Thoughts on Hospitality

Hospitality is so close to my heart that I hesitate to write about it publicly. I don't know when exactly I started thinking about it. But I have a feeling that it has been growing inside me ever since I was a child, always a guest in the home of a babysitter while mom was at work; always in someone else's house in the very midst of their lives.

I want to be as hospitable as possible. But, honestly, I have no idea what it means to be so. Todd says it's a matter of attitude--he feels comfortable when the host is happy. Lachelle says it's allowing people freedom--free cupboard access, freedom to go to sleep or wake up as they please. Bill says it's a matter of "food and drink, and plenty of it!"

I am beginning to believe that hospitality requires some self-discipline. It seems to be saying, 'I am giving what I have for your benefit, even that which is as close as the same food I eat and the same floor I walk on.' Welcoming someone into one's home is humbling: one does not keep one's guests company, they keep the host company--the guests are bestowing the honor upon the host. Pastor Josef did not know he was teaching me hospitality when he said that as a young man he made up his mind that no one should be lonely if he could help it. So long as he was in the room, he would find the lonely people. As he seeks them out, the once lonely person finds that he or she is received as an honored guest in his presence. What a gift to love people that much! It must be a discipline.

What's more, it is a sacred charge. A person is trusting a host with his or her own well-being for some duration of time. Naturally, when we take up such a responsibility, many blessings follow, regardless of the guest's state of gratitude.

This is a study which I am gladly undertaking. Though hospitality may not be in my nature, I hope to practice all my life, and to pray for it long enough that God must give ear.