To Bless and To Be :: The Honing of Hospitality

I can remember with severe clarity many of the first meals I served as a newly married novice in the kitchen. Eager to invite people into our home, to begin the journey of cooking and preparing a meal to share with friends, we hustled them in as couples, as groups, as families and single friends. I can think of undercooked chicken, one pot meals that were barely enough, over-salted chowder, strange orange chicken concoctions, and the list goes on. Then there were the dynamics, the ones that our personalities as a melancholy and introvert were sure only to exacerbate. 

I suppose like anything, the road to hospitality began long before that, growing up in a household with four siblings and a mother who was forever filling our weekends and holidays with the lonely and afflicted, the ones who didn't get invited anywhere because they drooled or talked too much or were just plain weird. We were always encouraged to bring our friends over, no matter how late or how many; ours was an open door, and I know that it must have left a mark on me.

As the years of attempting to share our home and our food and our lives have crept by, I've thought a lot about my weaknesses in this endeavor, and my strengths too. I've struggled with wanting to be an open home, but finding the way to do it without too much fanfare, or too little. 

Perhaps the thing that has helped the most (and is helping me still) is seeing the ways others have done it and admiring the goodness in their ways. Things like my husband's mother, being flexible enough to make dinner for any guest her husband happened to drag in the door unannounced. She made things special, without feeling the need to make them elaborate. She was stuck in a place where access to grocery stores was limited and she made do with what she had, but never made her guests feel the weight of that. She cut toast into hearts, turning humble pie into a gift of grace. I think about that often when I am tempted to feel like I need a spectacular meal, or just the right ingredients, when I know that the most important thing is that they are welcomed in, made to know that in this house they are brought in with gladness.

Then there are the uncomfortable memories of my childhood. Most of this discomfort was a result of my bad attitude, which I now see with regret. And yet I am affected by it... wanting to keep the numbers "just right" so no one feels squished or ignored, or God forbid, uncomfortable. But even that, I've had to learn to let go of a little bit. I want to be thoughtful, and I want my guests to know that they are special and that I have thought about them, but a perfect orchestration of numbers and people does not always guarantee that this will happen. And sometimes a heart too bent on making it just perfect isn't thinking about her guests at all.

Perhaps it is the age of Martha Stewartism that we live in, which makes the gathering of a meal all about beautiful table arrangements and the presentation of gourmet food with impeccable and hard to find ingredients. Or maybe it is the fact that so little of our regular days are spent in honest to goodness meal preparation, that we are left feeling like we need to "up it" when someone comes to dine. At best, there hopefully lurks somewhere a desire to simply bless our guests with an offering of love made tangible by edible food for sustenance and the joy of sharing it together.

I suppose I've begun to see, and to attempt to pursue the fact that the sharing of a meal is an important part of the sharing of a life. This is the essential quality I am after... and the adorning of it with food and atmosphere is an important part, but it is not the center stage. Yet, the meal is an important one to share because it is a gift of grace, and a respite from the day's activities when we can rejoice in the goodness of its provision. The meal is a time for festivity, and festivity with thanks must be one of the great joys of community. I'm reading through Dietrich Bonhoeffer's, Life Together and he brings to light so many simple but not often thought about truths.

The fellowship of the table has a festive quality. It is a constantly recurring reminder in the midst of our everyday work of God's resting after His work, of the Sabbath as the meaning and goal of the week and its toil. Our life is not only travail and labor, it is also refreshment and joy in the goodness of God. We labor, but God nourishes and sustains us... Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day. 

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together

When friends gather here, I am grateful for their presence. When strangers come in, I am hopeful for their comfort. When too many arrive, I am amazed at how it can all still be enough. When we feel the lack in our personalities, I pray that food and presence and a sense of welcome will sustain them. And as I present our home, at times with too much ado and at times too poorly, I have received much grace (even forgiveness!) and love from my guests. Hospitality can truly be a means of blessing to us all.

This post is also a part of The View From Here weekly photo challenge. This week's theme, {the days grow short} was about taking natural light indoor shots... aiya.

The View From Here {My Neighborhood}

[neighborhood friends on International Day at school]

I read somewhere that your neighborhood really extends no further than a one or two mile radius. In my experience, I think it may be even smaller than that. 

I've lived in a variety of places, some with tree lined streets and cookie cutter houses and some with fields of cow piles that stretched behind the dirt road driveway, but of all the places I've lived it has been the small and compact apartment complexes that have bred the most vibrant and close knit communities. This phenomenon is something I accept and appreciate while at the same time wrinkle my nose at the fact that it seems to happen in a place where I also hear every footstep, argument, and choice of music my neighbors let loose. And of course, they experience the same inconvenience with  me.

Inconvenience and frustrations of close living quarters aside, there is much good that comes with repeatedly crossing the same paths and thresholds as your neighbors. In the age of suburbia  (which is something I have yet to experience or even be exposed to in China and am not sure if it even exists anywhere... it is city, or it is countryside), it is difficult if not impossible to have random, unplanned encounters with your friends. But this, I think, is one essential part of true community life. To be able to run up and borrow sugar or eggs, to ask for last minute help with a sick child or a need for a babysitter, to have the conversations about life and what is happening within our lives without being limited to a few planned hours a week or a month is the stuff that makes up much of our knowledge of each other.

I think of the moments at the bus stop when I happen to find out the morning burden of a friend, something she may never have shared had I not seen her until the following week, or the snippets of conversation that inform me of the happenings of extended family, of a child's struggles at school, of what is being made for dinner. I pass children, daily, playing outside and I hear their conversations. I come to know their personalities and the joys and difficulties in the way they relate to one another. 

It is in fact, my neighborhood. It happens in many places, all over the world, but my sense is that in some places it is happening less and less. There are limitations and drawbacks to this space in which we live as well. Not everything is as it should be, or even as I would want it to be. But there is much that is good. 

This week, as a part of a photography project called The View From Here, I am focusing on this week's theme, {My Neighborhood}. The challenge itself only requires one photo, but I am choosing to work through it for an entire week. Tomorrow, as a part of {book}worm wednesday, I will be doing a book giveaway, and it has a neighborly theme as well. Weather and energy permitting, there will be more to come on the people and places that make up this place I call {My Neighborhood}.