open heart open home

In a previous post i defined “openhomeaphobia.” I can attest that the following 20 remedies, if applied, are a sure cure.

1. No matter what, always warmly greet people at the door.
2. NEVER apologize for the condition of your house.
3. If you are insecure with hospitality, be as SIMPLE as possible. Do coffee and dessert. Hold a pie party and have the bakers in the group bring the pies. Serve baked potatoes with toppings and a salad. Have a soup-pantry supper; serve from pans off the stove.
4. Hold a potluck. Have everyone who comes bring something.
5. Plan a leftovers party. Have guests share their leftovers and add them to yours. Ask, “What’s in the refrigerator? This is what’s in mine.”
6. ALWAYS accept people’s offer to help.
7. Never do an in-depth cleaning before people come. Just pick up, light candles, put out flowers. Clean after they go!
8. Bring people home after church. Let them set the table. Serve pancakes. Serve french toast. Serve waffles.
9. Extend hospitality as a team. Team with your husband. Team with your housemate. Team with friends. Team with church members.
10. Pray before you invite anyone to your home. Ask God to provide the guest list. Invite Christ to be the Premier Guest. Prepare as though Christ was coming; treat everyone as though he/she was Christ.
11. Develop a list of standard conversational questions to rely on. Think about each guest before he/she comes. Try to decide upon one thing you really want to know about him/her.
12. Include some element of silliness, like holding an evening when everyone brings one funny story to tell. Or, eat the meal backwards, begin with dessert.
13. Hold a “craving potluck.” Everyone brings something he/she really craves. Do this without preplanning.
14. Organize a work-together exchange: “We’ll help you with this home project if you’ll help us with this home project.”
15. When children are invited, build some part of the event around them. Then everyone participates in the activities. Everyone plays musical chairs. Everyone dances (even with the toddler) around the player piano.
16. Do things for the purpose of healing and welcoming, not to impress. What kind of background music will soothe people after a busy day, a busy week? What is something nice you can put on the table for a centerpiece?
17. Figure out some follow-up. Most likely, people will not write thank you notes. Can you call and tell them how much you enjoyed their being in your home? Can you write a note?
18. Make SURE everyone is introduced. Don’t assume people know one another. This can be done informally, but in larger groups it is better to have everyone tell his/her name and one thing about themselves.
19. Declare the purpose of the evening; “We invited you tonight so you could have an opportunity to get to know one another better.”
20. It is perfectly appropriate to set time limits. Invite people for dinner from 6:30 to 10:30. You can say (as you stand), “Well this has been a wonderful evening (afternoon, breakfast) but many of you have busy schedules tomorrow, as do we, so we don’t want to go late, but we want to tell you before you leave how much we have loved having you all in our home.”

Try any of these. Let me know about your “openhomeaphobia” cures. Respond in the comments section that follows.

Karen Mains

Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

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All that education may have gone to Christian women’s heads—and a good thing, too, but sometimes the lore that usually got passed along, as far as hospitality goes, has not gone to the kitchen. Many, who received their college degrees, their postgraduate degrees and their PhD’s, never learned how to get a company meal from the store to the table. Consequently, one of the great socializing tools of all time—inviting people into our home for an event that is not rushed, that allows us to savor good food and good conversation—is in danger of extinction!

Throughout the years of my life, I picked up training as a focus-group moderator and because hospitality is an important tool to me and because I think it is an essential (repeat, essential) spiritual practice, Mainstay Ministries ran about 16 focus groups attempting to determine why this was a languishing, if not dying, art in our country, in most regions, in our neighborhoods, in our churches, and in our families.

Here are the reasons, and most of our groups were composed of Christian women:

1. Too busy. (This is the most frequently given excuse.)
2. I don’t have enough energy.
3. It’s expensive.
4. I don’t know how to ___________ (set a table, prepare a company meal, make conversation, etc).
5. I don’t know whom to invite.
6. My house is too messy.
7. It’s too much work!
8. My mother was always uptight before company, and that gave me a bad taste for entertaining.
9. With work (or school, single-parenting, etc.), I simply can’t manage any more.
10. People just don’t invite folks over; I don’t even know my neighbors.
11. I’d love to extend hospitality, but my spouse (or housemate or roommate) thinks a home should be a refuge from people.
12. We don’t have enough room (or the right dishes, enough place settings, decent furniture, etc).

