Hospitality of Heart and Home

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It is December.  Christmas jingles are played on repeat over the loudspeakers. Many buy into the illusion of peace and wellbeing via early Black Friday sales. Days of December (and even November!) are filled with markets and flyers that point to family get-togethers and parties in the name of commerce.

In many homes and businesses entertaining guests over dinner may be part of the lineup for the holidays. Most adverts overtly suggest the need for perfectly dressed tables, crisply folded napkins, bright baubles and sparkly lights to set the stage for the immaculately clad guests.  There is a quest for perfection. If we just get it right then maybe this year Christmas will be jolly: the ideal celebration.

But what if we look at the true message of hospitality.

I had a friend who was the pure example of what it was to be hospitable - she was warm, interested, a good listener, a great questioner, she involved others and was sensitive and compassionate, plus she laughed a great deal. In a book she wrote with her daughter, ‘A Place at the Table’, hospitality is described through the image of a large and roughhewn farmhouse table, which they discovered and bought from an auction house.  It was the first piece of furniture placed in their new home in France and over time became the centre-piece of their daily lives.  The table would be dressed with reusable home-made linen and colourful cloth napkins, candlesticks and a few sprigs of tree branches in well-worn ceramic vases…or it would be simply graced with steaming bowls of soup made from leftover veg, a loaf of homemade bread on a plate in the middle. The main emphasis was on the people who came to that table. No one was left out in the cold. It was people not perfection that mattered. It was a healing and welcoming space.

A playwright friend from the south of England wrote a successful show called ‘Entertaining Angels’ featuring the actress Penelope Keith.  The title comes from the passage in the King James New Testament book of Hebrews: ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’  This might be at the root of why we say ‘he or she is an angel’ referring to people who bring love and blessing into a situation and suggesting that hospitality can go both ways!  

Genuine hospitality relies on keeping our inner ecosystems healthy, creating a fertile ground for love and forgiveness in the face of an increasingly entitled and ego-driven society; where we come to terms with our own shortcomings, and increasingly let go of our need for control.  

We need to free ourselves. Instead of saying ‘I can’t love until that person meets my definition of order and my high standards’, we could let go and show grace. In accepting ourselves we can more easily accept others, including family members. Hospitality from the heart is not a ‘resounding gong or a clanging cymbal’, reciting faults, and manipulating people to fit our purposes. It does not use others. It is not proud, self-seeking or envious. Rather it hopes, trusts, and perseveres, keeping no record of wrongs. It is patient, kind, and gentle.

Let’s set the table and be on the lookout for angels this Christmas.

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