Toolkit #10 Seeing with Right Eyes, Another look at Hospitality

Hospitality is a key to Benedictine spirituality. Hospitality is the center of what it means to be a Christian. It is the quality of disposition of receiving and treating quests in a warm, friendly and generous way. Radical hospitality then is extreme and thorough care of the other. It is ingrained within us. It is indiscriminate love for the other and it is the center of what it means to be a Christian. When Benedict wrote of hospitality, he stressed the importance of welcoming the outsider, the poor, the pilgrim. Radical hospitality creates sacred space where the guest is free to be alone, to enter silence, to rest or to pray. An open heart is a stance of availability and looking for God in every single person. I believe that Benedict would say we are all headed toward God – that we live our lives with purpose with a radical position that everything matters – and live – all life and any life, is holy ground. At its best, hospitality puts an end to injustice. It is a spiritual practice. For Benedict and for us, we can find God in other people – and we just can’t ignore people when God is looking out their eyes at you.

In the tiresome, the invalid, the rebellious – we are faced with God. This kind of radical hospitality is about saving lives. It prevents us from living desperately or indifferently. It requires us to have open hearts and a widening of our boundaries. To be hospitable is to wait with the other – wait for deep places to open in the our hearts. Sometimes we need to be hospital toward ourselves. .

Some years ago, I had the privilege of traveling with my husband on business to Jamaica. I spent lots of time on the beach, walking, thinking, praying, being. It was a peaceful place to be. The voices of those who lived on the island were lyrical…I just loved their voices! And the art – it was so abundant, everywhere. Even on the beaches, artists were selling theirs carvings, paintings, and other creations. On the next to last day, I was approached by an islander with the most wonderful song-like voice. He was selling just one thing. A very beautiful conch shell. He wanted $20 for the shell. Now it was a beautiful shell, but $20 is a lot of money, especially in Jamaica, for a shell. He showed me the intricacies of the shell, it’s beauty – how he had polished half of the shell. The other half was covered with barnacles – and was a sight to see – and not necessarily a thing of beauty either. I worked hard to negotiate for a more reasonable price, but he held firm. It was $20 or no shell. I left, no shell.
My last morning, I walked out on the beach for a last glimpse of the ocean, and while there, the man with the shell approached. Truthfully, I was hoping to see him. I had not let the thought of the shell leave my mind. Now really, what else would I spend that $20 buying? Negotiating once again, he assured me that the price was the same. It had been very hard work polishing that shell (actually only half the shell). As you can probably guess, I bought the shell. It is quite beautiful. I bought it as a reminder…the half covered with the debris of the bottom of the ocean, that is how the world sees us. The beautiful half, where the color and luster and real beauty of the shell shines through, this is the way God sees us!
Friends, may we begin to see ourselves and each other, the way God sees us. May we live with hospitable hearts, making room for the beauty of the other in our lives and in our living. May it be.

Your thoughts???