We just got back from a 3-week trip visiting many friends in Europe. It was a long-overdue trip, and sometimes I wish each day was more like a month. (I'm a quality-time person.) I've got a number of thoughts stemming from our recent travels but there was one I couldn't wait to come home and write about (because I left my computer at home--and yes, some days it feels like my brain is attached to my computer--I am just one of those kinds of people). It is about hospitality.
Hospitality, in my mind, is one of the most indispensible gifts of any spiritual community, not only to their visiting friends and neighbors, but to total strangers. I know this because when I have been in the home of someone who has a true gift for hospitality, I feel really and truly loved and taken care of. Whether this has been in the home of someone with wealth or someone with next to nothing doesn't matter--the feeling I have when I leave a house of hospitality is the same.
Now while scripture urges Christian people to practice hospitality, I don't think everyone has it innately. You can learn it, but I do think from having been with certain people that it is a spiritual gift--and gifts are given not only to encourage each other they are given so that woven together the church becomes a unified expression of love to others. In my friends I experience many aspects of Christ--thus a pretty dynamic community--but not all of them are gifted in the same areas. I have friends who truly have the gift of hospitality. I personally don't think it's one of my native gifts, but I know how huge this gift is from having really practiced it the last two or so years.
I also think there are cities and regions and nations with the gift of hospitality--and other nations that could learn some cues from them. But I'll get into that later. I guess my heart in writing this was to emphasize to anyone who cares how much work goes into hosting others and practicing hospitality. In my "tribe" and the community of Christians I call friends, there are many pilgrims and people in missions or traveling ministries. Some of these are people who are seeking, and looking for a new frontier in their personal spiritual growth, by traveling and going to meet communities in other countries, or visiting festivals or conferences, etc. Some of these are leaders in Christian ministry or Christian charity or missions. The very nature of their job is not only to connect the global body of Christ, but to discover the frontiers that few other people are willing to travel.
