If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?

DINNER TIME

Everyone who responds to this question would have a different set of priorities about whom they would like to invite to dinner if guaranteed that the invitees would be able to come.

Some think about historical figures, others of contemporary persons, while others again use their imaginations and think of a guest or guests who are fictional, mythological, or “influencers born in the imagination“. And example of the latter would be that I could, if cast into the mythical realm, choose to invite my comic hero, The Phantom and his wife, Diana, to come for dinner. I would even provide succulent hay For Hero, his horse and a juicy raw steak for Devil – not his dog but a wolf.

That, of course, it’s all in the realm of imagination.

Going back through history, I can think of people like Enoch, and Elijah, who, according to Holy Writ, were translated to heaven without seeing death and having to endure the end point of mortality. I would ask them how they came to be so good and if they could advise me on how to get good and do the right thing all the time.

In more contemporary and “living“ terms, I would invite Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenski to join me for dinner. My purpose would be to try and work with these two leaders to try and resolve the impasse and the gulf standing between them, with a view to ending the Ukraine invasion by Russia. Anything I could do to help end this terrible war would be a priority.

All these scenarios are unreal and could never happen.

The people I would invite to dinner, given that we have three children, their partners and our ten outstanding grandchildren, would be our family. This would be such a joyful occasion for my wife and me because these days, our children and their children are spread around Australia.

We’ve always been a close family, and we admire how our children are bringing up their children to be good, upright, contributive citizens.

Our family blesses us, and it would be wonderful to have them all together So we could share a wonderful dinner and reflect upon the times in which we have lived and bonded together.