“Hospitality means inviting the stranger into our private space, whether that be the space of our own home or the space of our personal awareness and concern. And when we do so, some important transformations occur. Our private space is suddenly enlarged; no longer tight and cramped and restricted, but open and expansive and free.”
One thing I reflected on as I prepared the recent service about welcome was the importance of rest - which can be something integral to welcome (depending on the person's need). If I am exhausted or stressed, the best welcome is one that indicates freedom to rest - to be at peace, to have nothing extra required of me. Hospitality in this form creates a space where the daily concerns and demands of life can recede for a while, as the person's needs are cared for and provided for.
Do we sometimes make our 'welcome' too demanding? Sometimes simply allowing someone space to breathe and be peaceful in a safe place is all the welcome they need. This may entail protection of a sort - assuring them that you will be their watchman at the door, for want of a better way of putting it. Sometimes I find one of the most valuable and appreciated welcomes of all are those where I'm told to come in, relax, don't feel the need to do anything or say anything. I'll do it, for a while, so that you can have some rest. I'll guard you from the demands, the questions, the things you cannot manage. You are safe. You are welcome here.
Is it when someone comes to stay with us? Eat with us? Have a drink with us?
Is it when new people come into our families, our communities, our church?
What about the smaller moments – when a child approaches to share a secret, when a friend needs a place to confide, when a family member longs to share the news of their day with us – do we make the effort to make them feel welcome too? Or do we want to get on with what we’re doing and tell ourselves we’ll make time for them later?
Do we welcome the ordinary, small gestures of the everyday as well as the different and unusual?
How can we make welcome an attitude as well as an activity?
"HOSPITALITY, rather than being something you achieve, is something you enter. It is an adventure that takes you where you never dreamed of going. It is not something you do, as much as it is someone you become. You try and you fail. You try again. You make room for one person at a time, you give one chance at a time, and each of these choices of the heart stretches your ability to receive others. This is how we grow more hospitable — by welcoming one person when the opportunity is given to you.”
- Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt, Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love
“IF WE WAIT until everything is perfect, we’ll never issue an invitation. Remember this: what is common to you is a banquet to someone else. You think your house is small, but to the lonely heart, it is a castle. You think your living room is a mess, but to the person whose life is a mess, your house is a sanctuary. You think the meal is simple, but to those who eat alone every night, pork and beans on paper plates tastes like filet mignon. What is small to you is huge to them.”
“LISTENING is always involved in hospitality. The most gracious attempts we can muster are meaningless if we do not actually hear the stranger. Listening is the core meaning of hospitality. It is something we can give anyone and everyone, including ourselves. It takes only a few minutes to really listen…
Hospitality is a way to counter the thousands of times another human being has felt less than human because others didn’t listen. Listening is the power of hospitality; it is what makes hospitality the life-giving thing it is."
- Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt,Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love
This is one thing that I was particularly struck by when preparing the recent service. By listening to people, we are welcoming them. Welcoming their thoughts, valuing their opinions, providing them with a safe place to speak. Our attentiveness is a welcome of its own.
“…HOSPITALITY is a means of grace. It is an avenue, path, or opening to God’s grace in the world in which we both receive grace and pass it on to others. Means of grace are often very simple acts: eating together, praying together, listening to God’s word, or simply being together in fellowship.
Such concrete experiences become doors that open to the grace that infuses the universe. Hospitality is a way of life infused with grace, a participation in the grace of God all around us, not a set of particular actions or behaviours. Hospitality is more a matter of becoming attuned to grace, and participating in its movement, than it is trying to create a particular atmosphere or situation.
Put this way, hospitality can start to sound ethereal and vague. For hospitality is indeed less than discreet deeds and more of an orientation embedded in the Christian life, a way of being in the world that entails acts of welcome and sustenance, yet is more than those particular acts.
This way of being includes mercy, justice, and recognition. All of these characteristics speak of communities and individuals with a mature spiritual awareness of God’s grace and presence. It may be that the best way to cultivate hospitality is to cultivate a deep awareness of God’s grace and the means that open to it. Only out of that awareness and gratitude can hospitality be genuinely practiced.”
– Amy Oden, And You Welcomed Me: A Sourcebook on Hospitality in Early Christianity
On Sunday evening, I led a service at church on the theme of Welcome. As it was dubbed 'alternative worship' I let my creative impulses take over! At the front I had the communion table, with an array of cupcakes and the word 'welcome' stretched across the front. Around the church were several 'welcome stations' - using words and images to think and reflect upon the theme of welcome, being welcomed and being welcoming! These included photos, bible verses, quotes and poetry. Some were displayed using digital scrapbooking software to frame them nicely.
