welcoming

 

Every afternoon my heart beats just a little faster as I approach the long benches where the children in the primary classes are seated, waiting to be picked up. I scan the small faces, looking for Beatrice. I love to see her before she sees me, and I love to surprise her. She lights up. 

I get the best hug, and then a flood of words about the things she did in school, and then, inevitably, she turns to her friend You Jie. And the two of them turn to me and plead, usually while jumping up and down, to have a play date. A very very very long playdate. A sleeping over playdate. Which bed can I sleep in at your house, anyway?

But I don't know You Jie's parents. So every day I tell them that as soon as I talk to You Jie's mama or papa we will plan a time to play. But honestly, I haven't been trying very hard. 

One of the hardest parts about Mike's illness, especially for the children, has been our compromised ability to host. Kids are loud and unpredictable and there have been times over the past 15 months that I've wanted to muzzle our three so that Mike could feel sick or sleep in relative peace. At those times adding more kids would be a set up for disaster: I'd be driving myself crazy trying to contain the mess, and they'd be wondering why Frances and Gabriel's mom is such a stressed out nag. 

Last fall was especially hard. The children were all starting at a new school, and at the same time Mike was very, very sick on chemo and radiation. I found myself meeting other parents and awkwardly inviting my children over to their houses. Socially weird, yes, but my kids' loneliness and disorientation was breaking my heart. I knew they needed time to solidify new friendships and also knew the last thing Mike needed was more children running up and down the stairs. 

So I'd ask: could our kids get together to play? And could you deal with them? At your house? I was so raw and vulnerable then, and I would try not to cry over our helplessness, and try not to focus too much on the fact that this other person had smiled politely and said hello, how are you? and my response was that my husband has cancer and because of that we moved abruptly and we are feeling lost and uncertain about the future and can my kids come play at your house? Oh, and it's nice to meet you too. And please know I'm normally not this needy and weepy and you don't have to be afraid of me or my children. We're not like this. Not usually. We won't make you uncomfortable, at least we'll try not to. And please don't judge me too much. But anyway, when would be good for you?

It wasn't easy, but for the most part it kind of worked. Ask and you shall receive. Seriously, it's good advice. People have been marvelously kind and generous with my children (and, by extension, me).

But getting back to hosting: I really hate the feeling of hesitating before I ask someone in. Hospitality is a virtue that I hold dear. Feeding people feels so good. So, when Mike came home from his first treatment on this clinical trial and it became clear that it was not going to knock him out like previous treatments have...? I still hesitate - is it okay? is Mike sleeping? - and then I remind myself, it is okay. 

Last night, on a whim, I implored Tessa to bring her family over to eat some pasta in the twenty minutes we had left before she and Gabriel had to go to soccer practice. And they came! And brought green beans. It feels almost unreal to me, that I can spontaneously bring four friends into the kitchen and pass around the parmesan and watch our families eat together without any internal twisting up over whether we are too loud or if I should make everyone go onto the porch because so many people might be stressful. But Mike was right there, one of the people eating pasta. 

And so yesterday, I mustered up my courage and waited for You Jie's mom at pick up. I introduced myself and did something I haven't been able to do with a new small friend in a long time: I asked if You Jie could come over to play. 

We all ended up walking home together. The little girls held hands, looking back at us and grinning, almost disbelieving their good luck: the dream was finally becoming reality. On the way home, I ended up telling You Jie's mom about cancer and living in my mom's house and all of it in response to her innocent get-to-know-you questions, but I felt okay. So many of those tears that pushed up against my words last year, every time I had to meet someone new, were about the difficulty of perceiving myself (or imagining others' perceptions of me) as needy and messy and broken. 

Church people like to talk about radical hospitality. More than just greeting people at the door: a much deeper kind of welcome. The way Beatrice encounters her friends outside her classroom in the morning, running to greet them, yelling out their names, grinning uncontrollably - talk about radical welcome. The children hang their jackets on the hooks outside and then run into the class, straight up to their teacher Jane, greeting her with enthusiastic delight. It makes me melt every time I see it. When they say good morning, eyes a-sparkling, what they are really saying is: you are wonderful, Jane! You are precious, and we absolutely love to be here with you! 

Welcoming people with that kind of boundless acceptance - opening wide the doors without hesitation - feels really, really good, as any of the kids in Beatrice's class would tell you. 

I fumbled a bit talking to You Jie's mom but I didn't feel like crying or protecting myself, and this too seems like a hospitable gesture. It's the kind I've been practicing for many months now. I haven't always been able to share my home and my kitchen, but I have tried to share my experience with you, to welcome you in to my brokenness. 

Once Katie told me she and another friend joked about how they might try hosting Meagan-style. What style is that? Oh you know, she said, making the salad as people come in, and asking them to help chop or stir, having a messy art project underway all over the kitchen table. 

I guess that is my hosting style. Even under the healthiest of circumstances, guests in my home see how I make the sausage. In fact, I ask them to help me make it. 

Which is maybe like this blog. Come in, come in! Let me welcome you to this messy interior space! Would you like some moments of grace, and moments of terror? While you're here, could you help me make sense of this heartbreaking, beautiful, broken world?

To be radically hospitable, maybe one is obligated to bring her own vulnerability and raggedness to the encounter. Otherwise it doesn't hold the potential to heal; it isn't an authentic connection. When you offer someone a glass of water and look him in the eyes, it's impossible to hide. You're exposed. This is why being around the primary classroom is so profoundly joyful: they all look you in the eye, and invite you to do the same. They are so comfortable seeing and being seen, just as we are.

This ambition to open the doors of my unpolished self for strangers and friends - any of whom might be angels - is essentially self-motived. It feels amazing, when I am strong enough. I am welcomed when I welcome. And I like to think that the more I can share myself fully with all kinds of people - especially annoying people, and needy people, and unsuccessful people (the kind of person I am afraid that I actually am) - the more I can offer radical hospitality to the weirdest and most neglected among us, the more comfortable I will become with that gesture, and the more I might offer the same radical hospitality to myself. Weirdo that I am. 

What would it be like, to offer that kind of delighted acceptance to oneself? To what depths might a generosity and a gracious receiving, circling back in one continuous internal gesture, fortify our spirits for all the tragedy and joy inevitably coming our way?

Welcome, me. You are wonderful.