Our desire to offer radical hospitality to others is borne from our understanding that God loves us just as we are — and we are to bring that unconditional love and acceptance out into our world. From this place of deep thanksgiving for the grace bestowed upon us by God, we offer grace to those we meet each day.
This is an act of the heart, intentionally opening ourselves at depth to other people’s lives, stories, experiences, and perspectives, not only without judgment, but with a curiosity and willingness to be changed by all those we encounter.
This is especially important right now because there are many people who are coming into our neighborhood who are immigrants or refugees from other countries as we are suddenly becoming a multi-cultural neighborhood. We have people come to our garden with whom we have build friendships who are from Nepal, Haiti, the Caribbean, Pakistan, and Asian countries, as well as a growing African-American population. It is such a gift to stroll through the garden and encounter people from such a diversity of ethnicity and backgrounds.
Our decision to offer a time of coffee and conversation on our food distribution day said to us and to our world that we want to be in relationship with you. We want to feed you in all ways, heart, mind, body, and soul — and we know our lives will be richer because of you.
Radical hospitality is offering all of ourselves to everyone we encounter. This is our deepest prayer. May we be as generous and open to giving ourselves to others as this beautiful in all ways neighbor of ours.
We invite you to watch this short video on Hospitality and Wholeness in the garden, which was part of our Diocesan Creation Care Webinar.