genuine hospitality, and gardens.

the weather in florida has been particularly beautiful lately. at the moment i'm sitting on my porch watching the sun go down, enjoying the increasingly milder temperatures. by all measurements, the weather is perfect right now.

the orchid pictured above is one of the most bizarre and awesome displays of flowers at their strangest. it is a catasetum integerrimum. many people think the photo is ominous, a reminder of death. one guy even called it a hobgoblin. for me, though, this orchid is a monk: quiet, reverent, diligent. the 'bird beak' structure in the center of the plant is a sensitive trigger that when brushed against, shoots pollen onto the bee that pollinates it. this shower, wanted or not, allows the bee to pollinate the other monk orchids in mexico and throughout central america.

i picked this flower to share this evening because it represents a small piece of a growing trend in my life. during the past several months, i've grown noticeably more generous, kind, and benevolent. my thoughts and meditations on scripture are being drawn towards community, generosity, and hospitality. also, my thoughts are being drawn to gardens.

about a month back, i had a very encouraging conversation with my cousin andrew about hospitality and generosity. andrew and his wife sarah, along with their son (the rotund and dashing henry arden francis carlson-lier), live with at least one other family, in a community they have called the julian house. the namesake is for st. julian, the patron saint of hospitality. andrew proceded to tell me that he wants his life to manifest a consistent hospitality as he goes about living with family, friends, and neighbors. i told andrew that i'd been finding it hard to be generous with people. my experience is that everyone wants the playing field to be even. if i buy dinner for someone, they need to pay me back. if i go out of my way to help someone, they feel they must repay the favor. i find myself caught in these loops of feeling that i should treat people a certain way, while at the same time living in the reality that people expect to be treated by me with that weird even-handed fairness. so, people feel slighted when i don't pay them back for food, and disrespected when i don't repay favors. this dissonance will ring in my head for weeks if i let it.

i feel i'm supposed to be generous and loving to people. as a christian, i find joy in both welcoming and being welcomed. it makes little sense to me why this is such a foreign concept to many brothers and sisters in the faith.

so a couple of weeks after this conversation with andrew, my dad tells me that he's preaching a sermon on hospitality. then he lends me a book: Making Room by Christine D. Pohl. i've only just cracked it. let's just say i'm looking forward to diving in.

this brings us up to about ten days ago when my buddy daryl calls from atlanta and asks if a mutual friend of ours can fly down and stay with me for awhile. daryl and i met in scotland and lived together at a ywam base in west kilbride for about six moonths (a quick digression: daryl and i discovered, while living in scotland, that he attended the same church as my older brother mark: craziness.). anyway, we also lived with about twenty five others, including our dear friend laetizia from germany. daryl and i have had some keeping in touch since, but until last week, i had not seen or heard from laetizia in over four years. so, with this glaring opportunity to be hospitality to someone, i jumped at the chance. laetizia came to stay and had a wonderful, relaxing time. it was a beautiful week. she made it clear to me on multiple occasions that she felt welcomed in and accepted, loved and cherished. i was able to give her my bed and my car, cook her meals and provide her with buckets of the most delicious orange juice on the planet (of which she took down in pints). it felt really good to provide haven for her, to be love to her.
question: if it feels good, is it genuine altruism?

lastly, i'd like to mention my most recent book purchase: Monastic Gardens by Mick Hales. i randomly googled 'monastic gardens' one day, and there just happened to be a rather intriguing book by precisely that title. the book is about the various facets of the garden, as seen in both modern and historical monasteries. gardens are not just decorative in nature, but are sources of meals, medicine, and sanctuary. gardens provide altar flowers, wine, places to pray, and most notably: hospitality. Hales has a whole chapter on 'the guest house garden,' which is just fantastic. the book is beautiful to me because it is merging the two paths i find i'm simultaneously walking: genuine hospitality and gardens.

so, although the sentimental attitudes of generosity and goodwill are important, they are just not enough in and of themselves. hospitality, i think, is far deeper and more pervasive. hospitality is, in fact, a discipline, and entails the selfless and vulnerable act of welcoming in strangers and being life and love to them.

i don't know exactly where my life is headed, but it's months like september that seem to make a lot of sense. i'll leave you with an exceptionally appropriate quote that i received last week from a new friend:

life is short and we do not have
much time to gladden the hearts
of those who travel the way with us.
oh, be swift to love.
make haste to be kind.

-henri frederic amiel (1868)