Generosity and Hospitality

The night before we left on this trip last week, Thomas, my parents and I sat down for dinner.  The waitress wasn't the best (but really, the restaurant itself was probably most at fault) and some jokes were being cracked at her expense when Thomas said, "Well, you never know what could be going on in her life.  She might be having a bad day for perfectly legitimate reasons."  Thomas is not religious nor spiritual, and at times he can seem immoral, so I was very proud of him when he made that comment because he was being very aware of other people.  In a nutshell, that is what I hope to be doing on this trip: being myself aware and making others aware of all the people around us.

What I mean by being aware of others is probably best defined as generosity and hospitality.  Giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, helping those around us in our daily life whether they ask for it or not, opening yourself up to others, welcoming others, and treating others like family; all of that is part of the loving combination of generosity and hospitality.  I wish that I had taken Dr. Oden's class on hospitality at Wesley Theological Seminary so that I would have more knowledgeable things to say, but hopefully you'll search out some of Dr. Amy Oden's writings to learn more about how to be hospitable to people in our daily lives.  I really can't stress enough how important it is to create the world that we all hope for.

Originally I was going to blog about how Wesley Seminary is such a great place: not only is it a great school with great professors like Dr. Oden, not only is it in a great location (Washington, D.C.), but if you are a cyclist it is in the perfect spot because wherever you go, you must go back up some massive hills to get back to the seminary so it has been a great place to train.  When I arrived here in Lebanon, PA (suburb of Pittsburgh), though, I instantly changed my mind.  LuAnn and Sam Mudrak are kind enough to open their house to Thomas and me for the next two days.  I got in contact with them through the religious community Hot Metal Bridge, whose pastors had recently taught a class at Wesley Seminary called The Urban Church, and they have been nothing but generous and hospitable.

The door to the Mudrak house was already open when we arrived, a sign of only the best things to come.  And they immediately made us feel at home.  Which is a good thing considering that on our way back from lunch, Thomas decided he wanted to get some exercise so he hopped on Cato (my bike).  Within a couple of minutes he was crashing into a curb on the side of the road.  My first reaction was, "How ironic, I've been riding Cato for a number of days now, and Thomas gets on him for such a short time before this happens."  Then I realized that the crash was actually really bad.  We were on a busy road so I didn't think I'd be able to get out of the car and help him, and he's a tough guy anyway so he insisted on walking to the next parking lot anyway.  Meeting up he showed me a completely torn apart knee and a hand that was pretty gashed up as well, along with a bike with twisted front brakes that would need some serious maintenance.

Whether or not I'll be able to continue this trip on my Cato (the only road bike that we have) is in question.  For tonight, though, no one cares about that so much as making sure that Thomas has all of us wounds taken care of and he doesn't get infected.  And no one has been more caring than the Mudrak's, our host family.  Not only have they opened up their house to us for a couple of days, but they have gone out of their way to care for Thomas.  We haven't known them for more than two hours and they are caring for our wounded driver without judging us or him at all.  I, for one, am extremely appreciative of their generosity and hospitality.

With all people we meet, we should possess the same spirit of generosity and hospitality.  Maybe then we'd be more aware of people in distress.  Maybe then we'd be more able and more willing to protect and rescue those in slavery.