"To be truly hospitable"

 "To be truly hospitable is, to some extent, to lose control of one’s space and time -- to be open to the disarray and interruption of embodied life. Perhaps hospitality is most nearly proleptic* when it bears the unruly wounds of the risen Christ." -- Amy Laura Hall

*As far as I can gather, "anticipatory of a future event," in this case life under the reign of Christ?

Some years ago, I gleefully (not to say pretentiously) copied this quote, from Amy Laura Hall’s book Conceiving Parenthood, into my Facebook profile, longing for such happy disarray in my soon-to-be-married life. Of course Dr. Hall’s book focuses on the “disarray and interruption” of welcoming children into one’s family, in contrast to a cultural obsession with planning and perfection. Undoubtedly, that was the way I thought about it, too, and no matter what I claimed to the contrary, the picture was terribly romantic in my mind. All the more because of its messiness (and the cleverly worded, too-pious essay about grace that would result . . . !).

The reality, quickly discovered, was that there’s nothing romantic at all about losing control in this way, whether the anticipated guests are those of an evening or of a lifetime. For me, being “truly hospitable” was all about control—more like a desperate, panicked grasping for pretended control, just long enough to fool others, if never myself, into believing that my home was a fit place for company.

As a newlywed, I heard people fret about the disheveled state of their living rooms in a way I suppose was meant to be both self-deprecating and reassuring. Meanwhile, I was thinking, “Oh, but you don’t understand. My apartment is a health hazard.” No matter how far in advance I planned to invite someone over, the day would certainly find me collapsing into a tearful huddle of shame and anxiety. My failure wasn’t just that I didn’t have the “perfect” home; I didn’t even know how to keep mine decent, even if I weren’t depressed about being underemployed and out of sorts in Berkeley. My mindset was that hospitality couldn’t happen until I could demonstrate my worthiness. So my failure to reach that point wasn’t just a matter of forgetting to check a few items off my to-do list; ultimately, and more critically, it was a moral failing, too.

The problem, of course, was that as long as I was focused on the monumental cleaning job (no doubt exaggerated in my own mind) instead of looking forward to the imminent guests, my heart wasn’t in a place where I could welcome them, no matter what the condition of my kitchen. While it was true that the basic housekeeping needed to be addressed (how I wish I’d sought help with these things instead of being too embarrassed to ask!), I wound up with nothing left over to give, if and when it was completed.

Since settling in St. Louis, I've begun to know something of the joy of welcoming others into my home—at least a little. In truth, there is a very long way to go. The base anxiety still lurks. These days, the fear has moved past “I’ll never get everything cleaned in time,” to one that might be more insidiously prideful: “But I can’t have people over—my decorating scheme is ‘Books and More Books.’ Our couch is old, and we don’t even own a proper dining table!” Again, I don’t want to risk hospitality until I’ve asserted the proper amount of control over my unruly space. It is much more to do with my own self-perception than with the desire to make others feel at home.

The truth is, I’ll always find reasons to delay hospitality. I will never achieve it as if it were a set of principles to study and apply. There will always be more learning experiences, and there will always be self-doubt. I just have to risk it, and learn not to let insecurities strangle generosity.

I don’t know what Hall means by the latter part of that quote. I suspect she’s saying that real hospitality means being willing to give up an image of myself as fulfilling the right level of domesticity, as if it were ever about me to begin with. Even if what I can offer is frankly inferior, externally speaking, to what my peers might be able to do; even if it means losing face before others and not just in my own mind. I can’t be open to others when I’m jealously protecting those things. On the other hand, if my heart is open to Christ, my home will be, too—and Christ will cover all the insufficiencies of my effort. I want guests to leave having encountered the beauty of Christ here, and while that doesn't exclude the material, it goes well beyond it, too.

And this time, I won't be too embarrassed to ask. I would love to hear—what is one lesson you’ve learned about practicing hospitality, on a heart/attitude level rather than a strictly practical one?

