Tag: Community

In Memory of a Friend, In Memory of a Community

Published on by Marilyn18 Comments

The news came, as it does these days, over the waves of social media. It was the death of a childhood friend, the news posted by her brother. Within minutes, a community of us, some who hadn’t seen Ruthie for many years, others who saw her this past June, and still others who were with her recently were collectively remembering, collectively grieving.

Ruthie was three years younger than me, a classmate and friend of my younger brother, Dan. She was petite and pretty with a smile that radiated from her bones to her face. She came from a dynamic family, all of them uniquely gifted musically and relationally.

I had the chance to see Ruthie in early June at a reunion for those of us connected to Pakistan. It was the first time I had seen her since 1993 when she visited Cairo with her boyfriend Mark, the man who would later become her husband. We had just left our beloved Maadi community and moved to a different area of Cairo. I was getting used to a new flat in a new part of the city, the kids were anticipating a new school, and my husband was starting a new job. In the midst of all that new came the familiarity of an old friend. Every morning before she and Mark went off exploring the city we would laugh and talk. Every evening we would do the same. The familiar mixed with the new, a gift of memory and discovery.

As I talked to her this summer, I brought up the memory. I was delighted that she, too, remembered. I learned that it had been a key moment in her life with Mark. I knew as I was speaking with her that cancer cells were overwhelming her healthy cells, that she was fighting a hard battle with the tools of chemotherapy, gifted doctors, and prayers of “Thy will be done.” I saw the deep love that she and her husband had formed through the years, a love large enough to embrace four biological and twelve adopted children. But I knew that I only saw and heard a fraction of what her journey had included.

The service was at two in the afternoon, Albanian time. It was broadcast as a gift to many around the world who, through computer screens, could participate in honoring her life.

As I sat in my living room in Boston, miles away from Albania, I began to see others from my Pakistan family and community sign on. With each one, came a rush of memories and thoughts. Ruthie was little sister, mentor, friend, classmate, big sister, and more depending on who you were and how you knew her. Most of all, she was one of us.

In our small community we shared tragedies like they were our own. When a father or mother of one of our friends died, it was like losing a beloved family member. The limbs on our missionary community tree stretched wide and when one of them was gone, no matter how we lost them, it meant leaves and fruit, nourishment and love were gone. These many years later we still feel losses when we hear of the death of someone we loved, someone we knew. No matter if it was another lifetime, they were part of us, and we feel the ache. The names still come to me – Dale, Carolyn, Angela, Val, Joy, Roy, Stan, Tim….and these are only a few of the ones that we have lost. Some were long, slow deaths, others were quick, tragic accidents – no matter, the way they died, their deaths put another nail in a community coffin.

Yesterday we grieved the loss of another. Yet, it was not only her life that we grieved. It was all of it – the loss of one brought up many other losses. In grieving for Ruthie, we had permission to grieve for lost community, lost time, and lost childhood. In grieving the loss of one of us, we once again felt saudade, that wistful longing for what no longer exists. In seeing her life, the adult version of Ruthie featuring a life lived large with joy and love, we perhaps questioned our own scarcity and unwillingness to live large, our inability to love with abundance and live generously.

“Everything precious is costly” were words that were said of Ruthie at the memorial service. Her beloved Mark, her children, her parents, her siblings, and her community are already experiencing the costly loss of wife, mom, daughter, and sister. And we on the periphery, we hear those words and know their truth, for we have lived and witnessed an extraordinary and precious community, gone but still glimpsed in memorials and memories.

But this much I will tell. What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.

Frederick Buechner

Grieving and the Casserole Ladies

Published on by Marilyn5 Comments

Several years ago, a colleague at my work place lost her father to a tragic accident. It was right after Thanksgiving and the family was paralyzed with grief. Tragedies during holidays are a degree more painful as shock mixes with holiday expectation, creating a numb disconnect. A couple of day’s after the tragedy, my colleague’s roommate, a dear friend of mine, called me and said “I don’t know what to do! There are no church ladies. No church ladies means no casserole ladies! How are we going to help this family?”