The stations themselves were mainly decorated noticeboards with space around them, although at one 'station' I had pieces of paper where people could write down the things that made them feel welcome. There was also a big pile of bean bags in one corner, as well as a couple of little tables next to certain noticeboards with a vase of flowers, an open bible and a small wooden cross.
The idea was that people should feel welcome right there and then as well as reflecting on the theme in general. So as well as using liturgy, scripture and song we had some music playing in the background in the middle, where people could wander around the welcome 'stations', have a cupcake (!) or simply sit and reflect as they desired.
It was a good turn out for an evening service and as I began the service I noticed a couple of new faces. One thing I had kept on imagining during my preparations was the possibility of someone walking in during the service. Rather bemused, I prayed for this 'hypothetical' person during my preparations. Imagine my quiet delight when someone did walk in during the service and was made to feel very welcome!
As usual there are things I wish I'd done differently but overall I think it went well and people were able to have space and time to feel welcome and reflect on the wider theme of hospitality, asking questions like 'what makes you feel welcome?', 'who are those who are made to feel unwelcome?' and 'how can we be more welcoming?' I deliberately kept these questions broad - so that they encompassed areas of church, society, family, friends and communities, so that whatever their background, people would be able to think about these things.
I may, if I get the chance, post some of the quotes and resources I used as separate blog posts. We're having some time off shortly and I deliberately won't be online much, but if I have time (!) I will schedule some posts!
I'm always cautious about wading into to some 'hot topics' on this blog, because it's not part of its purpose. Having said that, sometimes I do feel the need to float ideas and more importantly to pose questions that arise out of an issue.
Hence, I am going to pose a question on the topic surrounding the recent B&B ruling, although it is not in reference to this case specifically (I did appreciate the gentle manner of Mrs Bull's response, however). In my readings of the many opinions on this topic, I frequently come across the suggestion that because B&B owners are offering a public service, it should therefore be open to all members of the public and their practices, regardless of the personal religious belief of the owners of said public service. Please correct me if that's a bad summary. In some cases people have said that if they do not accept homosexual or pre-marital sex in general under their roof, they should not be in the business of offering hospitality (and by that I mean literal business, not just a general welcoming-ness).
My question is this: for those B&B owners who do hold these deep beliefs which mean they are incredibly uncomfortable with the practice of certain things in their own home, are we then saying they should give up their business? For those who have long-standing businesses, a sense of calling to this kind of hospitality wherein it is important to offer a lovely holiday to others, but cannot in all personal conscience accept, for example, homosexual practice in their homes? Do we suggest that someone cannot start such a business unless they do so?
Where do we draw the line here? It's a bad analogy, but I'll use it briefly - prior to the smoking ban, there were B&B owners who did not allow the practice of smoking in their establishment. Now, you may quite rightly say - well, that's to do with health factors, the air quality, and how it affects other guests. I did say it was a bad analogy, but surely for some owners it was a personal preference. Likewise some B&Bs did not personally want people bringing their pets into their establishment, not just for the sake of other guests but because it was their home.
My point, however badly made, is that decisions are made on personal principles all the time, including in the hospitality business. My question, I suppose, is are we to consider that personal beliefs and preferences are unimportant in these areas and even unacceptable? That we can no longer officially do things on moral principle? That the private should never influence the public? Because frankly, we do not all hold the same principles and no group, religion or government will ever be able to force us to do so. And I wonder if deliberate discrimination and personal principle are occasionally getting mixed up, when I don't think they are necessarily the same thing.
These are my current ponderings and I am not submitting an argument or an answer. Neither am I commenting on legality and law. But I can't get rid of the questions - hence I'm throwing them out here out of genuine interest in peoples' response. I'm interested by the relationship of the private and the public, of belief and practice, of how we deal with personal principle - these things are abstract, but they impact our thinking on such issues. Again, these questions are not particularly specific to the most recent case, but neither would I necessarily apply them to other areas.
Feel free to disagree - but please be respectful and remember I am asking a genuine question, rather than delivering an argument.
0
comments
Labels:
hospitality,
quotations,
welcome
One thing I reflected on as I prepared the recent service about welcome was the importance of rest - which can be something integral to welcome (depending on the person's need). If I am exhausted or stressed, the best welcome is one that indicates freedom to rest - to be at peace, to have nothing extra required of me. Hospitality in this form creates a space where the daily concerns and demands of life can recede for a while, as the person's needs are cared for and provided for.
On Sunday evening, I led a service at church on the theme of Welcome. As it was dubbed 'alternative worship' I let my creative impulses take over! At the front I had the communion table, with an array of cupcakes and the word 'welcome' stretched across the front. Around the church were several 'welcome stations' - using words and images to think and reflect upon the theme of welcome, being welcomed and being welcoming! These included photos, bible verses, quotes and poetry. Some were displayed using digital scrapbooking software to frame them nicely. 