The wisdom of the Desert Fathers [and Mothers] includes the wisdom that the hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self…
It may be the only real spiritual discipline there is.
– Barbara Brown Taylor
As I re-read An Altar in the World, I’m reminded that this chapter is one of my favorites. It is heavy on the theme of hospitality – a theme which has been formational in my life recently. Hospitality is the reason we moved to Laurelville in June; it is the reason I love my job; it is the natural result of working out my faith, based on a theology of Matthew 25.
I’m also reminded I’m not very skilled in this practice of encountering others. As Taylor notes, it demands action, not just thought. Which is to say, it requires me to see myself in someone else at the precise moment when I’d rather not be around that someone else. Or is it that they don’t want to be around me? Sometimes both.
One of the challenges I face at Laurelville is the wide diversity of people we welcome to the camp. It is our mission to offer “Christ-like hospitality with welcome and safety for all“, and ‘all’ tends to encompass quite a few people. Of course, many of our guests either don’t know about this little phrase, or they don’t quite grasp ‘all’, or they fail to realize that it’s hard to extend this hospitality if one harbors prejudice.
In any case, they’ll strike up a conversation regarding politics or hot-button issues in the Church and society, and assume that I must be in agreement with them, since I work at church camp. (It’s funny how one can hear such a variety of “biblical” opinions that are in complete disagreement with one another.) Anyway, it is easy enough to welcome people who see things as I do, but much more difficult when it’s clear that my conversation partner isn’t on the same page. Sometimes the best I can do is to simply listen and then try to change the topic. I’d like to do better, though. I’d like to learn to affirm the beauty and truth in each person. I’m still learning.*
* I’ve tried to do some learning by watching our director, John Denlinger, who is gifted in this practice of encountering others. I am sad that John will soon be leaving Laurelville, but am thankful that one of his legacies at Laurelville is a rich and broad vision of hospitality.
My goal is to begin each day by asking…
Lord, when will I see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when will I see you a stranger and welcome you…?
And then to close the day by reflecting back and asking the same thing. Eventually, I may learn the answer…
Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.
(After a longer-than-intended hiatus, I’m continuing my reflections on An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor.)
In the second chapter of An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor explores the practice of paying attention: reverence. In paraphrasing philosopher Paul Woodruff, Taylor writes…
Reverence is the recognition of something greater than the self – something that is beyond human creation or control, that transcends full human understanding.
While reading the chapter, I could immediately identify in myself two irreverent tendencies: to regard myself too highly and to not regard others highly enough. According to Paul Woodruff…
To forget that you are only human, to think you can act like a god – this is the opposite of reverence.
Taylor suggests that one of the easiest ways to practice reverence is to simply sit down outside and pay attention to what is happening around you for twenty minutes. I wish I could say I’ve done this in the last couple months in my new surroundings in the Laurel Highlands. Alas – I cannot, although I’m eager to do so.
However, hosting at Laurelville has its own way of countering those irreverent tendencies I mentioned above. In Illinois, I was ‘doctor’ with a PhD in chemistry and ‘lay minister’ with important worship responsibilities at church. Now I’m the guy who plunges toilets and cleans up guest bedrooms when children – ahem – suffer from a stomach bug in the middle of the night. It is my job to practice reverence – to regard each person highly. In many ways, this is exactly why I came here. Hospitality and reverence are siblings.
And living here is making my whole family more reverent, I think. At the end of June, a gorgeous bird died after hitting the window of the camp office. I had no idea what kind of bird it was (which is somewhat unusual for me), and I knew my girls (especially Middle Daughter) would want to see it. I carefully carried it home, where I discovered it was hooded warbler. Ordinary Spouse practiced reverence by sketching it, and we had a short memorial service – thanking God for its life – before burying it in the back yard.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father.
I panicked when I thought that I couldn’t get all of our remaining belongings into my car in order to move them with me from IL to PA. Then I had to do a little extra “persuading”. A few rolls of toilet paper were sacrificed.
I was glad to lead singing during worship on my last Sunday at Lombard Mennonite Church. We celebrated two baptisms and communion, and the women who were baptized chose the songs. I started my trip east after lunch at the church.
On the way east, I stopped for the night with my in-laws in Goshen. I got there just in time for grilled pizza and pie. Good timing.
Last Monday, my brother-in-law and I made the trip from Goshen to Laurelville, arriving in time for supper. My girls were so excited to see me after three weeks that I couldn’t park my car – they were in the way.
A week ago was supposed to be a day of rest, acclimation, and unpacking. Alas – one can never overestimate the time it will take to get a new driver’s license.
At work, I’ve had a week of new-hire paperwork, orientation, and hosting. I was reminded people come to Laurelville eager to meet God. Sometimes, a fully stocked fire pit enables this to happen. And helping people to meet God is one of the reasons I wanted to come here.
I’ve cleaned up chairs, checked trails, and started fires with my girls. Another reason for loving this job.
On Sunday, I had enough time off to go to Scottdale Mennonite Church for the first time. It was nice to see old friends and meet new people. We’re looking forward to being involved… but maybe after a little time to get to know the congregation.
