Faith & Life Inspirational Message

Hosting and being a guest are two sides of the same coin.   I was first clued in to this fact when I learned Latin.   The Latin word, hospes , gives us the English words, hospital, hospice and related words.   In its Latin form, it can be translated “host,’ “guest” or “stranger.”   That is why I can say that hosting and being a guest are two sides of the same coin.   The Latin coin is hospes .   Let’s look at each side of the coin.   Probably most of us learn about being a guest before we learn about hosting.   I have early childhood memories of going with my dad into the town in early mornings.   For a kid growing up on the farm, this was a big deal.   Since I was the oldest kid, there could be an entire day when I would see no one except my two parents.   That was not bad.   But it was more fun to go to town and see some of my dad’s friends.      Often we would stop at the local drugstore, which was reall...

I was rereading a passage from one of my favorite books, The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris.   I know I have read that passage, but somehow it had not jumped out at me like it did this time.   Norris says, “I have become convinced that hospitality is at the center of the Christian faith---the bread of the Eucharist is called the ‘host’ after all, and for good reason.”   I will confess that I have an abiding interest in the theme of hospitality.   So it is not surprising that this sentence appeals to me.               When I hit a sentence like this one, I want to stop and spend some time with it.   This is the kind of reading that characterizes spirituality.   So often we read simply to get content---perhaps to gain knowledge.   But we don’t often take time simply to ponder what we read.   Spiritual reading is not always about getting knowledge.   I like to say that spiritual...