Initially I responded in stunned silence. It has been years since my friend went to church, so why the church ladies, the casserole ladies? “What do you mean?” I asked. My friend went on to say that growing up she knew that whenever there was something hard or life changing, like funerals or births, there was a guarantee that the family would not have to worry about meals. Whether they knew the family or not made no difference, the casserole church ladies would show up like fairy godmothers with delicious and plentiful food. With everything else that a grieving family or community was going through, at least they wouldn’t have to wonder how to feed people. Like magic, casseroles, brownies, cookies, seven-layer salads, jello salads, rolls, bread, and Robert Redford cake would appear at their doorways. There was no expectation of conversation and no expectation of reciprocity. It was a “We are so sad. We are so sorry. Here! Have a brownie!” It wasn’t to minimize the grief, rather it was tangible support in the form of food.

I knew in that moment exactly what she was talking about. I’ve been a recipient of the goodness of the casserole ladies and have experienced this tangible comfort many times. One time it was an entire Christmas feast, another time a week’s worth of freezable meals. Just one long year ago during a family crisis, my son opened the door to a massive lasagna and huge container of salad, enough food to feed a family of 30. Words would have been ineffective and difficult, but food? Food was perfect.

Yesterday a friend sent me the cooking newsletter that comes out of the New York Times. It was a couple of paragraphs – simple and timely, titled “Grief and Cooking.” There it was – a perfect description of the role that food plays when there is a tragedy or crisis.

Food plays a central role in our reaction to tragedy, to death and grieving. It’s why casseroles appear on the doorsteps and countertops of those experiencing it, why we feel the urge to roast chickens or assemble lasagnas when the news is grim. Food is comfort of a sort, and fuel as well, for anger and sorrow alike. We cook to provide for those we love and for ourselves. In the activity itself we strive to find relief, strength, resolve.

Sam Sifton from NYTimes newsletter: Grief and Cooking

Right now, more than anything I wish I could make a casserole for the grieving families of Uvalde, Texas. where I imagine sleepless nights barely ending as nightmare days begin, an entire community forever changed. I wish I could make them a roast chicken and stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce and finish it off with my specialty apple cake. Or maybe a delicious lasagna with fresh garlic bread, because when you are grieving, carbs are necessary. Like many of you who are miles away, unconnected to the tragedy other than the human capacity of empathy and grief recognition, I still long for concrete ways to enter into their suffering.

I can’t make a casserole and a loaf of bread for the grieving families of Uvalde. But I can make a casserole and a loaf of bread for a neighbor who is hurting. I can take the heart and warmth of my kitchen and cook it into food. I can translate love, care, and prayers for courage into bread dough, delivering a loaf packed full of empathic goodness to someone in my world who is desperate for comfort.

And as I measure and whisk, I will pour my prayers for Uvalde into the mix, praying that somehow, as impossible as it seems, comfort will come.

[Image by RitaE from Pixabay]

Therapy in a Hair Salon

Published on by Marilyn5 Comments

I feel something oddly comforting as I walk into the hair salon. It smells of conditioner and peroxide, of hair color and shampoo. Everything is black, grey,and chrome. Sleek black chairs with chrome swiveled bases, black framed mirrors, grey baskets on black shelves, shiny black sinks with chrome fixtures, silver sprayed plants, and a vintage grey metal trunk serving as a resting place for a plant and magazines. The look is sophisticated and sleek, luring me in with a vision of all that I am not.

For I am neither sleek or sophisticated and, though I should feel out of place in this space, I don’t.

A lovely young woman with shiny dark hair and smiling brown eyes greets me, laughing as I confess that I look a fright.

“When I saw myself on a video chat the other day, I was so puzzled. I thought my grandmother had come back from the dead only to greet me through 21st century technology, and then I realized it was me!” I said shaking my older than middle aged head.

“Ahh! We’ll get you fixed up in no time,” She said leading me to a chair.

As she expertly worked my hair we chatted and my sad, busy week suddenly felt not so bad, not so sad.

We talked about the pandemic, about masks, about the vaccine hesitation in different communities. We talked about family and loneliness, about fear of others and the sadness of loss. We talked about long summer beach days and picnics on the sand, about her favorite television show centered on Persians in Los Angeles.

None of us has made it through this past year unscathed. Instead, we bear the wounds of disconnection and the discomfort of fraught friendships. We hold this tension in our bodies and our souls. We are more desperate than we know.

We are created for each other, for community, for the kindness and conversation of both strangers and friends. The stylist may never realize the impact she had, the therapy she gave on that black and chrome chair, but in the comforting conversation of a stranger I found myself relaxing. I left more whole, more thoughtful, and less of a fright.

