Christine Valters Paintner is a Benedictine Oblate who lives
with her husband John in Galway in Ireland.
She leads an on-line “monastery without walls” called Abbey of the Arts,
focussing very much on visual art in spirituality, and on pilgrimage. In a paper on the important Benedictine
obligation of hospitality, she writes: I
love this invitation of the Rule. I consider what this means at its foundation:
that everything that seems strange, foreign, or uncomfortable, is the place
where God especially shimmers forth.
This hospitality applies to those who arrive at the door to my outer
world in terms of people and experiences I find difficult or challenging. In a world struggling with a refugee crisis,
we would do well to remember this radical invitation. We had
some thoughts about that last week.
But equally
important, she says, is to understand that there is an inner aspect of hospitality – indeed, in us, as it were, is where
hospitality either lives, or is suppressed.
The Hindu Sufi poet Rumi writes about the inner guest house, with new arrivals each day such as joy or
sadness, anger, depression, anxiety.
Just as we are taught regarding so-called distractions in our silent
prayer, not to resist them (because it won’t work), but to recognise and honour
them first – then let them go on their way – so with these “guests” in our
inner life it is important not to fend off or deny admittance, but to be open
to what may be happening at a deeper level than our fears. Contrary to common belief, God does not
appear only in what is familiar or comfortable or safe. God may manifest in events which may starkly
challenge our assumptions about how things should work, or how they should
be. We are strangers and pilgrims, says the Letter to the Hebrews.[1] That’s actually a tautology – the word
pilgrim derives from an ancient word meaning stranger. Wisdom teaches that we are careful to offer
hospitality to our inner fears and negativities, because we ourselves are
strange, and strangeness is one of the faces of God.
Now, I think it is
time also to be reminded that contemplative life and prayer is always marked by
gentleness – if it’s intimidating, not gentle, there’s something not
right. My yoke is easy, said Jesus, my
burden is light.[2] And in the matter of hospitality, including
hospitality to our own inner “visitors”, good and bad, says Christine Valters
Paintner, it means trusting that the brokenness we experience, or the
wholeness, is God’s healing, leading path.
Of course we must always do what is sensible and possible to relieve
pain. But in bereavement and grief for
instance, denial of reality is scarcely sensible or even kind. Inner hospitality means greeting the “stranger”, remembering that we can do so without
fear.
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