embracing restoration through *hospitality

convergence is not just a creative space available in the plaza district - but providing a space where creativity, community, and neighborhood care can happen all comes from the heart of a community who has a hope that creativity, shared life, and justice is at the heart of all of us--what we're made to live out.

sunday @ the gathering we revisited our language of mission, embracing restoration through *hospitality *solidarity & *awareness. The three aspects of our mission are really so integrated that they cannot be purely observed, talked about, or defined separately.  Solidarity (unified & shared life) is informed by hospitality (making room) and awareness (eyes open to God) is found embedded in living in solidarity & hospitality.

HOSPITALITY: making room

* listening to Padraig O'Tauma's "In the Name" reminds me that sometimes we feel "in" sometimes "out" but always hoping to find family in one another . . . LISTEN

* I shared a story where I personally found myself at the limit of hospitality.  It's there I began seeing the great need for communal hospitality---that we lean on each other to 'make room' for the "other" (whoever that may be).

* hospitality is impossible, read the words in The Orthodox Heretic, "The first thing to note about this story is that it expresses an impossible hospitality, a hospitality that flings open its doors to anyone, without condition.  In contrast to this, our own hospitality is conditional and is generally extended only to those we like or to those who will abide by certain rules of etiquette.  Our hospitality is often little more than a self-interested exchange whereby we invite some people to our house for our own pleasure.  There are conditions to our hospitality, conditions that include politeness, respect, and a nice bottle of wine...the radical, impossible hospitality spoken of by Christ is one that goes infinitely further than this it opens the doors to those who are not part of our friendship circle, those who are not likely to bring us gifts or respect our sensibilities."

* the convo produced insight into where we are as a community wrestling with hospitality . . . namely, where we see God pushing our limits of welcome.  I believe God's hospitality takes us way beyond where we find out boundaries of welcome to be.  Rather than firmly establishing walls and distance to those who might see life through a different lens or live life in a different way than me---I must fight to tear down this boundaried life to welcome--make room for others.  God's hospitality is one that is wider-than-we-can-ever-reflect BUT i we'll try!

* hospitality always takes into account "the other" - and that's different for all of us, but it's often those in the margins of society.  consider the words of Radical Hospitality: "let's consider what it means to be the 'other.'. The other is the one who is not like me. She is the liberal if I am conservative, and rich if I am poor. He is the guy who does not go to the same places I go. The family that does not worship where I worship or shop where I shop. The other is the person from the neighborhood you avoid. The guy I don't want sitting next to me on the plane."

what do you think?

* What about HOSPITALITY resonates with you?
* Where do you see seeds of HOSPITALITY growing in you/household?
* Where do you see HOSPITALITY growing in our shared community life?