More Radical Hospitality

March 25, 2008 | Filed Under hospitality |

Listening is always involved in hospitality. The most gracious attempts we can muster are meaningless if we do not actually hear the stranger. Listening is the core meaning of hospitality. It is something we can give anyone and everyone, including ourselves. It takes only a few minutes to really listen.

A young man who worked all during his high school years bagging groceries said that the vast majority of people who went through his line never looked at him when he asked, “Paper or plastic?” He said people did not meet his eyes, smile at him, or acknowledge him in any way.

What a tiny thing. Look up; look into the eyes of the young person and smile.

The former bag-boy said, “My mother asked me one day why I always hung around her, talking, after work. I didn’t know why until Mom and I talked about how I feel at work. I feel like I’m not quite human.”

This is what happens to the one who feels as if no one ever listens. Most of us cannot imagine such an existence, but there are homes and places where people are not heard. Children are often not listened to; they are viewed as objects to be maintained rather than real human beings.

Hospitality is a way to counter the thousands of times another human being has felt less than human because others didn’t listen. Listening is the power of hospitality; it is what makes hospitality the life-giving thing it is.

– Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love by Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt