In a time of struggle with my work with guests at the Hermitage retreat center, my spiritual director asked me “What’s the worse that could happen?” My response to him, said with a bit of a chuckle at its silliness and truthfulness was “They could rearrange the furniture.”
Welcoming the stranger is an act of vulnerability. It involves opening yourself to allow the stranger to change not just your furniture, but your life.
During my spiritual direction training my supervisor asked me if I had a biblical image for my spiritual direction. A spark of an idea came to me. I was momentarily reluctant to name it, because it just came “out of the blue” and I had no time to process it, but I decided to give in to my intuition and declared “The innkeeper in the Good Samaritan parable.” As I played with the image and the parable, I realized that all the characters in the parable came to stay at the inn, each with their own challenges and needs.
A short while later my wife and I joined the staff of The Hermitage retreat center where the innkeeper image became central my work and identity. My life as innkeeper was filled with the daily practices of welcoming the stranger.
My work was also guided by the Rule of St. Benedict, the 5th century guide for monastic life that continues to be lived out today. Hospitality is central to Benedict’s vision instructing the monks to “Let all guests who arrive be received as Christ.”
I recognized that it was Christ who was bringing all these strangers; the Levites, priests, the wounded, and the Samaritans down the lane to stay at the Hermitage, but it was also Christ who was coming in the guise of these many people. All were to be welcomed.
Leaving this work and this place was difficult for me because it meant leaving my inn. This inn keeper image had become central to my identity that I anxiously pondered how can I continue to be an inn keeper with no inn?
While I remain without an inn, I now work at a program that works to build communities that are welcoming to immigrants. My work, while much more abstract than cooking for guests or cleaning rooms of my Hermitages, helps build community practices of welcome and hospitality. It is important for those welcoming to know what helps newcomers feel welcome, as well as what attitudes or activities make them feel unwelcome.
One of the great privileges of my work is the opportunity to build relationships with local immigrants. With growing trust and mutual sharing, I sometimes hear how the welcome they’ve received, while very friendly on the surface fails to go very deep. Smiles and friendly greetings from local-born folk are common, but
Christ continues to bring a great variety of guests and come in a great variety of guises.
While I still miss the day-to-day work of being an inn keeper, I have also learned to recognize that my heart too is an inn. As innkeeper of my heart, I work to welcome guests keeping in mind the instructions in the letter to the Hebrews “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hb 13:2) I want to be a safe and welcoming space for the stranger. It is also important for me to not just identify the stranger deserving welcome as the immigrant or poor person, or anyone for whom I have significantly greater access to power and resources. But the stranger also comes in the from of a grocery cashier, dental hygienist, or a local politician.
Welcoming the stranger into your heart requires a deeper level of trust and vulnerability than simply welcoming them into you home or business. They may come in and change your established patterns, practices, and beliefs – they may rearrange the furniture of your heart.