Ordinary (yet Amazing) Spouse has set up our home internet, and I’m finally updating my blog on my first day off. (The work schedule will be full for the first month, since we’re going to the Wild Goose Festival in a week, and I don’t have vacation time built up yet.)
It’s been a jam-packed ten days. At times I’ve felt like I’ve been drowning in information overload. But I’m so thankful to be here now.
I believe that I’ve just entered a midlife crisis, but Ordinary Spouse says that’s ok, as long as I’m honest about it.
Say what?
Read on…
My occasional readers will know that faith is a constant struggle for me. Over on my ‘About‘ page, I say this…
I’m trying to be a disciple of Jesus. Really trying. But I’m not always successful, and I have a hard time reconciling my suburban middle-class life with my faith.
On a typical work day, I begin my morning in my house in suburbia, safely isolated from the world’s pains. At the appropriate time, my garage door goes up, I pull out in my car, close the door remotely, and drive to work. Once at work, I show my ID to a guard at the guardhouse, and drive through the gate and into a fenced-off research campus. I carry out this process in reverse when it is time to go home, and I tuck myself safely into the garage once more. Everything is clean and sterile. Not once do I have to deal with anyone else’s reality. For all I know, the whole world is middle class.
To be honest, I don’t know how to live with this.
I have often described my struggle by saying that my faith and work don’t really communicate with one another. It’s not that they’re in opposition to one another. They just don’t connect. I like my work. I’m doing precisely what I’ve been trained to do. But I’m not passionate about it.
So what am I passionate about?
Hospitality.
For a while, I’ve found that focusing on hospitality has served as a guide to me. It doesn’t necessarily tell me where I’m going, but it does serve as a standard by which I can discern my way. And what is hospitality? As I’ve come to define it…
Hospitality is opening up a safe space for each of us to be authentically ourselves, and in that space to encounter God.
But what does that have to do with a midlife crisis…?
Sometime in the past year during one of our family’s trips to Laurelville, I told Ordinary Spouse that I’d probably enjoy working as their host. (The host welcomes guests and is generally on-call to help with any needs that arise.) “If that job ever opens up, I’d like to apply for it.”
Well – it opened up sooner than I expected. About four weeks ago, I saw it posted on Laurelville’s website. And even though I was fairly certain that there were too many obstacles in the way, I sent in my application.
Evidently, Laurelville was as interested in the possibilities as I was, and after three weeks of discussions I accepted a job offer last Friday.
I’m giving up well-paying job doing exactly what I was trained to do. I may or may not be over-qualified for what I’ll do now. But it’s a rather drastic break with the past and an entirely new direction in life.
This makes no sense to lots of people – especially the ones that I work with. Sometimes, it doesn’t even make sense to me.
I’m writing this just before I publish this blog post. As I was proof-reading things, I realized that parts of this post might sound pretty bleak. And that is precisely what I’m not feeling right now. In fact, I’m feeling energized by just about everything (with the possible exception of trying to sell our house).
And yet, the last four weeks just leaves me shaking my head and trying to catch my breath. I hope to do some more reflecting on all of this in the coming days, but this post is already too long and our family has already started to vigorously prepare for the move. I’ll be working at Argonne through the end of May and will be working at Laurelville by mid-June.
Since the beginning of my blog, my angst regarding middle-class life in the suburbs has been a recurring theme. I wonder what happens now.
The first time Ordinary Spouse and I visited Cambodia, her brother (Mr. Guest Complacent) was living in Mesang. When he first moved to that area, he lived with a host family, and although he had moved into his own place by the time we visited, we still had the opportunity to be dinner guests in the home of his hosts…
Dinner, January 2001Group photo, January 2001
Fast forward nearly eleven years into the present… When his host family heard that we were visiting again, they invited us for another meal. I guess they considered it an honor to welcome us again. I certainly felt honored to be there.
We left Phnom Penh fairly early in order to get to Mesang by lunchtime. (Don’t forget to allow for Phnom Penh traffic!)
Did I mention that I love Phnom Penh traffic?
This is our route from Phnom Penh to Mesang. We went counterclockwise around the loop. The straight-line distance from Phnom Penh to Mesang is about 70 km.
Most of the trip was on National Highway #1 (from Phnom Penh to the southeast corner of the route shown above). That portion on the highway went fairly quickly, although it was interrupted at Neak Loeung, where vehicles have to cross the Mekong River by ferry.
Waiting in line for the ferry
That crossing is something of an eye-opener if it’s your first trip across. The moment your vehicle stops, you are greeted by a large assortment of vendors and beggars…
(Vendors…)
(And more vendors.)
After the ferry, it was quick driving again until we turn north off of the highway. My notes from the trip indicate that it was during this stretch that I saw an Asian Fairy-Bluebird – a gorgeous bird. I include a picture here so that you may all ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’…
After we left the highway, things got a little slower. As on the road to Chong Khneas from Siem Reap, this road had also been damaged during the wet season, and it wasn’t quite back to full health. There isn’t much to say, except that we bumped along until we got to Mesang. Some of the holes were pretty big…
…and we either went slow or went around. Sometimes our driver would pick a path, change his mind, back up, and start through in a different direction. But eventually we arrived.
