Hosting a Stranger

There are all sorts of people in the world, and most of us have either hosted others or been hosted ourselves at various stages of our lives.

I am incredibly thankful that my parents were the kind of people whose doors were always open. I can look back on most holidays and picture random people who have joined us at the table. Rooms in our house were often full - students who needed housing for a bit, abused women who need a safe place 'til they figured out what to do, friends who were stopping through, family immigrating from Asia trying to get established, kids sleeping under the piano because the couches and beds were all taken. I've always wanted my own home to be a place where anyone can show up on the doorstep at any time, day or night, and they would be greeted by a quick hug into a safe space. A simple place, most guaranteed, but a place nonetheless.

Over the past few years I've also found myself hosted by various people, many times strangers who opened their doors to us simply because we worked with an organization whose mission they wanted to support. This past weekend, we stayed for two nights in just such a home and I got to thinking about the lessons that I've learned from being hosted and how I can both learn from and emulate these environments.

So here are a few comments about the first moments of hospitality - from the request to threshold crossing - for the hosters among us:

1. Asking a person to host you is often a daunting task. There are of course those who take advantage of others hospitality, but for many "cold-calling" and asking for a place to stay is tantamount to begging for help. It is humbling, for sure, but can also be humiliating depending on who is hosting. Please don't make a person "prove" that they deserve a place in your house. If you don't feel comfortable, just say no. Undergoing a 10 minute interview only to hear "we'll see how it goes" is just not encouraging. By all means, get to know them, but if your questions sound like something you got from a job interview, maybe think of some new questions.

2. Do treat a request for a place as just a request and something you can say no to. It's not a demand so you don't need to come up with lame excuses for why you can't host. Simply say it won't work for you at this time. People looking for a place totally understand and don't want to make you feel guilty for not being able to host. If you communicate guilt, the person asking will feel like they need to assuage that guilt which is quite exhausting if repeated with dozens of people who do the same thing.

3. If you can't host but want to help, don't give a list of names and numbers of people you know to the person asking for a place to stay. Instead, why don't you call these people that you know yourself and see if it can work out? This allows those people to say no to a person they trust and cuts down significantly on the explanation of the person asking for help. And, most especially, do not give your pastor's name and number to call...do you know how many calls these people get a week from people they don't know?! If you think they can help, be the ambassador and call them yourself.

4. Most people have expectations of guests who enter their home. This is perfectly normal and to be expected. The important thing is to communicate that clearly before they arrive. Do you want to eat together or separately? Do you have lots of events planned where they'll be home alone? If you are having guests over, where to you want the hosted person to be - In their room? Involved in the conversation? Are there food allergies in the house where peanut butter shouldn't be whipped out of a bag? Where do you want them to park when they arrive? Is there a limit to how many days they can stay before trying your patience? Communicate, communicate, communicate. This allows the person being hosted to back out if the expectations don't fit their needs and minimizes the chance for misunderstanding later. Don't feel like you are being picky - the worst for a person being hosted is finding out that there were a lot of uncommunicated expectations that they now need to perform to.

5. My favorite hosts, by far, have been the ones who verbally affirm that they are glad that I am there. Then they invite me into their kitchen or living room, hand me a hot drink (hot cups are proven, if held for a few moments, to improve a person's mood), chat for a few minutes, show me my room, hand me towels, give me the wi-fi code, give me a house tour, open the kitchen cupboards to show me where the glasses are for water, ask me if I need to do laundry and show me where the laundry machines are and to help myself to their soap, and then tell me to make myself at home and that they don't mind if I hang out in the living room, at the kitchen table, or my room and just to holler if I need anything. Sigh. Heaven in a host.

I think most of it can be summed up in the following quote:

"There is no hospitality like understanding." - Vonna Banta

Was it Stephen Covey who said to seek first to understand and then to be understood? If you are hosting, find out what has been going on for the person walking into your house the past few weeks and in the weeks to come and, with a little imagination to fill in the blanks, you'll be surprised how much easier it is to make a gracious place for them to rest. And isn't that what we are all looking for in a home? Just a safe place to rest.

My husband and I have been traveling a lot since the beginning of our marriage. So much that whenever we walk into a new room in a hotel or house, we look at each other and say "Welcome home". For one night at least, your house is their home. And just so you all know: Mi casa es su casa. (At least it will be as soon as we have one.)

