Hospitality by Julie Short

My first thoughts abut the word hospitality only go towards proving the point that I have about myself: “I am an Odd duck.” I suppose for a moderate to significant number of people hospitality is a positive word, but not to me. I grew up in a world in which I was taught to be “neighborly” which basically means the same thing. However, we were taught that hospitality and entertaining were what the rich and haughty people did with other rich and haughty people. Neighborly was an entirely different concept. According to my family, neighborly meant you didn’t care how much money a person had or where they came from; if they needed help, you opened your door and helped them. If they needed a ride, you crushed together in the cab of your only family vehicle -- an old, broken down, barely running pickup truck with a tiny 2 passenger cab. You sat on your mom’s lab with your head hunched over so it wouldn’t hit the ceiling; while your 6 foot brother scrunched between your dad and mom with groceries and laundry at your feet, just so your dad could pick up a stranger.

If a stranger needed fed you fed them; if they needed a bed you gave them yours. (Even though the part about the bed never really happened with a stranger, I know it’s just because no one wandered that far out in the boonies looking for a place to sleep.)

I liked the concept of being neighborly even though at times it was a bit inconvenient.
To be neighborly also inferred other duties. If a neighbor’s wife/mother went into the hospital, the neighbors would take turns having the husband and kids over for super until she returned home, at which time they would bring food to the house. I thought this was a pretty good deal, until mom went to the hospital and we went to the neighbors. One memorable supper stands out in my mind even some 40 years later. My dad was, what I call, severely strict. Dad told my brother & me before we went into the neighbor’s house, that we must eat everything on our plates and not make a peep. I imagine that terror struck me at that very moment, considering I was a very picky eater and rarely, if ever, ate everything on my plate. But if I wasn’t terrified at that moment, I know I was when the nice neighborly woman scooped up some slimly, stinky, dark green spinach and plopped a heaping spoonful on my plate.

I didn’t yet know the meaning of “Between a rock and a hard place,” but I definitely remember feeling trapped. If I ate the slimly spinach I feared I would throw up right then and there, but if I didn’t eat the spinach I knew I would feel the wrath of my father. He would either thump me on the head or use a belt to my backside or possibly both. I can’t tell you for sure what happened, but I am almost positive I took the thumping.

The other neighborly things to do came when someone in the neighborhood passed away. Someone would go door to door collecting money to order flowers. The men would go and dig the hole at the cemetery and the women would cook food to take to the grieving family.
Today I can think of many people who are wonderful neighbors to others. They open their homes and their hearts to family, friends and even strangers. But as old as I am, I still can’t bring myself to consider them hospitable, because to do so would infer that they are also haughty, and that is the farthest thing from the truth. Old habits (or definitions to words) are hard to break or change. Whatever we call it “hospitality” or “being neighborly” we need to open our hearts and reach out to others.

Reach Out by Julie Short

If my body was adorned with piercings,
If I was overweight
Or maybe I smelled a little funny to you;
Perhaps I am poor
Or I talk to myself,
Would you feed me?
Would you quench my thirst?
Would you clothe me?
Invite me to church?
Welcome me?
Sit by me?
Or Talk about me when I leave?
Would you reach out to me?
Sadly, if they were honest most would say No.
But sadder yet,
They would not reach out to those like them.
The truth is some would not
Reach out
At
All.