Some thoughts on hospitality...

Hospitality.  It's a topic I've been thinking more about over the past several years.  When we started remodeling and expanding our home a few years back, I thought it would be nice to be able to open our home to travelling friends, missionaries, etc.  Even before these thoughts, I've reflected upon and lived hospitality, as both giver and receiver.

The very first time I left my home country was in 1984, to do a summer Study Abroad in Segovia, Spain.  My host family was very hospitable.  They made me feel at home in a new land.  Even though I had studied the language at that point for several years, there were SO MANY words I didn't know.  I felt like a newborn baby all over again.  And, I was quiet.  Yes, I just wrote that.  And, I was.  I listened.  I observed.  It took a while for me to feel at home in this land and culture.  I finally decided it was okay to speak even if I didn't get it all correct.  The host family knew I was becoming more comfortable when my roommate and I started pranking them by short-sheeting them.

Spain wasn't my only time to receive hospitality.  I was a guest in the home of a family when I attended a foreign language conference in Wheaton, Illinois.  I have visited in the homes of family members.  I went back to my parent's home and lived with my infant daughter for a couple of months after I sold my house and was looking for another one to buy.  And, when our home was being remodeled, there was a time when we needed to stay with another family for a couple a days.

A couple of years ago, several of us from church (all staff except me) went to a Leadership Institute at the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas/Missouri.  At the end of the conference, on the way home, we experienced a bus breakdown.  We were in need of someone's help.  We were near Mexico, I believe.  Calls were made to local United Methodist Churches and someone from one of the churches came to get us.  The connectional system and hospitality at work!  We went to a local hotel and checked in.  Our bus would not be able to be fixed that day.  The person accompanied us to dinner at a local diner.  When you are on the side of the interstate in the middle of nowhere, you begin to understand what vulnerable feels like.  Thankfully, I was with other people and people helped us out!

All these situations (and possibly others that I don't remember at the moment) are examples of hospitality extended to me. 

When I lived on Long Island, we had the opportunity to short-term host a Christian musician that came to sing at our church from Missouri.  Our small, modest one bedroom apartment wasn't much to offer, but we offered it.  When we moved into a two bedroom apartment we had the opportunity to host a friend who needed a place to live for several months.  When we moved to Dayton, TN we opened our home to college students as we were dorm parents.  Our home was also open to hispanics, missionaries, and folks who needed to stay the night.  

Recently, I've been able to live out hospitality through IHN--Interfaith Homeless Network (at one time it was called Interfaith Hospitality Network).  For the first time, our family was able to be hosts during the last rotation at our church.  That was a blessing.  We normally help with dinner at least one night during the week and sit down with the families to dine, getting to know them a little, playing with the kids, talking some, etc.  The night we got to spend the night allowed us a little more time with the families.   It was a blessing.   

For me, showing hospitality has been about having an open home for others.  But not just an open home.  It has meant having an open heart, an open schedule, an open life.  Unfortunately, my life doesn't always allow me to be open... my schedule can get hectic with the responsibities of being a "taxi-driver" mom [meaning that I'm taking my kid to her various activities].  Even so, I still try to allow room in my life, in my schedule to be hospitable.  I am open to giving of my time to the stranger, the alien in my life as well, though I believe I can do better, more.

I've just finished a book on hospitality by Christine Pohl: Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition.

This book offers a historical view on hospitality and how it became a lost tradition.  Pohl visited several communities that live out hospitality as part of her research and there is shared insight from them.  Pohl mentions Le Chambon a couple of times in the book.  As I have the video in French and have used it in the past to teach upper level French, I am aware of the story of the town reaching out to and saving many Jewish lives.

Pohl points out that hospitality almost always includes table fellowship, sharing of meals together.  Table fellowship is another aspect of life that has been on my radar for the past several years. 

Many nuggets of truth in this book have made me reflect.  There have also been things that have reminded me of hospitality experiences in my past.  In addition, Pohl's book has challenged me to a higher level of hospitality living, to expand my hospitality. 

Some people will say that they don't have the gifts for hospitality.  That may be true.  However, hospitality is something we can all do.  It isn't only a gift.  It is also a skill.  Pohl writes: "We become proficient in a skill by performing it regularly, and by learning from persons who are masters of it.  Hospitality is a skill and a gift, but it is also a practice which flourishes as multiple skills are developed, as particular commitments and values are nurtured, and as certain settings are cultivated." (9)

Pohl talks about the alien and the stranger throughout the book and how hospitality helps those who are invisible begin a journey toward visibility and respect.  Hospitality can be powerful. 

I've seen hospitality at work through what is now being called Mustard Tree Ministries here in Chattanooga.  What started as a soup and sandwich ministry on Thursdays has grown into other areas of ministry.  I have witnessed the invisible become visible as a small child handed out sandwich bags or just a smile.  I have seen those helped become the helpers. 

The need is great, yes, even overwhelming.  However, it is possible to make a difference.  If each one of us figures out how we are to live out the call of hospitable living in our neighborhoods, our communities and if we combine our efforts with other people, families, or churches, we can help the stranger among us.

Pohl quotes John Wesley's Sermon 98 in which Wesley is reflecting on his observation of how some people don't see suffering: "Many of them do not know, because they do not care to know: they keep out of the way of knowing it-- and then they plead their voluntary ignorance as an excuse for their hardness of heart." (76)  Would you say "ouch!" or "amen!"?  (Thanks to a pastor friend who brought that up in a sermon, giving us the opportunity to respond with "ouch" or "amen".  Sometimes deafening silence says it all.)

There is more I could write on hospitality..... how it is being revitalized as one of the spiritual practices in the church, individually and corporately.... or that it needs to be.  I have read about the topic of hospitality in other books.  I could include those for further reading and include many more quotes from Pohl.  But, I'll stop for now.

Where are you in your journey concerning hospitality? 

Desiring to be a more hospitable sojourner to all of those along my path,

~Debra