Dr. Seuss' Trees

Have you read Dr. Seuss enough that the title of this blog jogged a mental image or two?

I love Dr. Seuss - his creative wordplay and the colorful drawings that accompany them. I love it all because it is so other-worldly. Or at least I thought so. Until I camped this past weekend in the Cascades.

I am amending a few decades of belief that Dr. Seuss came up with the craziest trees imaginable and stuck them in his books. These trees exist! I just didn't know where to look. Or have the opportunity to see them. And isn't that just like life?

We think things, believe ideas, and generally view the world through a lens of our own experience. This is one reason I believe it's incredibly important to have some of my deepest friendships be with people who see the world very differently than I do, but share a desire to see it as it really is.

Even if I've never experienced anything that they have, I can share it with them as they live vulnerably and authentically. And even if I don't know where to look to find something new and wonderful, they help me explore just the right nooks and crannies. And in their experience, something that seems so foreign suddenly becomes real. And in my new experience, something I was blind to I can suddenly see. That doesn't mean that we always agree on what we see. But in respectfully looking together, in sharing the search, my best friends help me open my eyes.

Rearranging the furniture

When life feels a bit too crazy, I like to rearrange the furniture. I have a few friends who like to do the same. Instead of describing myself as a little overwhelmed - I can simply say "I rearranged the furniture this morning" and that's enough to know that there's a lot going on that feels a little out of control. After 7 years of marriage, my husband and I learned that it's really best for him not to make suggestions to me of where the furniture should be rearranged to...that's really not the point...and usually ends badly. Mostly, I just want to feel like there's the possibility of order, when everything feels quite disorderly.

Today was one of those days when I really wanted to rearrange the furniture. But, since I'm living in a hotel studio room this week, that is nigh impossible. The bed is bolted to the wall. And so is the table. I could move the chairs...but they'd have to go in front of the door or in the bathroom. And that's just weird. I could move the dog (not that's he's furniture exactly, but he has been behaving a bit like a rug today) but that's just mean.

However. Not to dismay. The perfect solution presented itself: my laptop! I have been wanting to organize my computer for months now, now that my life focus has shifted quite a bit. The files that I used to need easy access to don't need to be one click away anymore, the names of some of the folders just aren't accurate, and some of the software obsolete in my life.

Enter: Re-arranger of the computer furniture!

Sigh. Now I can sleep a little easier on my bolted-in bed tonight.

Finding a Place to Sleep

I love sleep. Sometimes I ask "Did you sleep well?" or state "I slept great!", as if sleeping is a skill that can be controlled and done well or poorly! My mom says that I'm her only child (of 8) that she never really had to tell to go take a nap. Even as a little girl, I knew when I was tired and needed to sleep - and would just go do it. This skill became rather latent in college when I spent many nights awake into the wee hours studying, hanging with friends, or getting up at 4am to head to crew practice. Rowing on a perfectly still lake as the sun rose...so worth the lack of sleep.

These past five years, while we were hopping around countries, in and out of hotel rooms, and spending nights in international airports, I developed a strong love for airports that help me sleep! Prague's airport is the best - it has a "resting room" with pillows and couches! Bangkok offers seats with no arm-rests so that you can lay across the chairs in the middle of the night,  Taipei offers free sessions in massage chairs and quiet gardens, and even Philadelphia offers rocking chairs up and down the hallways. Unfortunately, I sleep a thousand times better lying down than sitting up.

I am so amazed when I see people sleeping sitting up. Today I saw a homeless man bundled up and surrounded by his things while dozing on an overpass. I also saw a child leaned against his Daddy's chest slightly drooling as he slept in a morning church service. I saw a photograph of a man holding a big dog to his chest, while leaning against a building, both fast asleep.

In the last few days, we've tried to find new places to sleep. We have a one-week plan in a long-term hotel studio, but we're hoping that either the short-sale house we put an offer on over two months ago, or the house we plan to offer on tomorrow morning, will yield a contract by the end of the week that will become our long-term sleeping solution. But, even as we plan, I've decided that my goal for the end of the week should not be results (because what control do we really have over the results? I mean, really, did I sleep well?!) but instead that I will have put my hope in the right place, having "calmed myself and quieted my ambitions..." (David, Psalm 131).

In the end, I can sleep almost anywhere. I know this is true. I've lived it.
But there's only one place that I can place my hope. I know this is true. I've lived it.