Column Draft on Hospitality

Scripture tells us that hospitality can involve “entertaining angles unaware.” I was privileged to be part of two extended examples of hospitality in the past week. In a minor miracle, once again churches and agencies planned a block party on Market Street. I stand in awe at the organization, the money, the time, and the sheer labor it takes to pull off something like that, and it seems to improve every year. The groups show obvious hospitality to ward new ideas.  It included bounce houses, free food and ice cream, music, arts and crafts. A number of agencies provided vital health and human services materials in the Episcopalian church center. A number of the folks participating lack some financial resources.

I am most pleased that it helps provide hospitality for education with school supplies and even backpacks to help ease the way into the school year. My prayer would be that the students demonstrate as much hospitality to the gift of learning as they did in grabbing up ice cream.

This past Monday, our Presbyterian church fed a large number of young German musicians from the Bavarian region form an academy of St Bonaventura. Of course, they requested the traditional fare of Spaghetti and meatballs. We had a salad bar and an astonishing range of desserts. Greg Fletcher and Susie Delano made sure that a surprising number of dietary requests were honored.

Hospitality offers a safe and accepting place. It is a place where we try to make others comfortable, to try to offer them a place where they can be themselves. It makes room for others in our lives. it is a testing ground for the abundance of God’s economy in everyday life, not of the fear of scarcity, but where we have planty to offer.

On Wednesday, the group played at a number, not one, a number of churches and a park for free. they played at First Presbyterian for 90 minutes. The choral music was followed by a string ensemble and then an orchestra with music quite ancient and contemporary, well to those of us who are gray, at least. Some of the folks spoke English, but what thrilled me was how their music spoke to the crowd. It is a thrill to see young people become hospitable to something well beyond their own years and then share it with an audience. Since I have live dint he area, I have noticed that audiences in this region are more giving with their apllause and approbation than other areas of the country in which I’ve lived. A number of folks mentioned that they rarely avail themselves of the choices of the arts in our area. It is a marvel to see people become open indeed and open hearted enough o embrace a variety of musical styles and respond so fully.

Marjorie Thompson in Soul Feast, introduced me fully to the idea of hospitality as a spiritual practice. We are not made to be hermits; we are made to be in a variety of relationships. Kathleen Norris, the spiritual adept wrote in Dakota-“True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person. Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who 'have found the center of their lives in their own hearts. “We worship an open-hearted God who even throws open the divine existence into our very creaturely lives  in Jesus Christ. That same jesus received and offered hospitality. I was privileged to witness a vbersion of secular Communion. People gathered, not under