onehouse

Lucky.

A week filled with old friends and family and celebrations. There was:

- movies with singing and dancing
- paella cooked over the fire pit in the backyard
- Cohibas and a Scottish poem about a "coo" under the stars
- homemade zuchinni treats and dark root beer
- once around the park drives with mochas in hand
- dark organic chocolate with pretty labels
- a pine garden bench
- a bellini, a little Homer, a little Harry.
- maple lattes and breakfast while staring at the Three Sisters in Canmore
- a list of lessons we learned from Buffy
- lots of sangria and fire-roasted corn
- and on and on.

Lucky me.

Do you believe fish have knees?

Under the category "hospitality" or lack of it.

I just received an email from a complete stranger asking me if I was a "Christ follower"? I'm playing a little chess lately and trying to learn some of the classic openings. This question is mathematical strategy disguising itself as some kind of religious concern. Ahh, the Bright-Graham opening. Circa 1972. Standard Question 5 to Possible Unbeliever 4. I think I would be less weirded out if someone at the bus stop asked me, "Do you believe fish have knees?"

On not having plans...

More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.

Henri Nouwen

(via Jordon)

Leftover Halloween candy.

One of my favorite television shows over the last few years has been the Gilmore Girls, a series about a single mother and daughter in a quirky small town.The show has fallen out of favor with me over the last year or so but the first few seasons relied on  great scripts with the girls - Lorelai and Rory - using a fast staccato delivery that reminded me of old movies like His Girl Friday. Here's an excerpt from Season 2 that I find particularly soothing. Hospitality Gilmore style. I like to think I'm preparing my house for the stranger but I'm usually just looking for an empty closet to throw things into.

UT TO LORELAI'S HOUSE
[Lorelai and Rory rush through the front door]

LORELAI: You get the living room, I'll get the kitchen!

RORY: What about the upstairs?

LORELAI: I'll body block the fool who tries to go upstairs.

RORY: Company is stressful.

LORELAI: Don't forget about your room!

RORY: What?

LORELAI: Your room! She wants to see the books!

RORY: Well, I'll hit it next.

LORELAI: Ugh, they're probably gonna want something to eat and drink.

RORY: Well, company usually does.

LORELAI: We have nothing.

RORY: We must have something.

LORELAI: Not unless Divine Providence has placed a miracle brie and cracker plate in the fridge.

RORY: We have leftover Halloween candy.

LORELAI: Aw, waste that on company?

RORY: Well, having company is about making sacrifices.

LORELAI: Martha Stewart?

RORY: I paraphrased Proust.

LORELAI: I should've known. Fine. Presentation is everything.

CHRISTOPHER: [calls from front door] Hello?

RORY: Hi Dad!

CHRISTOPHER: You guys need some more time to clean up?

LORELAI: He knows us too well.

RORY: Come on in. How'd you know we were cleaning?

CHRISTOPHER: Uh, well, when you cut us off in the parking lot and sped off doing sixty, I figured you were trying to beat us home for a reason.

SHERRY: I hope we're not completely ruining your day.

LORELAI: Oh no, we love company. Please come in.

Book 11: Radical Hospitality

* Yup. Quotes here and here from this book.

**  In Radical Gratitude, Mary Jo Leddy plays with the idea of gratitude as a way of releasing Westerners from their relentless need to have and be more. Good article from 2002 here. Love this quote:

"Most liberal people who are social conscious try to get middle class people to help the poor --and generally rely on great doses of guilt and massive amounts of information to make people realize that something is wrong," she explains. "It sort of works, but not for long. So most social action tends to be rather grim and guilty. What I'm trying to do is say there is a profound link between being grateful and doing justice, and a fundamental conversion of the way you see the world and other people."

Nouwen's Reaching Out and Vanier's Becoming Human engage the creation of empty space and facing our fears of the other and are better books.

I discovered an article at Sojourners called Radical Hospitality while googling around for this entry. I plan to print it off and read for Vespers later.

 

Radical Hospitality

The monks cannot hold to their way of life if they overlook the monastic requirement for some cloistered space, some separation and silence. To be fully present to the guest, they must continue, first of all, to be monks. They cannot lose their distinction as Benedictines. This has become challenging for them as the public has appeared at their chapel, in their walkways, and wandering the paths around the monastery.

You, too, will wrestle with issues of privacy and personal space. You have commitments to keep, and these commitments shape your life. You dishonor yourself, and the people who love you, if you fail to keep your commitments while chasing after a spiritual ideal such as hospitality.

