The Shaker Table

By Marion Cunningham

The Shakers call Sabbathday Lake "the Chosen Land" and are as self-sufficient here as it is possible for them to be. They grow and preserve most of their own vegetables and fruit, keep a couple of beef cattle, and raise sheep for wool; they make pickles and jams and relishes, both for their own use and for sale, and grow, dry, and sell dozens of kinds of herbs and teas, which they package in tin canisters to prolong freshness. It is the homegrown herbs—the community currently prepares more than two dozen varieties—whose flavor infuses so much of their cooking and puts the definitive Shaker thumbprint on their recipes.

At Sabbathday Lake, ten minutes before mealtime, a bell is rung, calling the community together. In the large dining room, similar to those that once fed some 170 hungry souls in shifts, now just two tables are set, one for the Brothers and male guests and the other for the Sisters and female guests like me. (The Believers address one another with familial terms like Brother and Sister as a ritual that emphasizes their closeness.)

Over the years, I have managed to visit Sabbathday Lake three or four times, and each time, even before I leave, I am filled with a desire to return. The contrast between their world and mine is what so moves me. What will happen if the Shakers disappear? I sometimes wonder. We won't have anyone to compare ourselves to. We won't have that standard to look at; when they are gone, we shall forget.

Now, it is not as if Shakers were these perfect human beings, just singing, cooking, and making chairs all day. In fact, aside from the occasional object, no significant furniture has been crafted at Sabbathday Lake for more than a hundred years. (A wonderful BBC documentary about the community took as its title a remark by Sister Mildred—who died at 92 in the winter of 1990 just before the film was shot—"I don't want to be remembered as a chair.") Sadly, in fact, it seems that some of the community's valued furnishings have had to be sold over the years to sustain the family. Many remaining pieces now reside at Sabbathday Lake's museum.

But the Shakers trust in their community and believe that their faith will tell them the right way to live. They have the satisfaction of their work and share the goal of doing whatever they undertake as perfectly as they can. And—this is the great thing—they're not looking for a reward. The Shakers have taken care of their own payback. They've made peace with the world they've chosen, and surely they feel that their rewards are enormous. It must be something, to have that kind of peace in your life.

I'll never forget sitting at the breakfast table on the last morning of my most recent visit to Sabbathday Lake. I was about to return to my busy life out in the world. Later that day, I would get on a plane and fly back home to California to teach a cooking class, then go off again to promote a book I had just written. The early morning news reported that a hurricane was roaring up the East Coast, and as we were at breakfast that morning the rain was just beginning to fall. While we were sitting there, Sister Frances began singing, and everyone joined in so sweetly, the way they do. And they just sang out so unselfconsciously, so clearly: "Falling, falling, like the fleecy snowflake / Dropping, dropping like the gentle rain." And the rain was falling outside the window, and we were sitting inside at that table, and to me it felt like such a true moment.