Thanks be to God.

Image by bigpromoter from Pixabay

A Salute to All of Us

Published on by Marilyn7 Comments
Photo credit – Stefanie Sevim Gardner

Here’s to the moms, homeschooling when they always said “I’ll homeschool when it snows in Djibouti… or Miami … or Chiang Mai.” In other words “Never” and never has suddenly become now.

Here’s to the restaurant worker, who is suddenly furloughed from an eighty hour work week.

Here’s to the teachers turning their carefully thought out lesson plans into online classes.

Here’s to the young woman who just got a job at Target excited for her first paycheck only to find out there will be no more.

Here’s to the nurse, carefully isolating herself from her family to keep them safe.

Here’s to the student, lonely and feeling trapped.

Here’s to the graduate who will not be able to walk.

Here’s to the bride, who tearfully postponed her wedding Unsure of when it can be rescheduled.

Here’s to the women and men setting up home offices and new systems, trying to continue their jobs.

Here’s to the grocery store employee, wiping down carts and checkout counters with bleach.

Here’s to the healthcare workers, on the frontlines of care.

Here’s to the priest and the pastor, the imam and the rabbi, praying for congregations in crisis.

Here’s to the homeless, fighting one more difficult day, one more crisis in a long list.

Here’s to the families trapped on three sides of the globe, to the third culture kid trying to get home, to the parents and siblings, brothers and sisters separated.

Here’s to the family grieving with no funeral, the community rallying with no physical contact, the church seeking to function while apart.

Here’s to the poor and the refugee – those whose reality has changed little, but whose hope looks even bleaker.

Here’s to the helpers, the doers, the prayers, the seekers, the scholars, the researchers, the neighbors, the givers, the comforters, the organizers, the activists, the optimists, the pessimists, the realists, the pragmatists, the lonely, the sad, the fearful, and the angry.

Here’s to our collective humanity and image bearing. May we reach across what divides us and open our hearts wide to the God who loves us. May we be willing to give of our abundance and receive from our need. May we have patience and resilience, may our eyes be open wide to the world and our small part in that world.

And may God be with us and comfort us.

Advice from a friend in Shanghai:

Since we got a head start with the COVID-19 over here in China, some friends have asked me for advice in navigating this time. Take only what’s helpful for you!

  1. Stay at home. Yes, I totally understand the urge to resist this, but the sooner you can accept it and stay home, the better it will be for everyone, including you.
  2. Assume that you could be the carrier. I haven’t been too worried about contracting the virus myself, but I became much more careful when I started thinking how I could potentially spread it to others.
  3. Don’t bring germs into your house. Wash your hands as soon as you come home. In Asia, we take off our shoes at the door, and this might be a good practice for everyone right now. Consider changing your outer clothes or showering if you’ve been out in a public place. Don’t forget to clean your phone and your keys!
  4. Focus on what you can control (yourself). There are too many things that are outside of your control right now. Instead, find ways you can boost your immune system and/or prevent your exposure. For many Asians, that means wearing face masks and opening the windows. I personally use essential oils to support to our immune systems and buy fruit for my family like a mad woman. Whatever strategies can strengthen you, whether it’s making grandma’s chicken soup or deep cleaning your house, I say go for it!
  5. Take care of your own physical, emotional, and spiritual health. The stronger you are, the better you can survive and even thrive during this time. Get enough sleep, eat well, exercise daily. Pray like crazy. Turn off the news. Watch something funny. Call a friend. Do a conference call with a group of friends. Listen to a podcast. Read a book. Get e-therapy. Learn something new. Go for a walk or a drive. If you have a balcony or a yard, sit outside in the fresh air and sun.
  6. If you have faith, put it into action. Trust in God. Meditate on His promises. Listen to worship music. God is greater than our circumstances, and He provides for us even in times of uncertainty. Be a light during this dark time. Don’t give in to fear or settle for mere self-preservation; your neighbor needs the hope and the love that you give, albeit in creative ways. Look out for those who are isolated, struggling, or vulnerable to domestic violence.
  7. Be generous. Give a gift card to someone who is not able to work during this time. Support your church even though the services have been cancelled. Pay your employees. Order take-out. Support small businesses. Donate blood. Give a phone call to someone who is vulnerable. Send a card to someone in a nursing home. Offer to shop for someone else. Donate to a food bank. Sew cloth masks. There are endless possibilities to sow seeds of generosity during this time. [From my friend Ruth and used with permission.]

