Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

hospitality

The Year of Friendship & Hospitality

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Last November my closest friend here in Lincoln moved to Connecticut. Even now, nearly three months later, the impact of Deidra’s move still reverberates. I feel a quiet pang when I spot a car that looks like hers pass by. I notice my stubborn avoidance of the street where she and Harry lived, my reluctance to revisit one of our favorite lunch spots.

I miss the favorite sweater kind of easiness and comfort of my in-person friendship with Deidra. When my husband and I wanted to invite someone over for dinner or drinks on the patio, Deidra and Harry were our go-to couple. Our friendship had grown to a place where we didn’t have to work so hard at it. They were like family, without the baggage.

Back when our kids were preschoolers, Brad and I hosted dinner parties and gatherings with lots of different friends at our house pretty regularly. Without family nearby, we didn’t have easy babysitting options, so we did the next best thing: we invited friends to hang out with us in our home.

We were part of a supper club with two other couples who also had young children. We invited Brad’s colleagues or mine over for summer barbeques and winter potlucks. We belonged to a small group with members of our church, and even when we weren’t meeting weekly as part of a Bible study, we got together with our group for fun. We socialized with other parents of young children – women I had met in a local Mom’s Club and their husbands and kids.

As the years passed and our kids got older, Brad and I gradually stopped hosting dinner gatherings. For a long time I didn’t even notice the shift. It happened organically as our kids and our friends’ kids enrolled in different schools and pursued different interests.

Some of our core communities and friendships shifted into new spaces. Others gradually faded away altogether.

New friendships were forged along the sidelines of the soccer field or on the sidewalk at the periphery of the elementary school as we waited for the dismissal bell. Though we liked these new friends and enjoyed the opportunities we had to connect, most of these relationships didn’t grow beyond the sidelines or the sidewalks. When soccer season ended or school let out for the summer, months passed before I crossed paths with most of these women again.

I guess what I am saying is that I miss the friendships and connections that go deeper than small talk on the sidelines. I miss the rich scent of a home-cooked meal wafting into the cold night air when we open the door to greet our guests. I miss gathering around the table, candles flickering. I miss retiring to the living room after the meal, dessert plates balanced on our knees. I miss rich conversation and laughing until my stomach hurts.

On one hand, this is the season of life we are in right now – shuttling older kids to tennis lessons and cross country meets and math tutoring. Attending orchestra concerts, cheering on sidelines, proofreading English essays, dropping a carload of boys off at the movies.

Life is full. Life is busy.

At the same time, though, I think “this season,” “this busyness,” might also be an excuse I’ve allowed myself. In the same way I’ve become complacent about chasing curiosity, I’ve also grown complacent in pursuing rich, meaningful friendships.

This kind of relationship-building takes work. True community requires intentionality. Authentic connection that goes beyond sideline small talk requires time, trust, and a willingness of be vulnerable.

Inviting someone into your home to sit around your table invites intimacy on a deeper level – even more so, perhaps than meeting in a restaurant or another public space.Sometimes I think I choose sideline small talk because it’s easy, non-threatening, and doesn’t take much work.

I am lucky to have had (and still have) true friendship with Deidra. But that relationship and its shift into new territory these last couple of months has taught me something important. Life is full and busy, to be sure. But it’s neither too full nor too busy to pursue deeper, more fulfilling friendships that go beyond sideline small talk.

This year, I’m going to get back into the habit of practicing hospitality – of inviting new friends and old into my home and around my table. It’s a small step in the journey toward forming and growing authentic relationships, but it’s an important one – one I’ve neglected for far too long. And as a friend wisely noted, it might turn out that my two themes for the year — curiosity and hospitality — will go quite nicely together, each complementing the other.

This post is Part 2 in my two-part Themes for 2018 series. Two weeks ago I wrote about the Year of Curiosity, which you can read here. 

What I Learned about Jesus from Mohammed on the Bike Path

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Y is for Yaweh

We passed each other on the path several mornings a week. He walked slowly, shuffling, staring ahead with a stern, almost angry look on his face. Occasionally he rode a bike, the old-fashioned kind with a wide seat and no gears. He sat straight and tall like a diplomat, his winter coat flapping open in the breeze. When I waved or said hello, he didn’t make eye contact, but held up his hand, palm out, as if to offer me a high-five.

One morning, as we traveled in the same direction, I passed him as he was walking. “How far are you going?” he called out to my back.

“Four,” I answered, turning around, still jogging backwards. “Four miles. What about you?” He told me he was walking six; the same route he walked every day, unless he decided to ride his bike instead. I was impressed. The man was far from young, although it was hard to discern his exact age. I thought seventy; maybe even eighty.

We chatted for a long time that morning. Because his accent was so thick, I had to ask him to repeat himself numerous times. He told me he was Pakistani; his name was Mohammed. He had five children; his wife died several years ago. He lived with his son here in Lincoln.

“Do you like Pakistani food?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever had it. Is it like Indian food? I really like Indian food.”

“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head and waving his hand dismissively. “Pakistan and India, very different, very different.” Mohammed seemed annoyed, although it was a little hard to tell because he never smiled anyway.

Only much later did I realize he probably didn’t appreciate the fact that I’d lumped Pakistan together with its arch-enemy India. I’d managed to insult Mohammed in the first five minutes of our conversation.

After that first meeting, Mohammed and I talked on the path at least once a week. One of the times we chatted he mentioned he was Muslim, but had been attending the Mormon church in town. I couldn’t quite figure that one out.