All good excuses, to be sure, but tragic in that one of the greatest cures for the human pandemic of spiritual homesickness—inviting people into our homes—is not being applied. Nothing helps us to get to know another human better than being welcomed into a home, sitting down at the table, eating well-prepared food, and sharing the laughter, stories, good ideas and learning that comes from unhurried conversation. Believe me, texting is not a substitute.

Perhaps without knowing it, we are all longing for a place at the table, for a home where we are safe and wanted. Jean Fleming writes of this beautifully in her book The Homesick Heart: “That I am homesick for a home I’ve never seen would be preposterous if I had no glimpse, no foretaste, of that home. The home I seek is not here, yet in the hearth fire and the freshly made bed I feel pangs of homesickness for a home beyond my experience. I can’t describe this home, but the seeds of recognition are planted within me.”

Perhaps one of the most exquisite portrayals of spiritual homesickness being assuaged is in the film Babette’s Feast. Here a shriveled and wizened little remnant of religious followers, turning critical and legalistic and aging ungracefully, are fed a celebration meal prepared by a master chef. No cost has been spared. The dishes and the graciousness are lavish. An outsider comes as guest to the table and he interprets—the names of the dishes, the wonders of the wine, the renown of the cook. Magic—or perhaps one might call it a miracle—happens. The old people are warmed in their creaking bodies. They lean across the table in love toward one another. They actually enjoy the beautifully-prepared food. Laughter curls around the elegant table settings. They leave the evening light-hearted, stepping brightly onto the cold stone pavements on this winter’s evening. Their arthritis and rheumatisms are forgotten. In the glimmering moonlight, they join hands and dance around the town well. It is a lovely picture, this cinematic preamble to homesickness with all its displacements assuaged.

“Like Adam we have all lost Paradise: and yet we carry around inside us in the form of a longing for, almost a memory of, a blessedness that is no more, or the dream of a blessedness that may someday be again.” —Frederich Buechner in The Magnificent Defeat

A tiny touch of Paradise visits each hospitable occasion in any home, wealthy or poor, where welcome is extended. I have known it over and over—our yearning for a home that is beyond this physical existence is satisfied for brief and shining moments. And whereas my guests often leave warmed, well-fed, happy, and with lighter hearts and tapping feet, it is I, the hostess, who is most blessed. Why don’t we do this more? I always ask whenever a guest leaves my door. It is wonderful to be connected in a way that is beyond the ordinary discussion groups, task forces, and study circles.

The excuses above are good excuses. But not good enough. They are the same as saying, “I’m too busy” or “It’s too much work” or “I don’t know how” to reach out and receive a check for $10,000. The practice of hospitality is so bountiful in its gifts, so filled with reminders of what Paradise was and what it will be, that we don’t dare let it grow rusty. Poverty—social poverty, inter-relational poverty—are always the results of a closed door and rusted hinges.

Invite a friend to dinner in your home. Invite several friends. See if something paradisal doesn’t happen. See if your spiritual homesickness isn’t assuaged.

Karen Mains

Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

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This is a confession. Through much of my life I’ve been plunked into groups of Christian women, either as a speaker or a writer, and basically because I’m a closet eccentric, I really haven’t fit well with the do-gooding, behavior-monitoring, appearance-managing parameters conservative Christianity often imposes upon its feminine members.

However, renegade types of women often sniff me out. One friend once said to me, “You’re the most normal schizoid I’ve ever met!” Another, who had been homeless because she defied certain codes of the Southern society into which she married, and who subsisted on medications to keep her from reentering the psychiatric wards said to me, “Outwardly, you look like you’ve got it all pulled together, but inwardly you’re just like me. Right?”

She was right. She liked me because the first time my pastor husband and I brought her home for Sunday dinner and I asked when she was expecting her obviously soon-to-be-born baby, she said, “Well, the next time I commit adultery I’m going to write down the date.” I laughed a hearty belly-full Karen Mains laugh. The man she’d committed adultery with was a black man; at that time, in the late ‘60s, that radical act had precipitated her flight to exile in the North as well as a soon-to-be-anticipated divorce.

Christian women, particularly those of my age set, often bored me—especially when young mothers waxed long on poop tales of their toddlers or bloody evacuation stories of birthing. Once I spoke at a Christian college for faculty wives, and one of them took me aside and thanked me for choosing a topic that was “intelligent.” The subject of many faculty wives’ teas (at least in this college) had been the proprieties of tea-making and tea-serving, and being supportive helpmates to husbands—oh well, some of you may remember and catch the gist and understand why this gal was so grateful for a little intelligence dropped into a topic.