Tidbits on married life from J. R. Miller

Some time ago, I came across a quote I liked from a work titled Home Making, published in 1882, by James Russell Miller. (I was tickled to learn that Miller, a Presbyterian pastor, was born and brought up in my ancestors' neck of the woods near Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania, which, as you can see, is pretty rural and not an area I hear mentioned a lot.) Over the past few days I finally took the opportunity to read the full work, to see if I liked the entire book as much. Well, aside from a surprisingly practical and sweet section on household worship, it was largely what you'd expect from a book called Home Making from the 1880s . . . which is to say, lots of sentimental Victorian poetry and "edifying" stories to drive home his points. And since I have a pretty high tolerance for the old fashioned, you know it must've been slightly cloying!

Good news, though! I'm going to post the handful of share-worthy gems I collected from the book, so that you don't have to go hunting for them yourself. :-)

On marriage:

“The present duty is unselfish love. Each must forget self in devotion to the other. Each must blame self and not the other when anything goes wrong. There must be the largest and gentlest forbearance. Impatience may wreck all. A sharp word may retard for months the process of soul blending. There must be the determination on the part of both to make the marriage happy and to conquer everything that lies in the way. Then the very differences between the two lives will become their closest points of union. When they have passed through the process of blending, though it may for the time be painful and perilous, the result will be a wedded life of deep peace, quiet joy and inseparable affection."

“[Husband and wife] should read and study together, having the same line of thought, helping each other toward a higher mental culture. They should worship together, praying side by side, communing on the holiest themes of life and hope, and together carrying to God’s feet the burdens of their hearts for their children and for every precious object.” 

“Pride must have no place in wedded life. There must never be any standing upon dignity, or any nice calculation as to whose place it is to make the apology or to yield first to the other. True love knows no such casuistry; it seeks not its own; it delights in being foremost in forgiving and yielding.”

On hospitality:

“Then this large heartedness will impart its spirit to the home itself. A husband who is generous within his own doors will not be close and niggardly outside. The heart that is used always to be open at home cannot be carried shut through this suffering world. The prosperous home of a generous man sends many a blessing and comfort out to less favored homes. Every true home ought to be a help to a great many struggling lives. Every generous and large hearted man scatters many a comfort among the needy and the suffering as he passes through this world.

There is nothing lost by such scattering. No richer blessing can come upon a home than the benedictions of those who have been helped, who have been fed at its doors, or sheltered beneath its roof, or inspired by its cheer and kindly interest. There is no memorial that any man can make for himself in this world so lasting and so satisfying as that which a life of unselfish kindness and beneficence builds up.” 

And my favorite:

“... [A] wife’s ministry of mercy reaches outside her own doors. Every true home is an influence of blessing in the community where it stands [. . .] The ideal Christian home is a far reaching benediction.” 

  I pray to have a home like this someday!

Things I've reflected on this summer, or ambition and discipleship (again)

Yesterday the Timehop app on my iPhone reminded me that I had published this blog post exactly three years ago. I almost didn't read it again, but when I did, I had to smile, and maybe tear up a little. It was both humbling and comforting to see how I keep circling back to the same questions, doubts, and struggles -- and how, having survived four years of graduate school, my overall longings and goals haven't altered much from what they were in 2011, or 2009.

For much of those four years (especially the past two, as this blog well attests), I've struggled to conform to specific expectations of what the patterns of my academic life should look like. The result was that I've spent most of the past two years feeling like a complete failure, and doubting the wisdom of pressing on with a task for which I could muster so little enthusiasm. I felt so much more useful, thus happier, when I was working on things I knew had a point -- as counter-intuitive as it might sound, even something as mundane as folding laundry. At least then I was achieving something concrete, contributing to the overall functioning of our home. I'll wait for you to roll your eyes if you need to -- it's just the truth.

What changed this summer is that I decided to just own the fact that, especially now that Kevin has a full-time job, taking care of things like dishes and laundry is a legitimate part of my daily work. That way, instead of using those things to procrastinate from my "real work" (and feeling half guilty and resentful all the while), I was finding ways to fit them into the natural pattern of my days. Acknowledging the existence of complementary callings -- academics and taking care of things at home (which is a privilege!) -- has helped me move from a rebellious attitude to a more contented and fulfilled one. Even if it means that my routine looks much different from that of most of my grad student peers, it's what finally seems to be working.

