m so thankful for those examples we had early on.
Patsy: I’ve often, especially in recent times, dipped into the well of my experience with Luci Swindoll because she left such a rich legacy and she said so many things that mattered. I think oftentimes it’s not until someone leaves us that we explore the depth of all they brought us before they left.
Laura: Yes, absolutely. I’ve been thinking a lot about Luci. You obviously got to experience her in a much deeper way than I did because you guys were just in closer proximity and had more interaction and years on the road together. I was on the road with Luci for about three years total, but even in that short time, the mark that she made and I think about things that she said. I mean, my children say things that she said.
One of the things that Luci always said was, “Take everything as a compliment. You’ll live longer.” And my boys, I hear them say that all the time. Like if one of them’s mean to each other, they’re like, “I take that as a compliment. Thank you.” And I’m like, that is Luci Swindoll’s legacy in the Cooksey household. I love it. That and also teaching us “The Green-Eyed Frog,” which was a song she always sang for my boys when they were little and we still sing it in our house.
My grandmother was the same way, just instilling things. I learned so many things from her that I am trying my hardest to pass on to my family. She just did such an incredible job of making her grandchildren all feel like they were her favorite. She and my grandfather would get in their Buick and drive from South Carolina to Texas every time I had a line in… Like if I had a solo line in a Baylor concert choir performance, they were there. They were just those people. They knew their presence mattered, and they gifted us with it whenever they could. That’s absolutely something that Kyle and I’ve tried to live out in our lives as well.
Patsy: We love having you here. We hope you will consider coming back.
Laura: Anytime.
Patsy: We can’t wait to see all that God’s gonna do through The Thoughtful Table, and we encourage all of our listeners to check you out on Instagram and see what you’re doing and realize that they too can implement some of those things into their own circle of influence.
So Laura Cooksey, I adore you. Thank you for being here.
Laura: The feeling is mutual for both of you. Thank y’all for having me.
Andrew: We encourage you, Laura, to ink on your calendar, that’s July 10, Andrew’s birthday.
Laura: And April 3. Noted.
Andrew: We’ll be issuing our orders soon.
Patsy: You’ve been listening to Bridges, and I’m Patsy Clairmont, the Boomer.
Andrew: And I am Andrew Greer, the Millennial. Tune in next time to Bridges: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations.
Patsy: Bridges is co-produced by Andrew Greer and myself, Patsy Clairmont.
Andrew: And our podcast is recorded and mixed by Jesse Phillips at the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee.
Patsy: Remember, don’t forget to leave us a rating, a review, or a comment. It all helps our little show get going.
Andrew: To find out more about my co-host Patsy Clairmont or myself, Andrew Greer, or to read transcripts of our show, simply go to bridgesshow.com.