However, times, they are a-changing. I was born in 1943. World War II ended in 1945. The feminist movement that I remember, the Civil Rights Movement that I almost missed, free love—which still appalls me—the Vietnam War protests, which demonstrated to me the power of the people, and the counterculture revolution all swelled together in the 1960s and ‘70s—during my late teens and my early twenties. I was profoundly formed by all the dialogues these movements incited, and I am old enough to be aware of what a rare and remarkable time it is when a whole culture is forced into this kind of dialectic. It is remarkable because we begin to think, one way or another, but thoughts and counterarguments, and heated discussions force our brain neurons to fire.

Whatever has happened since those days—and I’m willing to accept that the biggest changes may be in my attitudes—but the Christian women I’m working with these days are nothing like those World War II babies who became gals who used to drive me to frustration. No, the female renegades are out of the closet! They’re an educated, thoughtful, savvy, well-read, confident, creative, risk-taking, boundary-pushing group of gals. If they had personal inner issues, they headed into counseling. If they wanted to grow spiritually, they found a spiritual director. They work on their marriages, if they are married; and if they are single, they travel the world.

I suppose not all conservative Christian women are like this but the ones I know are! Perhaps it’s a matter of like attracting like. For some reason, there is not a boring one in the bunch of gals I know. Quite amazing. My daughter is just finishing up her executive life-coaching training (two years of work and lots of money)—but my learning has been running a marathon to keep up with her learning. My daughter-in-laws also keep me stretching. I’ve had the privilege of sitting in one way or another—as an observer or a facilitator or sometimes as a participant—in some 250 Listening Groups. Here, three or four of us meet for 2.5 hours each month, under the discipline of a particular listening architecture, and we tell each other about our lives. We meet for seven to eight months. I have been party to the personal joys and agonies and struggles and aspirations of Christian women in a way I’ve never know before.

I sit in awe. I’m overwhelmed by the beauty of the human capacity. I am glad, finally, to be part of this sisterhood.

What will happen when the renegades of the world unite?

Karen Mains

Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

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“Hunger is a wonderful thing … it gives us life. It’s the body built-in alarm that it’s time to eat. Hunger is what makes eating a pleasure. Without it, we could easily forget to eat; we might even starve to death.”
Dr. Paul Brand, The Forever Feast

When I was a young woman, someone remarked to me that no real spiritual growth could occur without a hunger for God. At that time, in my early thirties, I realized I wasn’t hungry—not for God, at any rate. And I was intellectually honest enough to know that this lack of desire, this nonchalant Christianity minus longing, put my soul in a precarious place.

So I began to pray, “Lord, give me hunger—”

Now at 67 years of age, I agree with that anonymous adviser from my past: Spiritual growth boils down to discovering a hunger so intense it propels us past our human ennui. We must become like infants howling for the breast. That kind of hunger is overwhelming. So must be the hunger that we seek, a starvation for God.

The American church suffers from information overload. So many spiritual resources are available to us, it’s like forced feedings. My father once tried to spoon oatmeal down me at the breakfast table. I did what any child would do: I resorted to a strategic defense. I vomited up the oatmeal.

We of the Western church are in a regurgitation mode, and none of the nutrients are reaching our souls. The big idea behind my ministry, Hungry Souls, is to take one growth emphasis, and slowly, slowly, over the course of a whole year, walk around it, touch it gingerly, kick it with a toe, push it, lean against it, decide it is safe, nestle into it and finally become hidden by it.

Growth, applied understanding, doesn’t happen overnight. It must be tenderly nourished. Truth must be heard over and over again. It must be tasted, tested, rolled on the tongue, chewed, then swallowed. And then it must be applied—absorbed into the blood.

We have to learn what it is to be spiritually hungry—really hungry. We have to challenge ourselves to consider for what we are truly starving. We have to shake ourselves and ask: Am I really hungry for God? Or am I longing for some replacement for God? Then we need to pray to develop an authentic craving, a soul-addiction that cannot be satisfied by any sugar substitutes. We have to become replete with soul fatness, to learn how to suck out the marrow of God’s nutrients.

And we must find companions to make their way with us to that feast. Intriguingly, the word companion comes from the Latin cum, meaning “with,” and panis, meaning “bread.” We want to be with companions at this Table. And we want to do more. We want to become hungry ourselves again; we want to dine; we want to rest satisfied, having fed richly at His Royal Spread.

Your Christian Blogger,
Karen Mains

“Lord, give me a hunger for yourself that cannot be sated by any other human thing.”
Thomas Merton

Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for wannabe (…better) writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

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