Many things were much the same as I remember them. The house is very similar (although that front stairway is new!). The parents have only aged a little bit.
There were also a few noticeable differences. The grandpa passed away a few years ago. (My brother-in-law was in the country at that time, and it was nice that he was able to be with their family for part of the funeral.) And where there had been parents and children last time, the children had gotten older and now there were some grandchildren thrown in to the mix…
Grandchildren! (And Ordinary Spouse to help out a shy one.)
We were welcomed warmly with smiles, snacks, and tea.
About the pictures above: At the top, Grandma sits with Ordinary Spouse and Youngest and Oldest Daughters. In the second, Grandma holds Oldest Daughters hands in her own. In the middle, the dad serves us some snacks. At the bottom, you can see all the snacks. Note the yellow tomato-looking fruit. It’s a persimmon. That was a first for me. (I can’t remember the taste now. I’ll have to try one again some time.)
The floors in houses in the countryside are made of bamboo slats, with openings between them. You eat on the floor, and clean-up afterwards is easy since you can simply brush things down to the animals below. In another example of hospitality, our hosts had unrolled their sleeping mats (beds!) to serve as tables for us.
I’m guessing that those snacks could have been a full meal for us. But the meal was yet to come…
Rice and utensils
That is a lot of food. Two full chickens, fish, and eggs, plus all of the side dishes.
It is one thing for us to have been tourists and for me to report on our vacation. It isn’t that hard to describe what we did and saw and purchased and tasted. However, it’s another thing for us to have been guests in this home, to do the dance of hospitality and customs and social norms, and for me to try to make sense of it afterwards. From that perspective, I find that this is perhaps the hardest blog post about our time in Cambodia. So I’ll just continue on and do the best that I can…
I think that I’m probably typical in experiencing a bit of nervousness anytime I’m in someone’s home for the first time. Most of us feel a certain pressure. It may not be pressure to impress others, but there is at least some pressure to not embarrass ourselves and a desire to respect our hosts. That pressure becomes more acute when you’re a guest in someone’s home in a foreign culture. In Cambodia…
Shoes are removed when entering a home.
The head is sacred, so you don’t touch someone’s head. Not generally a problem with adults, but when you have children it becomes a different matter. I have no recollection whether I might have touched my own children’s heads. And I have no idea whether that would be viewed in the same way or not.
Feet are the lowest part of the body. When seated on the floor, we tried to either cross our legs or tuck them to the sides. Stretching them out in front (as North Americans might do after a nice meal) wouldn’t be polite.
If you are handed something, you receive it with your right hand.
Those are all things that I can/should do to maintain proper etiquette. I could probably think of some others, and of course there are many that I have no clue about. I really have no idea how well I did at observing the ones that I knew. That, of course, is part of the fear or nervousness. You go in to these new situations knowing ahead of time that you’re going to do something that you shouldn’t have, just because you didn’t know any better or because you’re not used to acting in certain ways.
Another aspect to Khmer etiquette that I found to be awkward (and that I couldn’t do anything about) was that the host mother didn’t eat with us. I don’t know why this is, although I assume it has to do with hospitality. She was probably making sure that we (who were honored guests) had enough to eat. At the same time, I (who was honored to be a guest) would have been glad to eat with her. Funny how hospitality sometimes works like that.
‘Hospitality’ has been bouncing around in my head for a while now. I’m thinking it gets at the heart of what Christians are supposed to be about. We open space for each other to be ourselves, to love and be loved, and to allow God to enter in. We practice hospitality by being both host and guest. And we do it differently in the United States and Cambodia. We do it differently from place to place within the United States. We even do it differently from one family and one person to the next. Part of hospitality is allowing for the times when it doesn’t turn out the way we intended or expected.
One of the funny things about our dinner in Mesang is that despite all of the awkwardness (new foods, new customs, limited communication), I felt “at home”. Ordinary Spouse and I discussed this afterwards, and she agreed. We both felt more at ease during this visit than we had the first time. Perhaps we’ve become more relaxed and better able to receive our hosts generosity.
Speaking of generosity – I was amazed by it. I kept thinking that our hosts might have really sacrificed to serve us that meal. Sometimes you can only say, “Thank you.”
It seemed like the day came to an much too quickly, and it was time to begin our return trip to Phnom Penh. One of my few regrets from our entire trip is that we didn’t do another group photo like the one from eleven years ago. So a series of departing pictures will have to do…
Rice and children
Walking back to our van
A panorama from the front yard
A panorama from the front yard. (Very large file!)
As consumers across the United States were standing in line at midnight, impatiently waiting for Black Friday deals, I was halfway around the world being humbled by true generosity and hospitality. I was blessed more than I could possibly say.
As I re-read An Altar in the World, I’m reminded that this chapter is one of my favorites. It is heavy on the theme of hospitality – a theme which has been formational in my life recently. Hospitality is the reason we moved to Laurelville in June; it is the reason I love my job; it is the natural result of working out my faith, based on a theology of Matthew 25.
ordinary... mostly 