Becoming a hospitable person and keeping your life in balance is not without its complications. Monasticism is a gift to the world only as it keeps its distinction. You’re also distinctive. You must remain who you are, and allow yourself to grow more yourself every day. Hospitality will help that happen, it is one of many things that will help that happen, but you must remain freely yourself. If you lose your distinctiveness, the world has lost something it will never see again—you.

- Radical Hospitality

Notes amid the paint fumes.

The office is being repainted. Good-bye loony bin white walls. Hello flint smoke and rodeo red and a place for the windup toys, finger puppets, and Ox the ugly doll. The computer is uncovered as the last coat dries and I was able to read the wondrous Slacktivist's (the Left Behind series is one of the greatest things in the blog world) post on Hospitality versus Sales:

This happened, I think, when what ought to be an act of hospitality was transformed into an act of salesmanship. Salesmanship, whatever else it may be, is ultimately inhospitable.

We could go back and look at the causes of this perverse commodification of the gospel -- tracing the way that 19th-century evangelists like Charles Finney began adopting the techniques of salesmen, and how these techniques were further refined over the years by students of marketing like Bill Bright. But we needn't go into great detail here about how this happened to acknowledge that it has happened.

"Evangelism" today is not seen as the practice of hospitality, but as a kind of marketing scheme. It is not an invitation, but a sales pitch. Not a matter of "taste and see," but of "buy now." Or, to use one of my favorite descriptions of the work of evangelism, it is not "one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread," but rather one fat man trying to convince another fat man that he's a beggar in order to close the sale on another loaf.

Contemporary American-style evangelism is made even stranger by the fact that it seems devoid of content. It's become a turtles-all-the-way-down exercise with no apparent real bottom. Evangelism means, literally, the telling of good news. Surely there must be more to this good news than simply that the hearers of it become obliged to turn around and tell it to others. And those others, in turn, are obliged to tell still others the good news of their obligation to spread this news.

This reminded me of a clip from the movie,  The Big Kahuna:

It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down.' That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are - just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep.

(emphasis mine)

 

Offering space

Someone emailed me today asking about places that were close to Calgary a day retreat. When I went to send them the link to the Kings Fold Retreat Centre, this quote by Nouwen on hospitality caught my eye:

"... is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open wide a spectrum of options for choice and commitment. It is not an educated intimidation with good books, good stories and good works, but liberation of fearful hearts so that words can find roots and bear ample fruit ...

The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own ...

To convert hostility to hospitality requires the creation of the friendly empty space where we can reach out to our fellow human beings and invite them to a new relationship. This conversion is an inner event that cannot be manipulated but must develop from within. Just as we cannot force a plant to grow but can take away the weeds and stones which prevent its development, so we cannot force anyone to such a personal and intimate change of heart, but can offer a space where such a change can take place."

- Henri Nouwen
(Used by permission of Doubleday Publishers)

I think we are often afraid to "create emptiness" and allow people just to run into themselves. This is why silence and solitude are one of the key parts of community building.

More about soup.

I had a chance to have a nice long breakfast with Deegy yesterday and tease him about his blogging habits - ten really good blog entries at a time and each one needing to be savored.

Here are some of his thoughts on soup and the "prophetic witness of the table" to soften the days between Christmas and the New Year:

A shared meal continues to be a blessing and a challenge for me.  We have weekly meals together at the house here, but of course, as Chittister reminded me again this week in Insights For The Ages, hospitality is much more than food and entertaining.  I still feel like I have much to learn about true hospitality, which for me seems to involve overcoming a certain shyness and my bent towards listening rather than talking.  I am challenged once again to share of myself... to model the gift of self with strangers, both at home and especially in welcoming youth at the shelter.  To see the individual before me as a whole individual with their own set of gifts to give me:

Hospitality was not a warm meal and a safe haven. Hospitality in the Benedictine community was attention and presence to the needs of the other. Hospitality was a public ministry designed to nourish the other in body and in soul, in spirit and in psyche.
       Welfare agencies give clothes; parishes collect food for the poor; flea markets provide rare goods at cheap prices.  The problem is that too many of the handouts come with hardly a look and never a personal moment for the people they set out to serve.  Benedictine spirituality sets a standard of comfort and care, conversation and respect - the things that make a human being human - as well as bed and board... none of us can afford to be too busy or too important to do the same. (148-149)

Chapter 66

Today's reading in Benedict's Rule is from Chapter 66, what Chittister calls the Theology of Surprise. One of my favorites.