I work in a church, and often when we talk about hospitality, it's about giving it; not accepting. What I mean is, as a church we have fashioned ourselves as permanent host-- forgetting that we are also called to be guest. As a theological thinker in training, this makes all kinds of connections to me about ecclesiology and missiology (translation of super church-y words: how we are "church" together, and how we practice being church in the world). But this blog was made for telling stories, making connections, everyday revelations and small epiphanies. I digress.
Once upon three weeks ago, I had the privilege of "getting away" to somewhere I still consider home. I went back to the City, to the company of familiars, and stayed. I relied on people I love to care for me. I ate with them, read books, had conversation, drank wine, shared music and stories, laughed and cried. The people I love are home to me, and I needed to lean into the gift of that homing as I relied on them for shelter, and their gift of hospitality: a warm bed, a cat to snuggle which wasn't mine (sorry Cloe), and conversation both cathartic and vulnerable. And in the meantime, stunningly beautiful.
I would like to consider that good guesting is in itself a spiritual practice. There is a vulnerable opening up to bring myself out of my carefully constructed idea about "home" and inhabit alongside someone else's. The openness to be gifted, instead of the more powerful position of doing the gifting-- it's a humbling experience. Through these days spent in different company, I learned valuable lessons about what "home" means. I was home in a place where I do not live. I was home in the company of those I love, who willingly made space for me to be.
The practice of good guesting need not involve going away. I think about conversations over coffee where I do most of the listening, and let the other "host" the conversation. I think about making the space for a rant to happen, or space where you allow someone to cry and mourn. Good guesting is a practice of space for the other; and being willing to receive as well as give.
And then there's this idea circulating in my head about "home". Throughout my twenties "home" was a nebulous idea, connected somehow to another nebulous idea: Love. In my very wise thirty years (ha), I can deduce that love is about people, and home is where love is found. "Home" is so often tied to a building, a dwelling, a house. I am beginning to think this definition too narrow. A dwelling can be the centering, it can shelter people, but it is in the living, and in the living the acceptance of love in between. This is home. People could live in a building for years with those they are related to and never feel at home. The same idea makes a college dorm, a church, a hostel, a person, or a passing-through-place all expressions of home. Even though I live alone with my cat on the prairie, I can still be at home with love and acceptance of myself, the neediness of my cat (which I experience as affection), and the love I share with the community just outside my door.
Since I know love, I can make a home in this world, a home within myself, and a home between those I meet.