Until Then….

Published on by Marilyn7 Comments


Early mornings are the best. Those dawn hours when the sun has broken over the horizon but the world is still sleeping; the hours of slow wake-up, sounds of birds breaking the silence of night.

It is early morning and right now it is easy for me to believe that someday this will all be redeemed. 

I remind myself of this when I feel particularly burdened by our world. It is the lifeline of my faith, and I believe it in the marrow of my bones. 

So if one day this will all be redeemed, how am I supposed to live? It would be easy to dismiss this as God’s problem, not mine; to decide that I needn’t go out of my way to do anything special. But the privilege of partnering with a redeemer in “Thy Kingdom Come” is compelling. 

I learn daily more of what it means to participate in kingdom building. I learn that my job is not to ridicule, to withold grace, to tell people to stop having thin skin, to condemn, to gloat, to despair, to withdraw, to be disgusted. My job, my mandate is to build bridges and seek the kingdom. My job is to love God and my neighbor, to seek the welfare of the places I live, to fight for human flourishing. 

My job is to walk in the words of the prophet Micah and do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. 

There will be a day when the Kingdom of Heaven will come, and on that day I know this – all of this will dissolve into nothing in the light of the Glory of God Himself.

Until then may God heal my eyesight. May he heal our collective eyesight. 

Until then, nations will come and go. Party affiliations will change. Politics will swing from right to left and back again. This is not the Kingdom of God. Every system on earth was designed by imperfect people who were all about life on earth and not about treasure in Heaven.

Until then, may he show us his beloved ones of every tribe and every nation. May we not dismiss stories or perspectives. May we be ones who listen and learn, who are willing to admit we are wrong. May we not justify our wrongs or rationalize our sins. May we be people who see beyond the crisis of the day and beyond our own inadequacies. May we comfort the hurting, give grace to the angry, hear the other side, build bridges of peace, and always fight for the persecuted. 

May we see the world through the Creator’s eyes of love and grace.

Until then…, 

The Four C’s of Crisis Care

Published on by Marilyn3 Comments

Kintsukuroi-Collage
[Photo Credit – Godfuel.org]

With many thanks to Melissa Dalton-Bradford 

When you first meet Melissa Dalton-Bradford, one of your first thoughts is “She is the sort of beautiful that makes me feel beautiful.”  Your second thought is life is not fair because she is incredibly smart, speaks at least three languages, and is a talented performer.

But when she begins to talk and you learn her life story, you are convinced life is not fair. Melissa buried her 18-year old son a few days after he began college. She laid a son who had been full of life and joy and talent into a coffin. The tragedy belongs in the album of the unexplainable and my throat catches when I think about this, about the loss of this boy to the family, to his church, to his community.

As I listen to Melissa, I don’t stay in that album for long, because she compassionately moves the listener to a different album – an album of hope.

I had the privilege of meeting Melissa in Amsterdam this past weekend. She was the last speaker in what was a conference full of excellent breakout and main stage sessions. I walked away with thoughts on grief and comfort whirling in my mind. It will take a long time to process.

Today however, I want to share the four C’s of crisis care: Compassion. Community. Comfort. Commitment.  These thoughts primarily come from Melissa and are just the briefest summary of all she has to say. I would urge those who want to dig deeper to like the Facebook page On Loss and Moving Forward as well as take a look at Melissa’s second book On Loss and Living Onward: Collected Voices for the Grieving and Those Who Would Mourn with Them. 

Compassion

“When others help us heal, they too suffer in some way. Suffering is the modest price of real friendship.” Wayne E. Brickey in Making Sense of Suffering.

I’ve spoken about compassion before in several pieces, but here was another reminder that we begin and we end with compassion.  We don’t “patch grief with proverbs”[Melissa Dalton-Bradford] We sit with them. The root of the word ‘compassion’ means “to suffer with.”  Melissa quoted a line “To comfort me you have to come close. Come sit with me on my mourning bench” from a piece called Lament for a Son. * So we come close, we sit, and we wait.

