Sunday
We all are called to welcome our brothers and sisters who are fleeing from war, from hunger, from violence and from inhuman living conditions. All together we are a great supportive force for those who have lost their homelands, families, work, and dignity.
—Pope Francis
Monday
We remember Ruth for her covenant commitment to her mother-in-law and for her courage to migrate, to trust Naomi’s God, and to start a new life among a new people. We also remember this courageous migrant for her descendants, including King David and Jesus of Nazareth.
—Julia Lambert Fogg
Tuesday
The gospel story begins with Jesus’ family fleeing violence as political refugees, pushed around Palestine by the imperial forces of Caesar and Herod. The adult Jesus not only characterizes himself as homeless, but stateless. The evangelists also portray Jesus as a constant recipient of hospitality who sometimes even “invites himself in.”
—Ched Myers
Wednesday
The practice of hospitality reflects a willingness on the part of a community of people to be open to others and to their insights, needs, and contributions. Hospitable communities recognize that they are incomplete without other folks but also that they have a “treasure” to share with them.
—Christine Pohl
Thursday
I always thought that belief precedes action, and sometimes it does. But all too often, it is practices that shape us, that change our beliefs and help us internalize them in ways that are transformative. We learn by doing.
—Karen González
Friday
National boundaries are simply arbitrary lines and mean little in the eyes of God: “The nations of the earth are like a drop on the rim of a pail, they count as a grain of dust on the scales…. All the nations mean nothing in God’s eyes. They count as nothing and emptiness” (Isaiah 40:15, 17).
—Richard Rohr
Week Twelve Practice
Practicing Hospitality
Sikh activist Valarie Kaur offers a list of practical ways we can welcome strangers and build community based on the actions of the early Sikh leader Mata Khivi (1506–1582):
Begin where you are. Choose a space to practice the world that you want. Mata Khivi’s langar hall [1] was a simple clearing with cover for shade. No space is too small. What spaces are available to you to gather people?
Start with basic needs. No one near a langar hall has to go hungry. Only when hunger is met is flourishing possible. What are your needs, and the needs of the people around you right now?
Redistribute resources. Mata Khivi collected resources from all who could offer them, and shared them equally among the whole. What resources do you have to offer? What are you ready to receive?…
See no stranger, feel no stranger. Mata Khivi invited people to sit in pangat, an unbroken line, next to those they had been conditioned to see as other. It was embodied community. Where did you land in the social order? How have you benefited, and how have you lost? What barriers will you cross to be in community?…
Make it irresistible. Mata Khivi created an experience that felt good in the body. An anti-racist, anti-hierarchy practice rooted in joy and community. How will you make your practice delicious?
Believe. Mata Khivi started small, but she built a practice that has lasted half a millennium. Our liberation experiments are not soap bubbles that disappear; they are sound waves that reach far into the future. When we embody the world we want, instead of only railing against what we resist, we pass on a blueprint for our descendants.…
When we come together to feed each other, care for each other, and uplift each other, we create the conditions for beloved community. We weep, we laugh, we live. As the earth gets hotter, and more of us are endangered, we will need to be braver and more reckless with our love. We will need to create spaces that have never existed before. We will need to practice our humanity. This is how we birth the world to come.
References:
[1] In the Sikh tradition, a langar hall is a community kitchen where all are served a meal, free of charge.
Valarie Kaur, Sage Warrior: Wake to Oneness, Practice Pleasure, Choose Courage, Become Victory (One World, 2024), 57, 58.
Image credit and inspiration: Lucas Dalamarta, Untitled (detail), 2024, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. When engaging with an unknown being we practice holding space for the other and leading with an open heart, even when we don’t know the outcome.
