Reaching Out to the "Other"

Betsey: Jane, I want to continue our discussion of friendship from a couple of weeks back. In church we were discussing the meaning of “hospitality” -- is it just having unchurched neighbors in for coffee? Can it be outside the home? Could it even be with people from your church that you don’t know very well? Of course we didn’t come to a conclusion, but I think the consensus was that hospitality in the biblical sense implies building bridges with someone “other.”

Jane: I remember interviewing Patsy Clairmont of Women of Faith several years ago on this very topic for Today's Christian Woman magazine. Patsy's take on the biblical meaning of hospitable was being “hospital-able.” In other words, ready and willing to extend healing and care to those in need. I loved Patsy's perspective on this then, and I still do. It's very wise. And it's similar to what you and your church friends were discussing about bridge building to "someone other."

But I also find all this somewhat convicting because I tend to gravitate to people who are like me. And those are the ones I typically invite into our home. I suspect it may be I'm confusing hospitality with entertaining!

Betsey: I know for me, I am simply not going to invite people I don’t know to my house.

I don’t really know my neighbors except to say hello and have pleasant passing conversations, and I sense that we all kind of like it that way.

We could have a long discussion here about contemporary structural and cultural barriers to the sort of “entertaining angels” hospitality we’re supposed to engage in. Suffice it to say that there is a sameness to the people in my circles. I’m not completely insulated, of course; I don’t think you can be in today’s world. I work with, worship with, am related to folks from a variety of backgrounds, and I find these connections really stimulating. But those happen intermittently, not in the deep, ongoing, “doing life together” sense.

Jane: Same for me, Betsey. It's too often sporadic. Mostly I'm surrounded by suburbanites, and we're fairly homogeneous. The one bright spot has been our church -- Parkview has a great ministry to the homeless -- and the Wednesday morning women's Bible study I've belonged to for years, filled with wonderful women, most of them young moms. Someone always seems to pregnant in that group (except me, thank goodness!). I'm the Old Lady there.

I guess you could say I'm their “other,” yet they've embraced me fully.

I love that I bring a seasoned perspective to our discussions, yet when it comes to learning more about God, sharing our concerns, and praying for each other, we're on a level playing field.

However, this year I feel the need to belong to a group with a few more women my age -- it has to do with wanting to compare notes on being a godly mother-in-law and grandma. Will I miss weekly times with young moms? I suspect I occasionally may, because there's such richness to intergenerational interaction, and we're that much poorer when we don't have that.

Betsey: Sometimes it seems like our society is becoming so fragmented as

we all withdraw into our little enclaves, not bothering to really know each other and assuming the stereotypical worst about the other.

I think this cultural isolation is really bad for our country, but it seems to me the bridge-building starts on a local, “micro” level, person to person, friend to friend.

But how?

Jane: I suppose that's how any real change is enacted, Betsey . . . one person at a time. And it's probably the best route to reaching out to the “others” with whom we cross paths. Actually our conversation here reminds me of our book club's discussion of Same Kind of Different As Me -- about how Ron and Deborah Hall extended biblical hospitality to a homeless man, Denver, who then ended up extending unexpected, amazing hospitality to them in return.

Too often I think I've let insecurity hold me back from reaching out to those "others." That's something worthy of conscientious prayer, that

God would help us -- me -- see the individuals, no matter how different they are, who need to be blessed by God's love.

I suspect that in the end, when we choose to build that bridge, we'll be surprised at how hospitality ends up blessing us, too.

There's already a flurry of fall entertaining plans on my calendar, Betsey. Maybe this all means I need to be more flexible with my time so I can have more opportunities to be "hospital-able."

Betsey: I love that. “Hospital-able.” Guess that’s all of us!

How have you “welcomed the stranger” in your midst?