Open House

Growing up in the South, you learn a lot about hospitality from a young age. My mom and Nan kept the house picked, partly because they liked to and partly because “you never know when company might stop by”. My parents’ house has been the center of many birthday parties, fancy dinners, and family celebrations and it was first from my family that I came to understand the concept of being hospitable, or opening up your home to others. As a child I thought of hospitality mostly as being good at keeping a clean home and having lots of snacks available for guests. Over the years, I have continued to develop my understanding of what it means to be hospitable.

Recently the idea of hospitality has been on my mind because living in community or 'doing life' with others is very important to Matt and I. One of the most important things to us when looking for an apartment last year was that it have a good size living room and room for a kitchen table because we wanted to be able to host people for dinner or share conversation on the couch.

We’ve met some great people who have shown us true hospitality. My friend Melanie is an excellent example. We met her family about a year ago. Not long after we met, Melanie and her husband invited us over for dinner. We were nervous and wanted to make sure to put on our Sunday best (as good Southern kids learn to do when going to somebody’s house for the first time). When they opened the door for us, Matt and I couldn’t help but smile. Walking into our friends’ living room for the first time felt warm and comforting to us; it reminded us of home. It’s not that our friends’ décor was similar to our parents’ (in fact it is quite different) but their home felt lived in. I don’t mean to say that Melanie is not a great housekeeper (she is), but it was SO refreshing to see that she hadn’t spent all of her time that day straightening every little thing. Instead, it looked like she had played with her boys (I remember a board game being out) and prepared for dinner (dishes still in the sink) with new friends. It made us feel much more relaxed and like we could be ourselves. The fact that their home didn’t feel like a museum allowed us to let our guard down and to just enjoy the evening getting to know new friends.

This past weekend, Matt and I were privileged to host a very good friend of mine for the a few days. To be honest, we meant to spend all of Friday cleaning the house and preparing for her arrival, but, life happened. Stuff came up. We had to run errands. We had some important conversations with each other that required us sitting and talking face to face (not running around discussing from different rooms while frantically cleaning). So, needless to say, a few cleaning chores didn’t get done. We picked up most of our junk and I did at least vacuum and clean the bathroom, but it was not our best work. As we headed to the airport to pick up my friend, I was a little nervous, hoping maybe in the nighttime lighting she might not notice (at least at first) that I hadn’t dusted the bookshelf or mopped the floors. But to my surprise, once we picked her up and got back to the apartment, I didn’t think twice about how clean or not clean things were. I was just excited to have a few days to share with my friend. Over the weekend, we shared memories and laughs, encouraged each other about our futures, and mostly just enjoyed being in the same space. It was a beautiful thing. And it didn’t matter that I hadn’t mopped the floors! I’m not sure if she even noticed, or if she noticed, if she even cared.

From all of that, what I’m learning is this: hospitality is more than opening our homes to people, it involves opening our lives and letting each other in. Even if they see our dirty floors. Even if they see our sin. Because the beauty of hospitality is not measured by the level of our decoration or the cleanliness of our home; instead, it is measured by the memories that are made there, the lives that are changed.

I read a book a couple of years ago by Lauren Winner called Mudhouse Sabbath. In it, she discusses this concept of hospitality, noting "Having guests and visitors, if we do it right, is not an imposition, because we are not meant to rearrange our lives for our guests - we are meant to invite our guests to enter into our lives as they are. It is this forging of relationships that transforms entertaining into hospitality."

So, if you find yourself at the Brick House for dinner or a chat anytime soon, please don’t judge if everything doesn’t look just perfect. We’re trying to spend the minutes before guests arrive praying for our time together rather than scrubbing our floors.