"Running hard after an extraordinary life turns out to be chasing a lie.
The realest extraordinary is always found in the ordinary.
The extra everyone’s looking for —- it’s found in ordinary." Ann Voskamp
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/03/what-weve-got-to-tell-kids-about-living-extraordinary/
Monday, March 31, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Hospitality
"Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space
where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where
change can take place." -- Henri Nouwen
There is a price to hospitality:
"But for those extending the gift of welcome, there is always a cost. To practice hospitality in all of its generous glory, there will always be sacrifice.
The sacrifice of resources - the actual cost of more people gathered around the table or snuggled under your roof or invited to go along on the long trip.
The sacrifice of pride - the opening the door when you really wished you had just fifteen more minutes to tidy up; the offer to stay the night when there isn't a proper guest room, just an air mattress on the floor covered with heirloom quilts; the invitation to dinner when the menu is more ground beef than prime rib.
The sacrifice of time - and this is the costliest of all, isn't it? The rearranging of schedule, the disruption of familiar routine, the priority of planning for someone else instead of yourself.
But it is this choosing of Other over Self that makes the offer of hospitality incredibly meaningful to those to whom it is offered. We all know that no matter how effortless the giver of the gift of welcome makes it appear, true hospitality always involves effort, and it is that thoughtful intention toward us that makes the experience so incredibly dear.
To offer hospitality, you don't have to be fancy. You don't have to go big or go all out. You simply have to be willing to make yourself available to greet someone at the door, to help them shrug off their heavy burdens if only for a little while so that they can sit down, fully free to be themselves, fully free to be fully seen, while you make just a little bit of a fuss over them.
In doing so, you offer to the fellow battle-scarred weary traveler a safe place to rest, if only for a little while. "Come in! Sit down! I've been waiting just for you." Megan Tietz
(http://www.sortacrunchy.net/sortacrunchy/2014/03/waiting-tables-day-twelve-the-sacrifice-of-hospitality-and-why-it-matters-so-much.html)
There is a price to hospitality:
"But for those extending the gift of welcome, there is always a cost. To practice hospitality in all of its generous glory, there will always be sacrifice.
The sacrifice of resources - the actual cost of more people gathered around the table or snuggled under your roof or invited to go along on the long trip.
The sacrifice of pride - the opening the door when you really wished you had just fifteen more minutes to tidy up; the offer to stay the night when there isn't a proper guest room, just an air mattress on the floor covered with heirloom quilts; the invitation to dinner when the menu is more ground beef than prime rib.
The sacrifice of time - and this is the costliest of all, isn't it? The rearranging of schedule, the disruption of familiar routine, the priority of planning for someone else instead of yourself.
But it is this choosing of Other over Self that makes the offer of hospitality incredibly meaningful to those to whom it is offered. We all know that no matter how effortless the giver of the gift of welcome makes it appear, true hospitality always involves effort, and it is that thoughtful intention toward us that makes the experience so incredibly dear.
To offer hospitality, you don't have to be fancy. You don't have to go big or go all out. You simply have to be willing to make yourself available to greet someone at the door, to help them shrug off their heavy burdens if only for a little while so that they can sit down, fully free to be themselves, fully free to be fully seen, while you make just a little bit of a fuss over them.
In doing so, you offer to the fellow battle-scarred weary traveler a safe place to rest, if only for a little while. "Come in! Sit down! I've been waiting just for you." Megan Tietz
(http://www.sortacrunchy.net/sortacrunchy/2014/03/waiting-tables-day-twelve-the-sacrifice-of-hospitality-and-why-it-matters-so-much.html)
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Change
“How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human
beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we
fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us
blossom into who we were meant to be.” ~Elizabeth Lesser
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