Again, it might sound backwards, but it's helping me be more productive, too. I miss the days when I could sit still and concentrate on studies for hours at a time, but that's just not where I am anymore (and why in the world would I expect the same study methods that worked for me at 15 to work at 31?!). I focus better on my writing when there are breaks throughout my day to focus wholeheartedly on very different activities. And, if I'm being honest, this approach better reflects the relative importance of academics at this stage of my life. It just can't have the same prominence in my daily life that it had when I was 23 and single, and that's okay. The dissertation will still get done.

So it's great that I'm finally realizing a perspective and working-from-home rhythm that are effective for me. But are you asking yourself what all this means for my long-term fitness for academia?  Because I sure am. And I don't have an easy answer right now. I think, for a long time, I couldn't countenance the possibility of giving up a traditional academic career, because it would mean that all my years of training, all that people had invested in me, had gone to waste. Kevin's new job has freed me up to think differently about that. I don't think for a moment that Kevin's historical training was a waste of time -- anyone who's acquainted with him knows that "historian" will always be a big part of who he is -- or that his new career in IT is any less worthy than a career in seminary teaching and ministry might have been. So why would I feel that there's shame in my not pursuing work as a professor (if indeed I decide not to)?  I guess there's still a lingering sense that, somehow, theologically-oriented "callings" are more special somehow, and that I need a formal title and position to justify the past decade of my life. But I don't think any of that is really logical, much less biblical.

There might also be guilt about the fact that we relocated to St. Louis so that I could have a shot at an academic career, so if I jettison that at this point, I'm afraid I'll be letting "everyone" down. But I don't think that's a right perspective, either. I am beginning to doubt that it's God's. At any rate, I don't think He planted us here for the sake of prioritizing one person's career over the other's (though I would honestly be more than thrilled if Kevin's career ends up being the bigger takeaway from our time here). Early on, I remember praying that whatever happened with our careers, we would be able to build a life in St. Louis, and that it could be home for us. I still pray for that -- and it seems to me that, for all the uncertainties remaining, the Lord has clearly been answering that prayer.

I remind myself, too, that maybe it isn't my business what God's intentions are, anyway! It's so easy to get myself tied up in knots over questions of vocation and identity, but that's a burden I've taken on myself, not something He has asked of me. It's my job to love Him and obey, one step at a time. Many times that's the hardest calling to hang onto, but it's the only one that promises peace.

Book Review: China's Reforming Churches

China's Reforming Churches: Mission, Polity, and Ministry in the Next Christendom, edited by Bruce P. Baugus. Reformation Heritage Books (2014), 320 pp.
Cross Focused Reviews Blog Tour

China has more evangelical Christian believers than any other nation, and more people in church on Sundays than in all of Europe -- statistics I probably wouldn't have guessed until I read China's Reforming Churches. This book goes beyond surveying facts, however, or even presenting narratives of believers' experiences.

This is a scholarly book and not exactly a quick read, but the central argument isn't hard to discern: that Chinese churches need biblical presbyterianism, and that many Chinese churches have been reforming themselves toward that end for some time. These essays are mostly written by Chinese pastors or other pastor-scholars having
firsthand familiarity with the church in China. They offer a thorough introduction to the history, present situation, and ongoing challenges faced by Christians there.

My favorite chapters were probably those dealing with the history of Presbyterianism in China. While I was aware of an early Presbyterian presence in China, I didn't realize how strong that presence was -- that there were, for example, indigenous presbyteries that were flourishing well into the early twentieth century, as well as seminaries. In reading the history of seminaries in China, I was struck by the degree to which the Fundamentalist-Modernist conflict impacted China (see Appendix B for a moving account of some seminarians' response in one instance); this struggle was definitely not limited to North America.

I also found the chapters on legal Christian publishing and theological education to be especially interesting. Both also served as a healthy reminder that, while Reformed Christians in the west rightly seek ways of partnering with Chinese churches in mission, we need to be carefully discerning in how we go about it. Possibilities that initially sound promising might prove counterproductive to churches' goals of becoming self-sustaining.

But one can't read this book without being encouraged by the vibrancy of Chinese churches, and gaining a greater understanding of the importance of biblical church structures for the shepherding of God's people everywhere. The existence of church polity can be taken for granted in a western context; it can even be easy to regard the structures and obligations of church governance as something of a burden. China's Reforming Churches is a good reminder that such structures are not only necessary, but beautiful and graciously given by God.

The publisher provided me with a review copy of this book, and I was under no obligation to give a favorable review.