Journal of Sacred Work

(Part III in a Series on Hospitality; Hospitality for Ourselves)

Where is that road that leads us back home, back in time to the days of ease? I long to find it, yet, too often my feelings, like unwanted guests seem to invade my space. Perhaps painful feelings of sadness, anxiety, or grief come for an unannounced visit. I want to cast them out and wash them all away. A voice within tells me that I should not feel this way…rather more like this…and I want to run to escape my discomfort.

 John O’ Donohue touches on the core of this, "If you try to avoid or remove the awkward quality, it will pursue you. The only effective way to still its unease is to transfigure it, to let it become something creative and positive that contributes to who you are. Nietzsche said that one of the best days in his life was the day when he re-baptized all his negative qualities as his best qualities. Rather than banishing what is at first glimpse unwelcome, you bring it home to unity with your life…..One of your sacred duties is to exercise kindness toward them. In a sense, you are called to be a loving parent to your delinquent qualities."

Hospitality to oneself, and with those who live within our inner circle, is so in need of a little kindness and of a welcoming in. We might begin by listening to the  story untold,  to the song unsung. To be heard and understood, not with the critical eye of judgment,  but as a loving presence that wants to understand the stranger within. 

  Tea at the Palaz of Hoon

 Not less because in purple I descended
 The western day through what you called
 The loneliest air, not less was I myself.

 What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard?
 What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?
 What was the sea whose tide swept through me there?

 Out of my mind the golden ointment rained,
 And my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.
 I was myself the compass of that sea:

 I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
 Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
 And there I found myself more truly and more strange.

-By Wallace Stevens

 Hospitality call us back home to the  gift of self-acceptance. It encourages us to call a truce and make friends with our self-centeredness. For after all, ego is a part of our genetic make-up. To embrace our human brokenness and our shadow sides in a spirit of love and forgiveness.  I don't wish to be seen as saintly, or sinner, but loved as I wholly am.  I want to open to not knowing,  trusting my part in life's unending story. Or as Rilke encourages to, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions."

Jeffrey Lockwood author of “The Fine Art of the Good Guest” describes hospitality as being in relationship. It is about how we show up for one another… and ourselves. 

“One begins by demanding nothing more than the bare elements of life and dignity, which every host is more than delighted to exceed. The good guest then simply allows the other person to be a good host—to share his gifts, to play her music, to tell his stories, to show her places, and to serve his foods. Finally, a guest should cultivate and express genuine gratitude. It need not be effusive or exorbitant, only sincere.”

“We might also think of ourselves as uninvited, but not unwelcome, guests of the planet. And I think the rules for being a good guest of the world are just the same: Ask little, accept what is offered, and give thanks.”

P. S. Please consider sponsoring me with a $5.00 donation for Concern Americas Walk Out of Poverty on April 16, 2011, in Loving remembrance of my brother John Sorensen

go to www.concernamerica.org/walkoutofpoverty

Note: Above photo taken in Ireland by ~liz