Hospitality

             Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. (I Peter 4:9)

Years ago, I told my father that if he came home without giving me three days notice, he would come home to a mess. Now, exactly what I meant – or what he understood – by mess may not be what you understand it to mean. I both was and was not lying because it was the only way I could think of to get him to warn me before he came home. I don’t like surprises - particularly surprises that involve people who then make demands (just by their presence) on my time and resources.

However, one of the ideas that has been a sort of ghost (coming back to haunt me) over the past decade is community. One of the things I’ve learned about community is that it is aided by a location. Community could develop at the trailer park/campground where I spent my winters because they had two clubhouses at which residents could get together, and they had stuff to do that gave people both an excuse to be there and a benefit from having been there. When I came home, there was no place to gather except (perhaps) at churches, but they weren’t local enough. I still think we need to do a better job of community at church, but recently, I’ve begun to have radical, dangerous, possibly trauma-inducing thoughts about community building on a tiny scale, by practicing hospitality (gasp) in my home or out in public.

But my house is a mess (especially now when I’m trying to consolidate two households of stuff) and I’m no good at people stuff. I overthink. I get anxious. I’d rather be invisible. Oh – now there’s an idea: invisible hospitality. I’m going to have to think about that one.

Back to the point, however. Scripture calls on us to be hospitable. The first task is to define the term. According to one online dictionary, it means the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” It comes from a Latin term meaning “to receive guests.”  We also get our word for “hospital” and the word  “host” from it.

The ideas that present themselves – at least in my mind, are that hospitality, then, involves protection and provision. At its most basic, it involves connecting with a person and acting in that person’s best interest, whether the person realizes it or not. In other words, hospitality is the practical practice of love. Another term might be blessing.

According to some, a blessing has five elements: meaningful and appropriate touch, a spoken message, attaching high value. picturing a special future, and an active commitment. I suspect that with hospitality, the blessing could replace  the meaningful and appropriate touch with a physical gift, such as food, beverage, or shelter. Hospitality, then, is a blessing.

Granted, we may not manage to consciously include all five, but it’s a goal toward which we can work. And one way that we can do this is by making sure that we’re prepared for guests. What “prepared” means is up to you. I’m struggling with that a little. I’m also struggling with the idea of their not leaving empty-handed. What they take with them needn’t be physical, but it should be there.

All of this is going to take thought, but it’s an interesting idea.