Pages tagged "Hospitality"

Now that bitterness and hard-heartedness were no longer a very real threat, I no longer needed to be bicycling, particularly in the heat and humidity of late June in North Carolina. I still needed to get on to Savanna, George, but I had no need of a bicycle any more. Nor did I need all the bicycle stuff: tools, helmet, panniers, etc. I thought I’d just leave it all on the steps of a church. I have done so before.

And hence came the worthy family [of Judge Thomas and Margaret Fell] to be so renowned in the nation, the fame of which spread so much among Friends. And the power and the presence of the Lord being so much there with us, it was a means to induce many, even from far, to come thither, so that at one time there would have been Friends out of five or six counties . . . I was cherished and encouraged in the way of life by my entirely beloved friend Margaret Fell, who as a tender-hearted nursing-mother cared for me and was tender of me as if I had been one of her own children . . .

Three principles which are especially relevant to this effort [to act in accordance with perfect virtue] are inclusiveness, self-sacrifice, and noncoercion, which are each part of the nature of God. Our practice of these principles may be grouped together as radical hospitality. Radical not in the sense of oppositional or of extreme political identification, but in the sense of “at the root.” Hospitality lived “at the root” says everyone is welcome, everyone has a place at the table, everyone has enough, no one has too much. Rather than putting myself and my possessions at the center of the story, radical hospitality remembers that God is at the center of the story, guiding us to act as God acts.

Dear Friends: I hear a lot of discussion about how to increase membership in Friends communities around my state, where we have a few birthright Friends who were instrumental in the foundation of Friends meetings here. They have had a major influence on how things are done here, including the injunction against “chasing” people who attend or join our meetings.