Time and time again over the past few months, I've excitedly invited a friend to join Adam and I in our new, Washington, DC home. Most people face me with blank stares or, at best, a sort of vague threat: "Don't say that if you don't mean it." My friends don't seem to realize how fundamentally important hospitality is to me, and to Adam.
Even though Adam and I are of the same race and the same nationality, we come from rather fundamentally different cultures. I'm from the American South, while he's from the American West with Yankee parents to boot. Still, Adam violates every Southern expectation of Yankee behavior on at least one point: hospitality.
Southern hospitality is one of my very favorite features of my culture. It's generosity and communal spirit in action in a vitally important way. That why it's so very important to me that Adam is not just an excellent host, but one who enjoys it. For both of us, sharing our food with other people is energizing and uplifting, as is opening our home to others.
When Adam and I sat down to think about our priorities in marriage, it made me really happy that we both included having an open, welcoming home on the list. That's part of the reason we chose our New Testament reading, from Hebrews 13: "Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unwittingly entertained angels."
And, for the record, our home will always be open to you.
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