Commune

To commune means to ‘show up.’ If you talk to people who are grieving about what helped the most, they will tell stories with tears running down their cheeks about how people showed up. They came to appointments and to drop off dinners and desserts; they came to funerals and they made phone calls or just dropped by. We can’t do grief without communing and community. And we must bring community to the grieving.

Comfort

Melissa reminded us that we each bring a strength to the grieving process and to those who grieve. Your strength may not be casseroles. Mine certainly isn’t. But we all have something to bring. She gave the illustration of two artists who painted pictures of her son that captured his life through their art. They gave what they could. Are you an artist, a blogger, an accountant, an organizer, a driver? Come and bring your strength to the one who is grieving.

Commitment

“All grief will outlast conventional comfort”

“Grief is its own country, its own land mass.”

Melissa Dalton-Bradford

Whoever created a ‘time line’ for grief should be challenged to rethink that idea.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, pioneer of the conscious dying movement, lived to regret having described the common features of the grief journey as stages. She came to see that everyone grieves differently and that science collapses in the face of the mysteries of the heart. There is no map for the landscape of loss, no established itinerary, no cosmic checklist, where each item ticked off gets you closer to success. You cannot succeed in mourning your loved ones. You cannot fail. Nor is grief a malady, like the flu. You will not get over it. You will only come to integrate your loss, like the girl who learned to surf again after her arm was bitten off by a shark. The death of a beloved is an amputation. You find a new center of gravity, but the limb does not grow back.

When someone you love very much dies, the sky falls. And so you walk around under a fallen sky.**

Grief knows no timeline. Three months from now, your friend will still be grieving over her failed marriage. Two years from now, even as she moves on, there will still be times of grief.  Ten months from now, your other friend will still dream that her child is coming back, well and whole.  Fifteen years from now, a wife will still go to the grave side of the man she pledged her life to and who she thought would be there on her 15th anniversary. Ten years from now the third culture kid or refugee will still feel the weight of grief when they read the news and see “their” countries on the front page. Compassion, community, and comfort need to continue for the long haul.

I wish all of you could have heard this talk on grief and the hope that emerged from the ashes of Melissa’s healing. If she is speaking in your area – GO! But in the meantime, her books hold her story and her story brings comfort.

As I was thinking about Melissa’s talk, reflecting and writing this piece, I saw a picture of the fine art of Kintsukuroi. Kintsukuroi is the art of repairing a broken pot with gold:

“When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold, because they believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.” *

When we are willing to sit with people in their grieving, we are part of this restoration. We help to fill the cracks with gold instead of sawdust, and the damaged, grieving one heals and becomes stronger and more beautiful.

*Barbara Bloom | Photo of Kintsukuroi

*http://www.iskandar.com/waleed911/griefwalterstorff.html

**Excerpt from CARAVAN OF NO DESPAIR forthcoming from Sounds True (November 1, 2015)

A Look Back and a Look Ahead

Published on by Marilyn9 Comments

volkswagen-569315_1920.jpg

May the wind be always at your back, and the sun shine warm upon your face, may the rains fall soft upon your fields, until the day we meet again. 

*****

After four years of blogging, this was the year that a couple of pieces here at Communicating Across Boundaries went viral. As of the beginning of this week, CAB had over 1,172,000 views and counting. And the great thing about this is that nothing changed. Absolutely nothing. I still love, but have to work hard at, writing. The same people who have read, encouraged, and emailed me during the last four years still read, encourage, and email.  I’m still the same person with the things I care about deeply  – like refugees, third culture kids, and cross-cultural communication. I’ve long known that in God’s dealings with me, he tends to wait on any sort of success. I’ve come to cherish that, because if success comes it is so clear that it has precious little to do with me, and a great deal to do with him.

So as we close out 2015 and move into 2016 I want to thank you so much! I never take it for granted that you will read. I am always touched, surprised, and delighted when you share what I write, when you like what I write, when you contact me or comment on a post.

You have helped me in more ways than you will ever know. And yet I’ve never met most of you. So to you who I’ve never met – thankyou! 

Top Posts of 2015

Stupid Phrases for People in Crisis – With 328 thousand shares, this piece, written quickly but passionately, resonated deeply with people. It made me so sad that so many of us have experienced a crisis compounded by the pain of words poorly chosen. But then there is also grace – and those pieces were shared a great deal as well.

There is something about suffering that longs for someone to sit with us through the pain. It’s the fellowship of suffering. It’s the words ‘you are not alone’ put into action. The sitting bears witness to our pain. More than a card or a casserole, the familiar, patient presence of another says to us ‘it’s too much for you to bear, but I will be with you, I will sit with you.’

If you haven’t had a chance to read the first piece and then the two inspired by it, here are the links:

Giving Grace to People in Crisis 

A Final Note for Those in Crisis

Dear Mr. Graham – Let me Introduce you to Some Friends... – You don’t have to spend much time on Communicating Across Boundaries to find out that I am passionate about correcting some of the misperceptions of Muslims and of Muslim Majority Countries. This article was written passionately in response to what I feel were some misguided and dangerous words spoken by Franklin Graham, a Christian leader and son of the beloved evangelist – Billy Graham. The piece was picked up by the Zwemer Center and I was honored that they used it. It was widely read and some people agreed with it while others vehemently disagreed.

Hear this Mr. Graham – You do not need to give up your truth claims to have dialogue. You do not have to give up the things that you hold dear, that you believe with all your heart, to be willing to form friendships and talk within relationship. In fact, your truth claims should guide you into those relationships without fear, without fear-mongering, but with humility and a desire to love and to understand. I am not asking you to not be angry about terrorism. I am not asking you not to express outrage at attacks against others that are carried out in evil malice. I am asking that you not stoop to the low-level of stereotyping all Muslims as terrorists.

Honor the Grief, Honor the Goodbye – I wrote this post over a year and a half ago, but it resurfaced this year and was widely read by a community that knows goodbyes. We know the joy of hello and the pain of goodbye, and I wrote this because I think it is so important to honor these feelings.

So if you are one of those people, one of those families that is saying goodbye…. I offer this: Sit with your grief, let it flow, don’t try too hard to analyze, don’t push yourself or others to some ‘right’ response. Just sit with it. Because as the grief comes, so will the comfort.

Saudade – A Word for the Third Culture Kid – This is the third year where Saudade has been one of the top viewed posts. It’s just something about that word. This essay is also featured in my book Between Worlds – Essays on Culture and Belonging.

I have often been looked at with impatience. “Third culture kids are not that different!” says the skeptic. “We all have times of longing,” but I would argue, gently, that our experience is different. We are neither of one world nor the other, but between. Our earliest memories are shaped by sights, sounds, and smells that we now experience only in brief travels or through movies and television. All of those physical elements that shaped our early forays into this world are of another world. And so we experience saudade. And the simple discovery of a word gives meaning to those feelings, and can validate and heal. 

A Poem of Hope – Two Rows By the Sea – Of all the pieces posted on Communicating Across Boundaries, it thrilled me that this was so widely read. It’s because it was written by a group of Egyptian Christians at the Bible Society in Egypt after Daesh killed 21 Coptic Christians on the banks of the sea. It is beautiful and it was a privilege to be able to post it on CAB.

One row stood steady, pall-bearers of death,
The other knelt ready, welcoming heaven’s breath,
One row spewed wretched, contemptible threats,
The other spread God-given peace and rest.

Paris is White, Lebanon is Brown, Mizzou is Black – As we collectively grieved the Paris attacks, I had some strong thoughts about internet outrage. Whether right or wrong, they were my thoughts at the time.

And I wake up troubled. The world feels so broken, so beyond repair.And I too weep for Paris, for the grief and loss that cannot be quantified. But I can’t help thinking about how little the other events matter to our world. I can’t help thinking that somehow we have been deceived into believing that the white, Western world is more worthy of empathy and concern, not only in our sight, but in the sight of God.

The last widely read post was Toward a Fellowship of Suffering. While it was written over two years ago, it surged in reading because of the topic.

Perhaps we feel helpless in the presence of the pain of others. We are not in control. We would do anything we could to make it all okay. But we can’t. We can’t make the pain okay. We can’t explain away suffering, and when we try, we tend to make up reasons for suffering. We end up forcing bad theology on people. A theology of suffering that has to have answers, instead of a fellowship of suffering that simply needs the presence of another. We speak too soon and our words are the salt in an already terrible wound.

_____________________________________________________

So what’s new for 2016?

