Hospitality

Community is rooted in kinship.

I don’t remember how we got on the subject.

But I remember where we were, and when: It was after choir rehearsal. A friend and I were winding our scarves in anticipation of the cold outside.

My friend is a Chinese American Christian who was also an elder in her urban church. I have great respect for my friend. She is a woman of deep personal faith who had long championed and worked hard for racial reconciliation in her city through church partnerships. The church had also long held an “open and affirming” stance with the many university students who attended and worshipped there, some of whom were openly gay.

But the board of elders and the lead pastor of her church had changed recently. Because the church relied on their university students to become leaders of youth groups and youth missionary ventures, the parents of younger children were asking the new board and the recently-installed senior pastor to end their “open and affirming” stance with the congregation. Between the parents’ request and the “deep concerns” of the older members and major contributors to the church, the new board and senior pastor were ready to end that open and affirming policy.

My friend shared that she was confused and personally conflicted at the impending change. Her own daughter had recently returned from university and announced that she was homosexual; for her already conservative family, that had been a severe adjustment to make. She confided that--months later-- she was still processing the news. Her husband had not yet gotten over his shock, but he was working on it.

I asked her how she and her husband was managing to to do that. “Love,” she replied, “we love our daughter.”

We were quiet for a bit.

“And now,” she added with a deep sigh, “I can’t support the policy change. After years of service, I’m going to have to resign from the eldership for the same reason. I can’t leave this church and my friends. Resigning is the most loving thing I can do.”

Love. In liquid form, it wears down the rock; it flows through the crevices of our flaws. It catches us up and carries us all downstream toward the Ocean. Seen through another human, given receptive permission to dwell in us, its fire-warmth of solid form softens the coldest long-held principle, wraps around us like a scarf, transforms the rigid into flexibility, illumines the future. Love enables personal hospitality.

I’ve been thinking about hospitality because my wife Linda and I have been reading Steven Charleston’s book Ladder to the Light over our morning coffee. Charleston is both a Chocktaw elder and a bishop in the Episcopal Church. He wrote this book during the first Trump Administration. The book’s subtitled: “an indigenous elder’s meditations on hope and courage.” It’s a welcome antidote to the click-bait headlines that routinely now accompany our “mournings in America.”

Charleston outlines a number of indigenous understandings and practices that have long sustained life after the US prairie holocaust. His thesis is that these survival strategies might help us all learn how to embrace diversity while maintaining unity. A key value he emphasizes is hospitality, noting that most of the Native American gatherings feature food for everyone. I’ve mentioned before that we live on a Salish Sea native reservation; when there’s an event, there’s a salmon bake. Charleston celebrates the work of hospitality, reminding us that

It tells us to remember our common condition. It calls us to act in ways that defy the fear of difference. We learn to be strangers when we close the door on our humanity.

He then connects hospitality to “kinship”:

Kinship is the core. It is the guiding principle that makes community work, not only among human beings, but throughout the entire matrix of creation. We are related to all living things. We are bonded to them, intertwined with them, dependent upon them, and strengthened by them.

Our community is rooted in kinship.

Steven Charleston, Ladder to the Light, p. 136

These are warm, inviting concepts. Even when I acknowledge that the Native American nation has practiced these during times of hardship, I have a hard time imagining how--

Wait. Maybe I don’t find it that hard..

A few months ago, I got this phone call from L., a man who belongs to a publiuc association for which I do some administration and communications.. The main thing I knew about L .was this: he’s an outspoken man who wears his red MAGA ball cap everywhere he goes, and loves to brag about the compliments he gets.

L. had an idea: he wanted to hold a potluck barbecue for the 200+ people in our group. He would do all the organizing, he said on the phone. Would I be willing to do the communications?

We ended up doing two of those barbecues over a few months, and had a great time doing it. L. cheerfully did most of the heavy lifting.

One day, as we were discussing progress, he looked up from under his hat at my ball cap: gray, with a red maple leaf and “Elbows Up!” embroidery. His eyes narrowed as he said: “You must be one of those Liberals.”

I’m more of an independent, but I understood that, for him, there was likely no such thing. “I guess,” I replied, with a sheepish smile. I was bracing myself for what I knew would follow.

He touched his cap and launched his story: “You know, I wear this everywhere. People always compliment me on the hat.”

“Yes,” I replied truthfully, “the same thing happens to me.” We looked at each other in silence.

Then L. laughed: “Now, isn’t that something... a Lib and a MAGA working together. You know, I think we all should be able to do that. This country would be a better place for it.”

I smiled in response: “I totally agree.”

Personal hospitality. Kinship. Making community work.

Maybe I can practice that.