Possum Tales II, or What is does it mean to be Hospitable?

I originally wrote this article for the Uniting Church blog Trapeza, and thought it was worth reproducing here.

During a recent church Bible study, discussion led to the consideration of hospitality, and we asked the question, “what does it mean to be hospitable?

I would guess that for most people, the thing that immediately springs to mind when you mention ‘hospitality’ is the idea of having people into your home, for meals, or perhaps to stay. A couple of members of the study group commented that their circumstances prevent them from being able to invite people into their homes for meals, so we started to explore other ways that we could be hospitable to people which don’t necessarily involve providing meals, or accommodation.

Think about it: how would YOU define ‘hospitality’ if you couldn’t use any concepts relating to meals or inviting someone to your home?

Someone I know once said that hospitality is “allowing the chaos of another person’s life into your own life”. Our group talked about what it might look like to do this, in a practical way, and came to the conclusion that ‘hospitality’ in its broadest sense is very much like ‘generosity’; a willingness to be generous with our time, and all aspects of ourselves for the benefit of others.

This is quite profound, and can often be costly in practice. I shared the story of a colleague many years ago when I was a youth worker in Sydney. He and his family (he and his wife had two pre-school aged daughters at the time) would often have various waifs and strays staying at their home for differing periods of time. On one occasion, he told us how he had rigged up a complex ‘alarm’ system (comprising various tin cans and other noisy items balanced over the doorway of his daughters’ room) so he would be able to hear if a particular houseguest tried to gain access to the girls’ room during the night. I remember marvelling at this, and even now, more than 20 years down the track, I’m still not sure whether to be in awe of my colleague’s faith, or gobsmacked at his stupidity for inviting someone into his home who he thought might harm his children. Either way, he was certainly inviting the chaos of that mans’ life into his own in a big way.

On a lighter note, I am currently struggling with my own hospitality issue, as I note with some dismay that in the last week a local family of possums has decided that my bathroom makes a nice cubby house in which to frolic during the night. Whilst waiting for the promised tradesman to check out my roof and seal off the access point, I have resigned myself to just shutting the bathroom door and allowing them to frolic away, as the larger ones are able to get out the same way they get in, but it seems that last night the baby of the family came for a visit, and when he was finished playing, discovered to his great consternation, that he was not able to climb up and get out. We both had a little ‘moment’ when I went to use the bathroom and discovered him cowering in my bathtub, looking very frightened and forlorn. Fortunately, my ministerial training equipped me to ‘pastorally counsel’ him down the stairs and out the door to the safety of a welcoming tree.

So, I am starting to feel like “The Possum Whisperer” of Brunswick, and can’t help but wonder whether this current situation is some kind of preparation for my future in rural ministry.