  • I go to Lebanon and Jordan on January 7th, the same day as Orthodox Nativity. It will be a gift to go to be present with refugees in both of those countries and support those who work with refugees daily.
  • Robynn and Lowell Bliss will be starting a regular blog, so Fridays we will be linking up with that blog. I’m so excited for many of you to begin to hear from both of these gifted writers.
  • I hope to continue to write three times a week, more when something sparks my interest.
  • I have a new book coming! Passages Through Pakistan will be available sometime in 2016. I am excited and terrified about this book. It is a lot more vulnerable than my blog posts and tells more of the Pakistan story. But overall, it is a story of faith.

So thank you – for the myriad of ways you speak into my life. My hope is that I will be worthy of speaking into yours and above all, that I will not waste your time. Love to all of you!

Hospitality – A Humble Primer

Published on by Marilyn6 Comments

hospitatlity

Hospitality—a humble primer by Robynn

A couple of weeks ago I received a kind email. A new friend at church had written honestly with some trepidation.

Hi Robynn!

I was hoping to catch up with you on Sunday but got pulled into the nursery.  I would love to chat with you sometime about small groups and see if you have any advice for me!  We are starting a new group and we have never been in a leadership position before.  You just seem like you would be so good at it. You are so warm, gracious, and humble and I am curious if you have any words of wisdom for us.  We are so excited, yet a little nervous too!  I hope you are all right, back in the swing of things, after the holidays. We are up and at it again too!  Never a dull moment!

Chris

If you read my previous piece on Hospitality-A Recovered Gift you can imagine my surprise at this email from my new friend Chris. She had no idea of the hospitality angst, guilt and inadequacies I’ve battled these past seven and a half years. As baffling as that was, it was also comforting to know that these things that seem so glaringly obvious to me remain hidden to others. Perhaps I don’t seem as strange as I feel half the time.

Chris’ question was very specific.  It got me thinking. It strikes me we do need a primer of sorts to re-establish the wonder and joy of community that happens in the welcome of hospitality. I sat down to think about how to offer hospitality, how to host a meeting, a group of friends, a gathering of hearts.  I recalled some of the lessons I learned in Pakistan growing up surrounded by a people that are renowned for their hospitality. I’ve tried to remember what I learned in India, taught by Indians and fellow foreigners. I called to mind our years of leading team meetings in South Asia. I poked around some on the internet. I asked my friends on facebook for their suggestions. Their responses were overwhelming! Together, we’ve written the book on sincere simple hospitality! Because I didn’t want to lose any of these gems, I’ve divided it up over the next couple of days. Please add your suggestions and wisdom and experience to the comment section. We, all of us, have a lot to learn from one another. 

