The Spirituality of Hospitality

There is a man here at Daybreak who knows everyone and everyone knows him. He does not attend Dayspring on Friday nights, but will stand at the front door and welcome everyone in. Some say he is not spiritual. I feel sorry for them.

Open hospitality is something that has been lost to our society. We seem to have a Martha Stewart idea of how to welcome people into our homes. Everything has to be perfect, from the furniture to the flowers to the drapes to the books that we leave out on the coffee table to seem smart. We have made welcoming into a formula. When everything is not perfect then we are not able or allowed to open our doors. That's one of the biggest pities in the world.

One thing I always wished when I was younger was that our doors and our table would have been more open to our friends. Every time when someone came over (and continues to be) the whole house has to be cleaned and vacumed. The vacuming is what really kills me. I hate that. I wish that we had been able to welcome people into our house without being self concious of the mess that makes it a home. If there is nothing out of place in the house, than that's all it will feel like. It will never feel like a home.

The home I now live at has a very open door policy. The house is more or less always clean, but there is no need to call before coming over or even knocking on the door. It makes it one of the most spiritual house that I have ever lived in. Not in the traditional sense, but in the truest sense. We have an open door to anyone who wishes to enter and we turn no one away.

The New Testament is full of examples and times when we are called to welcome those into our lives that we don't wish to. They can be the outcasts for so many reasons, but we don't want them near us. An interesting scenario of this (one of the few things that makes me mad enough to hit something) is when a L'Arche community attempts to open a new house. The London community I volunteer with is trying to do that right now. They have bought a house and are currently fielding calls explaining why the house is a great idea, just not on their street. They have the idea of hospitality right, to welcome those around them, but they missed out on the spiritual side of it. They missed the call to really welcome those around us into our hearts and our lives. It's easy to care about someone and ignore the reality that they need something from us. We can be called to hospitality, but be caught up in the Martha Stewart aspects of it and forget the spirituality behind what we are called to be. When we are able aspect the calls of the spiritual we are able to offer a fuller and truer hospitality to those around us.