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Practicing Radical Hospitality this Holiday Season
The holiday season has arrived. This is often lifted up as a time of giving gifts and sharing food and hospitality in our homes and in our places of work and worship. This year, especially, is one where we surely need to reach beyond our normal practices of hospitality and reach for what many have called “radical hospitality.”
In an article about radical hospitality published in UU World, Rev. Marilyn Sewell, minister emerita of the First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon said:
“I speak of radical hospitality today because there is a world out there that needs home, that needs community, and I want us to stretch spiritually, to stretch ourselves open. I know that when we take the risk—yes, of course, we’ll blunder, we’ll make mistakes—believe me, I have blundered more than once—but when we take the risk, our lives will grow so much richer and deeper because we have extended ourselves. Our creativity will blossom, for we will not be stuck with our old assumptions, our narrow ways of perceiving reality. Our world will grow wider and softer and more trusting.”
How are ways we can open ourselves up to a more radical kind of hospitality, the kind lifted up by St. Benedict in his Rules for Monasteries. The rule states: “Let all guests who arrive be received as Christ," grounding this practice in Jesus' own words: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Matthew 25:35).
During this holiday season and beyond, may we be revolutionary in extending our warmth and love to all we encounter.
With Love at the Center!
Jane
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