Strange Beginnings

My husband was recently stranded at the Atlanta airport. You can probably relate to this story. He had left (snowy, cold) Akron to visit his mom and step dad in (warm, sunny) Tucson. The journey there was uneventful, but the return home was long, hard and miserable. Flights cancelled, schedules re-routed, long lines, crabby people, old magazines, continual and soundless CNN. It must have been like the wait in the endodontist office that never ends. Along the way, though, he made friends. He talked to people, listened to their stories, and by his presence probably made some angy people a little less upset. He spoke of the hospitality offered to him by other people and how he tried to offer it in return. It made me think a lot about what it means to offer that to others. It is so easy to shower it on those we love and those we feel are deserving, but what about everyone else? I recently read an amazing transformational book, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. It is a story of hospitality. Greg Mortenson became lost while climbing in the Himalayas. He stumbled across a small village that took him in, fed him, clothed him and got him back on his feet. He promised he would come back and build the village a school. The rest of the book tells the amazing journey of how he is continuing to build schools all over the region, mostly to educate young girls. The villagers hospitality saved him. Greg is not a teacher, nor did he know anything about schools. He saw a need and with literally no preparation, stepped out in faith to begin something new. He says his life began again that day. He became committed to hospitality. So, where does hospitality begin? Does it begin in church? Or, does it begin when we offer it to the wayfarer and the sojourner...the strangers we've yet to meet?