  1. Hospitality according to Merriam Webster means, “generous and friendly treatment of visitors and guests; hospitable treatment. The activity of providing food, drinks, etc. for people who are the guests.”
  2. Be yourself and let your spouse be himself. There is warmth in your personality. Let that be the thing that welcomes your guests. Hospitality is not about (your) physical surroundings or what you are serving but about the attitude and atmosphere created by the host (FB: Diann).
  3. Respond to the people that show up. What do they need? True hospitality is being sensitive to what your guest needs at the moment they are in your home. Some need to be treated like royalty, some like family. Obviously this is easier one on one than one on twenty! (FB: Marcia). Give your guests everything you would want or need for a memorable night(s) away from your regular routine. Be helpful, be warm, be compassionate, be attentive (FB: Catherine). Stay people focused and LISTEN and LOOK (FB: Ruth).
  4. Whether one lives in a mud hut, government subsidized housing, or palatial palace, the practice of true hospitality is simply the genuine warmth of acceptance from one to another. Opening your hearth and home to others is giving the best of yourself to others. Let’s not confuse hospitality with entertainment (FB: Bettie)
  5. It is important to remember the difference between Hospitality and Entertaining. I don’t entertain. I’m not sure I even know what entertaining is but I suspect entertaining is more formal, more intended to impress. Entertainment is production based; hospitality is people based. Entertaining is offering a performance; hospitality is offering your heart (FB: Marilyn).
  6. This Pushtu proverb says it nicely, suggesting that true hospitality is available in even the humblest of homes: “Let it be only an onion, but let it be gven with love” (FB: Jonathan).
  7. Don’t stress about a clean house. You are the reason people are coming! This isn’t a realtor’s Open House. They aren’t coming so they could get a sneak peak inside your house! My friend Yesenia is on to something, More cleaning gets done in the five minutes before company arrives than all weekend long. And by cleaning, I mean putting stuff in closets and spraying Febreze. (FB: Yesenia) Dust: It’s what gives a home that warm fuzzy feeling. (FB: Susanne) Your guest can only be as comfortable in your house as you are with your house. (FB: Dan) Another friend, Anita, shared how her home was a comfortable place for teenagers to hang out, primarily because it wasn’t perfect, There is nothing wrong with a dirty or messy house as long as your pride does not keep you from welcoming others in. If you can’t bring yourself to invite a person at your door to come inside, clean you house, or better yet, WELCOME THEM INTO YOUR MESS. I have discovered through the years from our guests that they felt more welcome because the house wasn’t perfect and I sat down for a visit anyway. Another upside…my teenagers friends almost always wanted to hang out here; the kids later told me it was because they felt relaxed and comfortable, not worrying about everything being put back in its exact place (FB: Anita). Enjoy it, relax, if you feel stressed so will your guests; if your house has to be perfect, they won’t feel like they can stop by anytime (FB: Tressa).
  8. Welcoming others seems to be the heart of hospitality. Welcoming is accepting with pleasure the arrival of another. Hospitality means making others feel welcome, loved, and safe in your home (FB: Carolyn). I learned from a pastor’s wife that my home wasn’t really mine – it was God’s and He loves to share His home with others – I simply get the blessing of offering His home to others. Anytime I stopped in to see one of my Turkish friends – I am ALWAYS given something – tea, nuts, cookies – whatever they have – they might even leave me there and run out to the store to buy something to serve me – I always feel welcome. That’s a big part of it–helping others feel welcome (FB: Becky).
  9. Hospitality seems to be a condition of the heart. We move over. We “make room” (FB: Nancy). Many of my facebook friends commented on this: Hospitality is offering your heart (FB: Marilyn). Hospitality is having an open heart, an open door, an open fridge (FB: Amy). It’s an honest gift of heart, acceptance, and comfort (FB:Kendra). I’m always convicted that hospitality it is not just in our homes, it’s in our hearts wherever we are. Hospitality is a broken honest soul being open and available to another broken soul. That can happen anywhere (FB: Wendy)! I think Anne Voskamp hits the nail on the head – “Living radical isn’t about where you live — it’s about how you love.” (FB: Al)
  10. “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” ~Mother Teresa
  11. My friend Allison noted that the entire process should be loving, If the only part that is enjoyable is when the guests are in the house than the whole point is missed by (your children who’ve watched you plan and get ready). It should be a joyful time of preparation, not a stressful one. (Only then will the) attitude of hospitality be passed along to your children (FB: Allison).
  12. All through scripture we’re given demonstrations on how to treat the stranger among us. Having been a stranger most of my life I know that hospitality is one of the truest and warmest ways to include the outsider. Allowing/inviting ANYONE in, strangers as well as friends, and making sure they are comfortable (i.e. water and a drink and feeling welcome to share your world with you as well as share their world (FB: Colleen).
  13. I always make tea and coffee available — a drink station of sorts— hearts are melted over hot drinks. It’s a scientific fact! I love how my friend Julie elaborates on this. Long ago someone explained to me that the origins of hospitality came from Christian history. In early Christian Times, believers were encouraged to make pilgrimages to many holy places in the Middle East. Hospitalias were places where travelers could find care and rest. It’s the origins of hospitals where medical treatment could be given. So when hospitality is mentioned I like to think of it as opportunity to bring rest and perhaps healing to another soul. A cup of coffee and conversation goes a long way to bring a mend of sorts (FB: Julie)
  14. Hospitality is being available to listen to another’s soul. Do they need a cup of coffee or a glass of water to feel at peace, then offer those with joy. Sit, cook or play with their kids with them. Be present,that is the best thing you can offer (FB: Jenni).
  15. Hospitality certainly includes the ability to be interruptible and let go of control (FB: Ali). I think this might be the fear hiding behind the excuses we fabricate to not offer hospitality. It feels, and in many ways is, risky.
  16. However, there are blessings hidden in the shadows of hospitality. Be spontaneous. Keep your eye out for opportunities and go with it. Let people in. It blesses you, it blesses them and the memories from it go a long way (FB: Karis).

What would you add? And be sure to stay tuned for Part two on Monday!