In my absence, the whole concept of community has been blessing and cursing me with continual thoughts, questions, objections, and ideas. Through a small group at church, I was able to read a book on hospitality entitled Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, by Christine Pohl. Upon completion the group met together for a miniature workshop on hospitality. The book and workshop were priceless for me--as my misconceptions and fears were broken down and rebuilt with definitions, examples, and practical steps for recovering a ministry that was central to most Christians at various points in history. I was both convicted and encouraged by the reminder of my poor way of living a life of hospitality and community.

Pohl is very helpful in her book, as she writes:

Strangers, in the strict sense, are those who are disconnected from basic relationships that give persons a secure place in the world. The most vulnerable strangers are detached from family, community, church, work, and polity. This condition is most clearly seen in the state of homeless people and refugees. Others experience detachment and exclusion to lesser degrees.

When we offer hospitality to strangers, we welcome them into a place to which we are somehow connected--a space that has meaning and value to us. In hospitality, the stranger is welcomed into a safe, personal, and comfortable place, a place of respect and acceptance and friendship. Even if only briefly, the stranger is included in a life-giving and life-sustaining network of relations. Such welcome involves attentive listening and a mutual sharing of lives and life stories. It requires an openness of heart, a willingness to make one's life visible to others, and a generosity of time and resources.

Further, she points to Christ as our supreme example of hospitality...describing Him as both a host and a guest. Jean Vanier, an author and practitioner of hospitality within community continues with a challenge:

Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren't afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share. A community which refuses to welcome--whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors--is dying spiritually.

As one who refuses welcome on a regular basis--whether by driving past the homeless man on the corner, simply tolerating a mentally ill acquaintance as he tries to engage me in dialogue, or not advocating on behalf of those without a home, without companionship, without rest--the phrase "is dying spiritually" catches my breath and forces me to sit down with my head in my hands as a failure.

To move forward from here is challenging...yes? There's gotta' be a starting point. A momentum builder. But to start an intelligent conversation on community and hospitality, it's inevitable that before much time passes, the words "boundaries" and "limits" will undoubtedly come up.

Should there be such a thing? Is my own private space, my own private time, my own private faults, failures, victories, and strengths something that is for me and me only? I can't help but say no. The hard part is realizing and accepting that I'm now a husband and father, as well as connected to a dozen or so folks here at the farm who welcome me into their lives as I welcome them into mine.

So I'm left with a dilemma. Christ is challenging me to adopt a new way of living. My current life and surroundings challenge me to question change.