The theme for the week is HOSPITALITY!
If that’s not a Southern thang, then I don’t know what is!
It’s been weighing on my mind this week, especially now that it appears that COVID-19 pandemic just might be coming under some amount of control, folks are getting vaccinated, and governors are lifting restrictions. Hubby even allowed me to host a “little” baby shower at the house for my niece this weekend! It was funny: almost every person invited came… and brought someone with them! My husband said, “We are so over COVID [as a society].”
There’s something about planning a gathering, scouring the Internet and darting into little shops around town (masked, of course) to collect decorations, cleaning windows that haven’t been cleaned in at least a year, and preparing enough dessert to feed the neighborhood and the party guests. And then welcoming friends and family that we’ve not seen in person in at least a year. (One beloved person commented on how very gray I’ve gotten!)
I think of it as a cathartic event: When it’s over, the burden of all your own expectations lifts and you breathe deeply for the first time since starting your Spring Break back in 2020.
Before bed, I’ve been reading Bearing God’s Name—Why Sinai Matters, by Carmen Joy Imes, another book that focuses on the way the Eastern mind contemplates the Bible. It emphasizes the importance of hospitality in ancient cultures. In fact, a good chunk of the Ten Commandments is about hospitality, in a way. The first two commandments tell us how we should love the one, true God, and represent Him to the world (that’s the one about not “taking” or bearing His name in vain). The rest of the commandments are about the rights of one’s neighbor, not our rights as individuals! They are instructions on how we conduct our lives in deference to those around us, loving them, preferring them, honoring them, not coveting their stuff or their people, etc. That’s real hospitality!
In the New Testament, hospitality grew the early church rapidly!
It makes sense that hospitality is really important, and a lot of Southerners excel at it. But I’ve also noticed lately that many people from my generation lack the desire or the training to extend hospitality. Why is that? I truly don’t know the answer, but I’m going to try to impress upon my children their responsibility to be hospitable people. We can’t live as if we exist on an island. We need people.
Of course, I’m writing this on a day when I feel overwhelmed by all the sudden activity of life again. I complained to a friend today who was hoping we could get together for a few hours of girl time that the teenaged kids left in this house have come home every day this week with something new to add to the family calendar between now and May! That’s OK. It’s just a season, and it will pass. 🙂
May you be blessed this week with the joy of extending or receiving an invitation for fellowship!
