Author: jenzug

[edited to further clarify this a quality I strive for, not something I have already achieved.]

Thinking more on the theme of hospitality, I made a connection that it doesn’t necessarily have to be something you practice within your home. The more I think on it, the more I’m understanding hospitality to be a state of mind, a way of life. I think some people just have hospitable personalities that make you want to take residence in the living room of their soul.

I don’t know that I have that sort of personality – though I believe I’m good at creating a hospitable environment – but I am challenging myself to be more warm and outgoing toward others, particularly strangers.

The other day I was sitting in my living room reading. It was quiet – Bryan and the kids were napping, and I had turned off my music to gain some peace of mind. In the quiet with my windows open, I heard the squealing of tires, then a crash. I paused to listen closer, and when I heard shouting I grabbed my cell phone and ran out the door.

As I trotted down to the main intersection at the corner where my wine bar is located, I saw three cars. I approached the first and asked if they were okay, but then I saw a car to my left, all the way up on the sidewalk. The woman inside was leaning back against her seat, her eyes closed and unmoving. Her window was open, so I leaned in to ask if she was okay. She pointed to her chest where the seat belt caught her, but nodded that she was okay.

A man was already on the phone calling for help, so I continued talking to this woman, who told me her name was Winnifred. I asked again if she was okay, and if there was anyone she needed to call. She told me she needed to be at work in the building down the street by 3:00, and did I think she could still make it. I checked my watch, which already read 3:08, and I asked her if I could call somebody to say she would be late.

She closed her eyes and teared up, and before I knew what I was doing I put a hand on her shoulder and told her I would stay with her until help arrived. Quietly, I prayed for her, as she seemed very shaken.

Thank you, she whispered.

It took me a minute to get down the street from my house. By the time I arrived there were many people standing around watching, but only myself and the man on the phone approached the woman in the car – and interestingly, when the man went to catch his bus, he shook my hand and said, “God bless you, sister,” and he didn’t say it lightly. I could tell it came from a place of Belief.

I once watched with curiosity as my friend stopped to talk to a homeless woman in my neighborhood and extended ways in which she could personally help her. I had no idea what made her capable of doing this, and chalked it up to just not being my thing. But as I am released from the prison of my own selfishness, I find there is more room in my heart to care for others and their well-being.

In this way I am learning that the practice of hospitality is more than just inviting people to my home on my terms. It extends into my community as I interact: I say hello to someone walking past me, I place a hand on the shoulder of someone in need, I make conversation with the barista. These are all acts of hospitality that invite people into community, that connect us together, that make it more than just about me.

Our pastor is preaching through the book of Nehemiah, which is about the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Jews had survived many years of exile.

This week I was particularly struck by the celebration that took place after the wall was completed and the city was rebuilt. All the people gathered in the center square and asked Ezra, the high priest, to preach the Word to them. After exile, after being separated from one another for I don’t know how long, it was not their desire to settle into their individual homes for a family meal. Rather, it was their desire to gather, to bump into one another, to touch and be touched, and to hear the Truth of their faith read to them.

They desired the community of God and of one another.

After they heard the word of God preached to them, the people began to weep. Perhaps theirs were tears of joy; perhaps of conviction; perhaps of awe in God’s provision. Whatever the reason, the leaders instructed them to stop crying and begin celebrating, for “this day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh 8:10)…

10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

11 The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve.”

12 Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.

Their response to the goodness of God was to have a party.

To this, I can relate.

After two years of depression and grieving a loss and working through my own inner demons, the Zug Haus has become All Party All the Time – to the point where people are showing up without even calling ahead. They just know their presence will be welcomed.

I don’t say this to boast in myself, so please do not hear this. I am not bragging about how popular I am. Rather, I thank God all the time for bringing me through a season of isolation into one in which I can celebrate his goodness with anyone who cares to roast marshmallows at my fire.

He is Good, and Faithful, and Steadfast, and that, my friends, is worth celebrating.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about hospitality. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it so much that my mind is going in fourteen different directions, so I’m not sure how this post will turn out.

When Bryan and I were courting (nice old fashioned word, eh?), one of the main things we discussed was our desire to share our home with others. We talked about buying a home with rooms we could rent, in a neighborhood with plenty of parking so people could come over easily, near a town center so we could be out and about in our community.

Amazingly, our home currently meets all these needs, and we feel very blessed (though some might argue our kitchen needs a little enlarging. Can I hear an amen?).

We are both people who by nature prefer isolation and the familiar, so it seems odd that God would also instill in us a desire to live so openly among others – both online and face to face. True, we have our Peeps – those people so familiar to us we can host dinner parties for them in our pajamas (it’s happened), but I think it’s just this thing that compliments our calling to hospitality.

I am not a conversationalist – I despise the what do you do for a living small talk that must precede the real stuff of friendships, but I recognize that it’s necessary. For this reason it’s really difficult for me to become your friend – in fact I’ve had many friends confide that they used to think I hated them – but once we are friends, I am as faithful as a Labrador retriever.

I have to be, because now you have all the shit on me.

Perhaps this is why I prefer to travel in packs. In social settings I glue myself to someone familiar and let her start all the conversations. I can participate easily enough, but I never know where to start. And perhaps this is why I also like to mix up the social groups in my home, inviting new friends along with the old. We all get to meet new people, and I’m not the only one in charge of making the conversation happen.

So I guess I’ve basically taken a weakness – my propensity to isolate and ignore the unfamiliar – and used community to draw myself out and meet new people.

Chuck Palanhniuk, author of Fight Club (on which the movie was based), says in the introduction to his book, Stranger Than Fiction,

If you haven’t already noticed, all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people.

In a way, that is the opposite of the American Dream: to get so rich you can rise above the rabble, all those people on the freeway or, worse, the bus. No, the dream is a big house, off alone somewhere. A penthouse, like Howard Hughes. Or a mountaintop castle, like William Randolph Hearst. Some lovely isolated nest where you can invite only the rabble you like. An environment you can control, free from conflict and pain. Where you rule.

Whether it’s a ranch in Montana or basement apartment with ten thousand DVDs and high-speed internet access, it never fails. We get there, and we’re alone. And we’re lonely.

Occasionally I drive out into a neighborhood deep in the heart of the suburbs, the kind of neighborhood in which you must take a series of four lefts and three rights just to get to your destination, which is likely a cul-de-sac. I don’t know why I do this. Sometimes I’m picking something up I’ve purchased on Craig’s List. Sometimes I stalk a house that’s for sale, wondering if I might want to move there, where sirens and horn honking and door slamming and engines revving are a bit less frequent.

But about the time I’m taking my sixth turn off the main road I start to feel a tightness in my chest because the isolation from the heartbeat of community makes me claustrophobic. The thought of having to drive everywhere makes me queezy. The thought of never bumping into someone on the street as I walk with my children makes me sad.

So I guess I’m counter cultural to the so-called American Dream. I want to know you (though I’m a little awkward in making that happen), and I want you to know more about me than you probably care to. If you rent one of our rooms, you will likely hear Bryan and I screaming at each other, but you will also likely move out with our key still on your ring because you are now a part of our family and are welcomed back at any time.

Why?

I don’t know. At least, I don’t know well enough to explore in this essay. Perhaps I will turn this topic into a series of posts to help me flesh out my thoughts.