Hospitality as a Way Home

And so, we bought a crock pot.

Photo by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash

Ever since I moved to the Midwest, I have been trying to find its beauty. I began Kathleen Norris’s stunning collection of essays: Dakota: A Spiritual Geography a while back - reading just a few pages here and there – because I have little time for stillness as the mother of two small children, and I want to savor it. I hope to gain a more rooted understanding of the landscape, its secrets, and its significance in the lives of those who were born and raised here. 

It isn’t that I can’t see the poetry myself. There is a distinct vastness to the sky, a view that goes on and on, and a grace to the swaying, prairie grass. Even the ditch flowers are stunning here, growing stubborn beside hot asphalt; a vibrant garden for weary commuters and families on long road trips. The winters may be long, but the spring is a complete frenzy of growth. It’s more that, when you move somewhere that isn’t home, you have to find ways to make it home. Not just for yourself, but for others. 

Norris says that “true hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person.” Everywhere you go, you meet a new landscape of people, and you can choose to learn and adjust in love, or sit in lonely stubbornness. I’ve tried both.

I grew up in Middletown, California, where the landscape was a mixture of cowboys, soccer moms, Native Americans, and hippies who frequented the clothing-optional hot springs thirty minutes away. You were sure to hear some interesting conversations in the local coffee shops, and there was an openness to eccentricity that I always enjoyed. The old woman with pink hair didn’t stand out, and neither did the young girl riding her horse through town. 

There were pockets of deep poverty and drug use not far from areas spotted with million dollar homes and wineries that looked like castles. I remember hearing the people at church complain about how “liberal” it was – not just our town, but the state itself – but I enjoyed watching its people. You never knew if you’d end up talking to someone about the poet, Rumi, or the local rodeo. My landscape was arid and diverse.

I think what I miss most, oddly enough, is the moss. It turned a shocking color of neon green after a rain, and lit up trees and rocks that I had otherwise ignored. For years, I established a rhythm of walking to the lake with bare feet every evening after dinner. I had moved home, at almost-thirty, after a painful divorce and I was trying to remember my roots by feeling the ground beneath my feet. I hear this is now called “earthing” or “grounding,” and that young people have to plan it into their daily schedule. In California, “earthing” is just a way of life. 

Sometimes in the winter, here in South Dakota, I take the trash out without bothering to put on shoes. I crunch the snow and feel the shivery slip of ice beneath my feet, and it reminds me that I am alive. My husband, a born and bred Iowan, looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Probably because frostbite is an actual reality here. 

Evan and I have been praying for a long time about how to be hospitable. We want to be more like Jesus, as most Christians do, and though I’m not sure any of us are very good at it, we know that a place to start is in the opening of our home. For two introverts who love nothing better than to sit quietly and read, this requires a push. A plan. And so, we bought a crock pot. 

Because I have been hugely pregnant and am now nursing an infant, Evan has taken over some of the cooking. He begins a roast or whole chicken (with lots of veggies) before church, and by the time we get home, there is enough to feed our family and whoever we invited over after service. It’s been a real fish and loaves situation. I have watched these simple roasts feed way more people than seemed possible. Evan says the key is having lots of rice and rolls as filler. But also, it has been a matter of prayer. 

Norris notes that there is often a repentance involved in the pursuit of hospitality, one that requires “recognizing that we have not always seen grace where it exists in the world.” Where have I missed the grace in others? Where have I failed to witness and appreciate simple kindness, humble faithfulness, or even my daily bread? When have I walked by that stranger who needed a bottle of water, or perhaps, a prayer? 

In the Midwest, you will never be a local if you weren’t raised here, but you can be a friend if you are patient. Beyond the church, we have gotten to know our neighbors. Here, this involves time and concrete acts of service, like bringing over tomatoes from my garden, or Evan mowing an extra lawn or shoveling a few more driveways in the winter. In return, our neighbors have been at the ready if I needed a ride to the hospital or someone to look after Hildegaard, especially when Evan got into his accident last year. Our practice of religion, politics, and lifestyle are likely quite different, but that doesn’t matter when it comes to bringing over a hot casserole or checking in on someone’s cancer treatments. This mutual hospitality has caused my bare feet to sink a little deeper into the midwestern dirt, giving me a sense of home.

In Dakota, Norris talks about visiting local Benedictine monasteries in the North and South, as a Protestant. She says that what has been most surprising about the hospitality of these midwestern monks is that “it is powerful without being seductive; it does not lead aside or astray, but home.” I experienced this one night, in a brief visit to a monastery in Yankton, South Dakota, where my friend Miriam and I were welcomed to supper with the local nuns. The meal began with a recognition of our presence at the table, by name, and a declaration of hospitality; a pronouncement – and perhaps, a reminder – that they receive all guests as they would Christ himself. 

If done rightly, hospitality will give a person a sense of place - of belonging - if even only for a few hours. This is why I am not a fan of houses kept so pristine that my presence feels like a disruption. Couch covers, a strict shoes-off policy, and other practices are all understandable, I’m just not going to stay very long. Because I know that, if my toddler accompanies me as she does most everywhere I go, that host will end up needing a vacuum, sponge, and who knows what else, after just one meal with my precious two-year-old. This can make feeling welcome a rare experience. 

When I am the host, I enjoy it, but it also exhausts me. I have a terrible habit of watching time fall through the cracks and thinking of all it could have been used for: work, writing the next essay, cleaning the carpet, responding to texts and emails. How do we release ourselves from the idol of productivity to see the exceeding worth of simply sitting across the table from someone? 

I am learning from Jesus in the gospels. And I am learning from my husband, a pastor for over seventeen years now, who knows how to simply exist with others without checking his watch. I have watched him shift his plans for the day to spending hours listening to a single person without an ounce of fidgeting or frustration. I have asked, in awe: how do you do this? “This is what it means to be a pastor,” he tells me. Isn’t it, too, what it means to be a Christian? I think it must. 

Sometimes all I want is to be back in my homeland, digging my feet into the sand of the California coast, looking for shells, and breathing in salty air. But once, a friend sent me a box of broken shells, and I realized that they, too, were beautiful. We are all broken in some way, and we are all far from some idea of home. To clear the snow from someone’s driveway, or engage your cashier at the grocery store rather than scrolling on your phone might be entertaining angels. But that isn’t why we do it. We do it because finding home is about those around us – inviting them in – and being brave enough to open our hearts, yet again. 

When it gets hard, I remind myself that Jesus - knowing the future - let Judas into his inner circle. When it gets hard, I remind myself that Jesus - knowing all things - preached to people who would later crucify him. And when it gets hard, I remember that Jesus has given me a home. He has granted me access to His Father, who has adopted me and called me by name. I have a future - an eternal one - and I have witnessed grace. Now, I get the glorious opportunity to show it to others. 

Reader Questions:

• What does hospitality look like where you live? 

• What is the landscape? 

• How are you finding home in a different place? 

• How are you welcoming someone else home, through grace?