Sunday, July 02, 2006

Hospitality

I was chatting with my friend Billy to day, he was talking about a spirtual kind of reflective conference he went to. One of the guys who was leading had said "hospitality is not really about cooking people meals it's about inviting people into your life"

I really like that, it put a vocab to something that had been troubling me deep down. We are establishing a bolier community here on the island and one of the keys is hospitality but just cooking meals and having beds for people to crash in isn't enough. We can do this without letting people enter into our lives. That is a lot more draining but also more rewarding. We have people come and stay with us but we expect them to be part of our lives, we know people here on the island who just come to our house and hang out all day they are part of our lives, the people who live with us are not lodgers they are part of our lives.

Before we moved to Ibiza we had a young lady live with us for 3 years who was a suicidal self harmer, but we never saw her like that, she was part of our lives. We trusted her with our children and had holidays together. It was tough at times, I like my own space and don't like eating with others but it was worth it. When we left she ended up in prison! not a success story well not in terms of life changed but I feel it was in terms of life shared..

Hospitality is about sharing life, even when it is tiring and overpowering. Personally I feel it has enriched my childrens lives, having so many people come into our world.

I think we need to think more deeply about hospitality as a practice.

6 comments:

Billy Kennedy said...

Hey Brian. That was my one sentence summary of the 60 minute talk. His thoughts were a lopt more profound. Maybe I have an ability to popularise deep teaching??? The guy's name was Luke Bretherton - a prof from King's College, London. Do a search on Google for him and you'll find some of his stuff.

Brian said...

Cheers Billy. Well you do seem to get people thinking. I have been doing research on this all evening. Loving it, I remember being challenged by my leaders years ago asking me "do you practice hospitality?" what they meant and what i thought was a correct understanding was "do you have people around for meals?" it's a start but there is more, I've known this and feel i practice it but your comment has made me look deeper. I have just dug out my biography of Mother Tereasa, I am sure that will help me.

Billy Kennedy said...

I suggested to Ian that he get Luke to a 24-7 thing. It would an ideal talk for the boiler rooms.

Mark Dowds said...

Well chaps, it looks like we can only meet online so I will join in on the fun. I just linked both of your sites on Casual Friday

I use this site for my random stories and thoughts as well as personal updates.

I have just started a new blog that is more to do with therapy and coaching called Learning to Work in a Relational World

I am still experimenting with this one and now that I am back from holidays I will get cracking with it.

On the topic of hospitality, where do you think the whole thing about the gift of hospitality comes in? where do we cross a line between friends and others...do you know what I mean?

lisa said...

i was listening to a sermon some years ago on hospitality and truth be told, i wasn't listening very much as i thought i already knew a lot about hospitality. right in the middle of it i heard god very clearly say to me "make room for marianna in your life." (name changed to protect the innocent!) anyway, it was someone i had basically decided i had no room for. the guy wasn't talking about that kind of hospitality but apparently god was!

Billy Kennedy said...

Read Luke 14: 12 - 14. Scary stuff!