Whenever I saw him, Mohammed always asked me the same question, “How far you are walking?” And I always had to bite my tongue from answering, “Does this look like walking?” as I wiped sweat from my brow and heaved like a Clydesdale.

One day, about a month after our first conversation, when I stopped to talk to Mohammed he wanted to discuss food again – it was a popular topic with him.

“So you’ve never had Pakistani food?” Mohammed asked.

“Nope,” I answered, shaking my head. This time I didn’t mention my love of Indian food.

“You need to come then. I make you Pakistani food. Your husband and children come, too.” Mohammed proceeded to give me elaborate directions to his house, only a quarter of which I could make out through his accent.

“Okay, sure. Yeah. That would be great. Maybe we’ll come to dinner sometime. Thanks for asking,” I stuttered.

Mohammed took a slip of paper and a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Here,” he said, handing them to me, “you write your address.”

Now I was confused. The whole language barrier thing was making this exchange terribly complicated. Had I misunderstood? Had I just inadvertently invited Mohammed to my house for dinner?

“Oh, um, okay,” I said, stalling. “Well, how about just my telephone number? You can call me, okay? I wrote my cell number on the slip of paper and handed it to him.

Had I just made a date with an eighty-year-old Pakistani on the bike path?

Later I announced to my husband and kids that we might be going to Mohammed’s house for dinner. I also mentioned there was a chance he might be coming to our house; I wasn’t totally clear on the details. “What?” Rowan yelled. “Pakistani food? What’s Pakistani food? It sounds gross! What if I don’t like it?”

As it turned out, we didn’t go to Mohammed’s house for dinner, and he didn’t come to our house either. Mohammed never called. In fact, more than a year went by before I saw him again. For a long time I looked for him every time I ran. I missed his grumpy, unsmiling face and his high-five wave.

Back in the sixth century a monk by the name of Benedict of Nursia had a lot to say about hospitality. So much, in fact, he wrote what’s now known as The Rule of St. Benedict, a guidebook of sorts on how to live a spiritual life in community with others.

Among his many words of wisdom, Benedict conveyed to his monks that the notion of hospitality extended far beyond a home-cooked meal served on fine china and fresh hand towels laid out the guest bathroom. Benedictine hospitality was, and is, centered on the act of receiving a person as if he is Jesus himself:

“All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, who said: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me’…By a bow of the head or by a complete prostration of the body, Christ is to be adored and welcomed in them.”

Think about this for a moment. As awkward and downright bizarre as it would surely be to bow your head to Christ in every stranger who appeared at your front door, or who stood in line ahead of you at Walgreens, or who sat next to you in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, can you imagine the radically transformative power of such an approach?

Can you imagine, for a moment, the possibility of seeing Christ in everyone, even in the people you might least expect to see him? I don’t think we’d ever be the same, which is exactly what Jesus, and Benedict, intended.

This was the kind of hospitality Mohammed showed me. He could have brushed me off after I’d demonstrated my complete ignorance of his native country and culture. But instead, he went above and beyond expectations by continuing the dialogue every time I saw him on the path and by inviting my family and me to his home for dinner.

Mohammed offered love, respect, community, camaraderie, and above all, the gift of Jesus in a stranger, exactly where I least expected to see him.

I saw Mohammed on the path again yesterday. It had been a long time.  He gave me a high-five wave as he road past on his old-fashioned bike, his winter coat flapping open in the breeze. I doubt he recalls the dinner invitation, or perhaps even who I am. But I smiled big when I saw him, remembering how he’d unexpectedly extended Jesus’s grace and hospitality, remembering how he’d shown me what it looks like to be Christ to a stranger.

What a Monk and Two Delivery Men Taught Me about Hospitality

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When I am expecting guests I typically work myself into a frothy frenzy. Not only do I plunge headlong into the standard pre-party chores – vacuuming, scrubbing toilets, grocery shopping, dusting, de-cobwebbing – I also tackle what most people would consider “deep cleaning.”

I scrub the baseboards. I polish the hardwood floors. I re-grout the tub. Once I even repainted an entire wall in my living just hours before my dinner guests arrived. I’d intended to touch up a few scuff marks but accidently used the wrong paint.

Suffice to say, by the time the doorbell rang I looked and felt like I’d just completed the Iditarod. Not only did I barely have the energy to put dinner on the table, I was too exhausted to enjoy myself or the company of my guests.

It probably goes without saying: hospitality is not one of my spiritual gifts. Or at least this is what I’ve always assumed.

…Today I am delighted to be writing over at Grace Table, a brand-new, absolutely beautiful site. Join me over there for the rest of this story? Thanks, friends…

Expecting: How to be a Host and Keep Your Sanity, Too

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It used to be that when I was expecting guests I’d work myself into a frothy frenzy. I swept dust bunnies, scrubbed toilets, planned meals, grocery shopped, baked brownies from scratch, washed sheets, straightened crooked pictures, Windexed windows, pruned dead leaves off house plants.

I even tackled projects I’d been putting off for weeks, like touching up the scuff marks on the stairway walls. I actually did this once when I was expecting out-of-town guests. Except you know what happened? The touch-up paint I used, the paint that was supposed to blend seamlessly into the walls, was the wrong shade, so I ended up having to paint the entire wall…all just hours before my house guests arrived.

…I’m writing over at Her View from Home about how my approach to hospitality has changed in recent years. Will you join me over there for the rest of the story?

*This is actually an edited repost from a series I did called Blogging Benedict a few years ago, based on the book St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living by Jane Tomaine. I may have to revisit this book and this series in the coming weeks!
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