172/365 Hospitality Quote

Merely being nice to people does not fulfill the deep requirements of Benedictine hospitality. We must let the person stir us; we must connect. Benedictine hospitality will extract a cost from us, and it will tumble us into the magical realm of personal transformation. -- Daniel Homan osb

I was at my aunt's house and she said, "I don't eat organic food because it is more contaminated than conventional food."

And I took that amazing contradiction into my head and rolled it around a bit. How could that be? How could she hold that so confidently? And for a moment I tried to make it make sense. In the end, talking to my sister about it, we just laughed. But she said the same thing I was thinking, although on the offense instead of the defense: when people say things like that I think, "really?"

There are few sweeping statements that do not make me ponder, even if just for a moment. Weigh it in my head or my heart, depending on the issue at hand. Many of them I wind up discarding, like this bizarre quote of my aunt's. When Gianna looked at me, all submissive and peculiar, until we stood in the vestibule and she whispered, "I don't speak in the nave of church." It made me think for a moment: should I be practicing that? Why would she do that? And it troubled me a moment or two. I rejected it as strangely superstitious, but I didn't reject it at first hearing.

I think that is the heart of the change in me as I try to become more hospitable. No, I don't change with the prevailing winds. I don't leave my door unlocked and let strangers walk through my house. But when someone does come in, when the wind does blow, I consider it. If a statement is more conservative than my current view, have I gone too far in the other direction? If it is more radical, have I not stretched enough in my view or belief? In the end I don't change that much, I think, but I weigh things now.

I don't simply say "that's the way I believe and if you don't like it, you can stuff it." It's easier to do that. But I try my best to really let things into my heart, at least for a moment of consideration.

Hospitality has a lot to do with sharing space and welcoming the stranger and being mindful of the other, but I think this is the part that hit me hardest. So many strident beliefs I held in early adulthood have fallen away. My edges are rounding.

It's a good thing.