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Radical Hospitality Mon 6 Oct 2008 8:23pm First Parish of Sudbury Newsletter, Making Meanings Column, September, 2008"Radical Hospitality"When we applied for a Woburn Grant (which we received) to fund the position of Community Life Coordinator, we stated: We feel called and committed to radical hospitality in our congregation. For us, it is both a spiritual and ethical imperative that gets to the core of what it means to be human and living in community. Some of you have asked: “What IS radical hospitality?” Isn’t hospitality simply being nice to one another? Why do we have to suggest that it’s radical – that sounds so extreme. It’s not extreme, but it is courageous. It’s not always easy to reach out to someone and ask: “May I know you better?” It’s also not a new idea. The concept of hospitality as a spiritual imperative grows from just about every great religious tradition. Wisdom stories throughout the ages teach us the importance of welcoming the outsider, the pilgrim… to see the holy in the stranger. In a little book called Radical Hospitality , the authors point out “we are all guests, all travelers, all a little lost, and all looking for a place to rest a while.” They say this kind of hospitality is about connecting with people – the ones at our gate and those a world away. So it’s about reaching out. About listening. About stretching (sometimes) outside our comfort zone when we encounter those whom we perceive to be different from ourselves. It’s about opening up to the possibility that we may find more similarity than difference or, even, that we may find genuine difference to be engaging and life-enhancing. This kind of hospitality is about listening, a special kind of deep attentiveness to all that live – a sharpening of the ears of the heart. When we listen in this way, listen as a spiritual practice, we hear how people really feel, find out who they really are. “When we listen like this,” say the book’s authors, “the sound of another’s suffering changes everything.” Sometimes, they acknowledge, it unsettles us; often it makes us take a stand for justice. I would argue this is a call and a commitment in our congregation. We live it out when we stand for economic justice, for freedom of religion and speech, for sharing the common wealth for the common good. The rainbow flag represents this kind of hospitality. So does the elevator and the assistive listening devices. And, yes, the Green Sanctuary initiative is a kind of radical hospitality to our earth and all living things. And the work that some of you do in prisons, at shelters, and food pantries and …. You know it is a very long list. We may start out thinking we can help someone or something, but inevitably we grow from the experience as much as anyone whom we’ve “helped.“ Listen. It will break your heart, but it will also give you heart. And, it will give you more – it will give you life. Friends, let us heed the call and make the commitment to be a people who practice mutual reverence as a way of being human. ~ Katie Lee |
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Gary will lead a book discussion group starting January 8 from 7:00-8:30 pm in the Brackett Room using Huston Smith's classic The World's Religions, an eight week tour of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Primal Traditions. The class is free and open to the public, but you might want to add this book to your Christmas list if you want to participate. Please note: we will be using the non-illustrated version of Smith's book. The pictures are nice, but the text is much abbreviated in the illustrated edition.