“Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.”
Henri Nouwen

As a 19 year old student with too much hair, too much denim in my jeans and way too much confidence in my own knowing I encountered a strange little church community (50 strong at best then) that has been my home for most of the last 15 years. I remember finding so much new and confusing in my first few visits but one thing I remember distinctly is a gentlemen, a good few years my senior and with appropriate levels of denim in his jeans, taking the time to welcome me. I’d been welcomed before but what stood out was something new to me. We had very little in common but he was interested in me. He took time to listen, to question, to find out about me. More than that on my return a few weeks or maybe even months later he remembered. He made a bee-line to chat to me and to continue our conversation. I couldn’t explain it at the time but I believe what I was encountering was hospitality; a space created where what i carried was treated with value and care. Where I was held in mind, even in my absence. Where the differences between us weren’t an obstacle but an invitation. This man, and others like him, made a small bunch of random people in an ugly community centre an unavoidable home for me, and I’m truly indebted.

Hospitality has always fascinated me. I learned early from a house that was always busy with people and a mum who was always happy to feed one more mouth. Our garden was always full of neighbourhood kids. Our sleeping bags got extensive use from overnight friends. I loved the openness, the energy, the life but somewhere along the way hospitality for me became a little more sanitised, middle classized, maybe even hip. I swapped an open hearted, open homed embrace for a well cooked, well arranged dinner party with my friends. Hospitality became the quality of the coffee beans (which is still important) over the embrace of the other.

We live in a culture obsessed with segregation, determined to label and identify. We live in a time of polarised politics and us against them (whoever they may be) mentalities. We are quick to look for the handles to categorise everyone we encounter, to see if they are “our people”. We judge quickly, and often wrongly without giving it a second thought. As I walk into a room, I often find my brain subconsciously beginning the process of summing people up; rich or poor, successful or failure. Value adding or taking away. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t helpful and without intentionality it will happen every time. It is how we are conditioned to live but what if there’s another way?

What if hospitality wasn’t the woolly, coffee and traybakes or hip dinner parties we’ve reduced it to. What if hospitality looked like resistance? Resistance to cultures constant, sometimes subtle push to define us by what or who we are against. Resistance to the lie that I am more important than the other, that difference is bad or dangerous or somehow wrong. Resistance to the lie that my views on anything allow me to treat someone as less than fully human, to the lie that there is a single human on this planet that does not carry the unique, significance of their maker. What if true hospitality, resistance to a continually isolating, segregating culture, is a heart of welcome and embrace? A safe space offered where ones whole self can be brought. What if we recaptured the art of welcoming the stranger, and the unique gifts they carry, with open arms and without agenda?

What if hospitality was less about our homes and more about our hearts? Less about the food we served and more about the willingness to embrace the other as ourselves. What if we simply stopped for the stranger, looked them in the eye and allowed them to be seen and heard without pre-conditions, without judgement or without the burden of “fixing”?

Houses and dinner tables, sofas and coffee mugs, spare beds and fine china are wonderful tools to express and to facilitate the overflow of a heart postured towards hospitality but they cannot reflect what is not first there on the inside. Hospitality is not the food we serve but the space we create where others are free to bring themselves. It does not start in our kitchens but in our response as we lock eyes with those we encounter each day, whoever they may be.

Marathon Update

Longest run 16.1 miles
Time 2 hours 32 mins
Avg speed 9:30 mins per mile

With only a month to go the heat is on. We are excited to have 17 relay teams and 4 full marathon runners running for Storehouse. If you’d like to fund my pain you can do so here – www.give.net/storehousefullmarathon18.

Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash