This is day 3 in a 31 day series on hospitality. You can find a listing of the other days here.
“Hospitality is a lively, courageous, convivial way of living that challenges our compulsion either to turn away or to turn inward and disconnect ourselves from others.”
Our rugged American individualism hasn’t really done us any favors where hospitality is concerned. Combine that with our obsession with electronics and you have, perhaps, the loneliest group of people that have ever lived.
We are desperately lonely.
To fight off that desperation, we fill our schedules to overflowing. “Maybe if I cram in one more thing, the ache will go away.” At least I won’t be alone in my loneliness.
When that doesn’t work, we settle for the company of screens—our phones and iPads and computers.
We hide behind our schedules and all our gadgets so much that we don’t even really see each other anymore.
Occasionally, when a crisis hits, we are jarred awake to our need for others but for most of our lives, we live in blurry state of self-sufficiency and self-absorption.
But, we were never meant for this modern isolationism.
Hospitality has its roots in the ancient world, where caring for strangers was a matter of life and death. They were keenly aware of their need for each other and it was a matter of survival.
Our modern conveniences have tricked us into thinking we can do this alone. But the deep ache in our hearts tells us another story.
We are all pilgrims on the same journey and it’s as if we are walking on the same path but ignoring each other. We don’t see our neighbor’s needs or even our own for that matter because we’ve so numbed and distracted ourselves. Stop and look around. People are hurting. They are lonely and despairing. They need someone who sees them. They need a kind word, a good deed. And the truth is, so do we.
In our haste and distraction, we’ve stopped looking at each other.
Do you remember the last person you actually looked in the eyes? I have to really think on that one. Did I even look my own children in the eyes today?
We are not rugged individualists at our core. We are vulnerable, lonely people who NEED each other.
And not only have we stopped caring for each other, we’ve stopped seeing each other.
Hospitality, in the truest sense, is our need to be known and loved—to really be seen.
It is not primarily the opening of our homes but the opening of our hearts to receive others. To really receive them.
We cannot learn to be gracious until we learn to be available.
We cannot learn to be available to someone we won’t even look at or acknowledge.
It’s not so much food we need from each other but love and kindness.
This kind of hospitality doesn’t require a perfectly ordered guest room or a gourmet meal; it requires an open heart, a heart willing to really see someone else and welcome him.
Today’s challenge::: Put down your gadget and really look at the people in your life. Look right into their eyes. Acknowledge that this is a person who you need and who needs you.
This is the face of God in your life today—–this is the antidote for our collective loneliness.
We need each other. Don’t go it alone.
Thank you for this post this morning. It is exactly what I have been thinking and feeling. Our schedules seem to get so full that there leaves little time or energy to do anything else but colapse in our chairs at days end, feeling lonely, yet overwhelmed with our to do list. I was thinking this morning before reading your post that it would be nice to have someone over for dinner. Then I remembered I can’t because my husband needs to go to bed early for the 3 or is it 4th week in a row now, to get up at 1 am. If its not his schedule it is mine that interferes with nurturing relationships of family and friends. Something has got to give!
I am looking forward to the rest of your posts on this topic.
My favorite post so far. Keep going. Tell us just like it is. We need to hear it.
~FringeGirl
Smooches to you, Edie. I’m still meditating on your post yesterday and how it hit me last evening: loneliness can be a symptom of replacing relationships with people with relationships with “things”. Sometimes we do it intentionally, because of past hurts, etc. but there have been times I’ve done this without realizing it until later.
I try to be available to my children every day to read, to snuggle up with them and connect. And our neighborhood book club has been a great way to fellowship with each other in a welcoming, hospitable environment (it is almost what I envision churches used to be: small intimate settings of neighbors encouraging each other).
I am loving your series. Will be meditating again today.
xoxo michele
I was at a college ballgame this weekend with my two oldest children. I looked down the aisle of tailgaters and it seemed like so many people were looking at their phones! I am very aware of how much time our gadgets are taking of our time. I find myself looking for time when I am not in the presence of others to look at my phone or computer and even then LIMIT the time I spend there. We do need each other and we need to step out of ourselves to interact with each other and live life together. Great post!
So, so very true, Edie. We need to make real connections with people, nurture relationships, and open up our hearts. Today it is hard to spend any time with people where they are not checking phones or iPads. We need to work on enjoying those things but not letting them interfere in our real, everyday lives.
Thank you for jolting us back to reality and opening our eyes to true hospitality.
Beautiful! I hope that as a collective we can turn the tide, but I know that as individuals we can make a difference.
Edie, have you read Fahrenheit 451 lately? Our book club did a few months ago, and I was surprised by how much reference we found to what was then very futuristic technology. (Electronic screens layered upon one another, separating people…) More importantly, to the isolation caused by that technology.
Excellent article, thank you!
xoxo
How do you do this?!! Only by God’s grace could these words flow from you to us. I just involuntarily retired this year, and am really struggling with alone time and finding ways to fill it. St. Therese knew her focus was love, and the past few days I have been hearing the word”service” in my ears. Your words are helping me find direction to what may be my “calling”! Love you!!!!
wonderful words of relationship, connection and health. Thank you
Good stuff Edie!! My daughter and I were just talking about how just acknowledging and speaking to someone can make such a difference in someone’s day because we really don’t know what is really going on in their lives. This conversation was after someone she knew from highschool commited suicide. My daughter said by the look of his facebook page he seemed so happy. We just never know… It is so worth investing our time in the lives of others. I wish the post had a photo so I could “pin” it. 😉
Hi Mrs Edie! I would add to this that not only do we not look at each other, when we do, we are intensely uncomfortable about it. Last week a new guy started in the Finance department at work. He stopped by to introduce himself since we would be working together, gave me an overly firm handshake and then maintained very intense eye contact for the entire 5 minutes we were talking. It didn’t bother me so much as I could tell that it was making him uncomfortable – like he was struggling to keep it up. I wanted to ask him if he needed to blink. I thought it was kind of weird, but maybe he is on to something, if he can find a way to make it more…..natural.
I am very interested in what you have to say about hospitality this month. It has been something I have been chewing on lately – mostly because my idea of hospitality and my mother-in-laws tend to be very different and because my parents hosted my sister’s wedding in their backyard this weekend and all of us kids returned to our parents house to help them. My parents overwhelming hospitality was extended through us to the wedding guests.
Wow! Some very thought provoking {and oh so true} words you have for us today, Ms.Edie. What a reminder for us all to truly connect personally and love each other. I’ve had some of these thoughts myself and you expressed them so very well. We put of children back into school after 3 yrs of homeschooling, a somewhat small but very good private school last year, my husband’s alma mater. My kids are on technology all day. It had me thinking one day about how we seem to “talk” to everybody but know no one. I worry that soon we won’t know how to work or communicate personally with anyone. To be so connected we are so lonely.
Thank you for theses inspiring words, I’m loving your series {as if I wouldn’t have}, thank you for reaching out to all of us with it. We need to touch and to know the human heart that each of us has.
I hope you & your family have a day full of blessings!
Sarah
. . .”we live in blurry state of self-sufficiency and self-absorption” boy ain’t that the truth.
This hits home with me. It is really absurd how much time we spend looking at screens. Me included. I have really made a conscious effort to put my phone down whilst around my 6 year old girl. She will only be 6 once. And I don’t want to miss her stories about monkey bars and dolphins.
Great post!
Gosh, this really resonates with me. Over the past 10 years my husband has had to move a lot for his career which means we have to make new friends over and over. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this is our last move. Every time we move I am amazed at how guarded people are and won’t let us “in” their world for at least a year. The sad thing is that we are half way into the year and it’s a lonely one especially for my children. My daughter left homeschooling so she could build a community faster. As we have moved we notice that everyone has their own friends and community and it’s so hard to break into. Your post has inspired me to have people over into my space instead of waiting on them to welcome me into theirs.
Oh, the irony…that I have found a kindred spirit …on my laptop.
Alas, we will most likely never see each other face to face or look each other in the eye, but still, you do manage to encourage and offer hospitality. What a strange place Blogland is.
Also, today’s post calls to mind the triumphant line from Les Miserables, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Good grief, my eyes well up just singing that in my head. Thank you for most eloquently reminding us that in all things we are to love and serve our neighbor and in doing so, see them as fellow children of God. Amen.
Edie – I have enjoyed reading your blog over time. You have encouraged and challenged me many times, and I am grateful for that! I thought you’d like this book, one of my all-time favorites, called “Reaching Out” by Henri Nouwen. The second of the three sections is called: Reaching Out to our Fellow Human Beings, and is all about hospitality. He says, “Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a freind…. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them a space where change can take place.” He presents the idea of not moving toward a person, but stepping back just a little bit to create a space and invitation for our fellow humans to enter into. I think that is just lovely. He talks also about how hospitable our God is; not forcing himself upon us, but creating a space and way to enter into a relationship with him – beautiful. I’d recommend this book to you; I think you may enjoy it.
Isn’t it sad that we tend to say, ‘Talk to the hand as the eyes are busy?” I’ve been having to make a conscience decision to PUT DOWN whatever I’m holding whether it be my phone or a book & give whoever is talking to me, the entire me. GREAT post!!
“We can not learn to be gracious until we learn to be available.”
God is digging deep into my flesh as I’m studying Philippians this fall. I am looking closely at how Jesus served and loved, and I am seeing so clearly how far I fall short.
It doesn’t depress me…it draws me closer to him. The closer I am to him, the more I am able to serve and love others.
He is the vine…I am the branch…apart from him, I can do nothing. NOTHING.
loving this series…I want to be available. I want to be open. It’s messy and can be hard, but it’s so much better than the loneliness that comes with a closed off life & heart.
love to you, Edie!
Lovely. Such aching truth. Thanks for your heart!!
🙂
shaunna
I looked into my kids’ eyes today as they were talking. I think they felt I was paying more attention. Very sweet and simple advice.
I suffer from loneliness and isolation and I just wish someone would “see” me. Thank you for writing this. I will be thinking about this post for a long time.
edie, i have been reading for about a year but never comment. this series is the best thing you’ve ever done! thank you so much for taking time out of your life to share these thought provoking ideas with us. God is clearly using you and your beautiful blog for His glory. wish i could have coffee with you and pick that ole brain! 😉 xoxo
You are writing this series beautifully! I love how you said today, “We cannot learn to be gracious until we learn to be available.” And from one Lutheran gal to another? What a perfect mix of Law and Gospel you are sharing, too!
I’m really enjoying reading this series. It’s late in the evening now, but I really want to start reading these before I go to work in the morning. I have always been a person who disconnects from other people when I’m at work or school. I don’t know why. I alway blame my busy-ness, or my focus, or the fact that I’m a new graduate and I have to really think about what I’m doing all day long (it doesn’t help that I’m a therapist in a nursing home held to a pretty high productivity standard). But I will say that when I take a few moments to relax and joke with my friends and co-workers, the day seems much less daunting.
Such good words, and so true. I’ve been feeling burdened by the amount of time I spend at a computer each day. Having just moved and not really knowing anyone well here in our new town, it’s easy to fill the void and try to smother the loneliness with screen time. But the Lord keeps convicting me that it will never be enough. That only He is enough. I feel an urge to be more hospitable here…in my heart first. Just as you said. Thanks for sharing!
Nice words. Thanks for the hospitality. You are the sweetest thing! 🙂
Humility takes the stance, ”I don’t know you or understand you but I’m willing to empty my heart just a little of myself and welcome you in.”
So perfectly said! This post is wonderful and challenging all at the same time. Thank you…
You know, it always amazes me how the good Lord guides us to the things we most need to read. These are questions I ponder often, thank you for sharing your insight. I’m truly looking forward to reading more!