Welcome: On Becoming a Wished for Guest

"Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again , come , come."

Words of the Sufi mystic Mawlana Jala-al-Din Rumi

Simply Rumi to most folk

I’m told I’ve got one of those faces. One that’s easy to talk to, easy and approachable. I’m not sure how true it is, but I do find strangers come and talk with me. It happened on Monday afternoon. I’d just come back from the act of Remembrance in Urmston and went to the gym. I set off for half an hour on the cross trainer before getting stuck into some resistance work. I’d only been moving a minute or so when an old guy came to the machine next to me and began to engage me in conversation. I think he told me his life story in about 20 minutes before he’d had enough, not of talking, but of the machine. He told me about his career, his family, his religious beliefs and his politics and a whole lot more. He told me how he’d been a good salesman and that this was down to the smile and his open face, something that his granddaughter had inherited he was proud to say.

I smiled as he left and I got on with the rest of my routine. I wondered if that’s how it works. All you need is an open face and folk will feel welcome. There’s probably more too it than that, but it’s a good start I thought.

Over the years I’ve developed a bit of a ministerial catch phrase. I wonder if anyone reading this can guess.

I am often hear sating “Come as you are, exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition.” It is my play on those words of Rumi’s at the beginning of this post.

It is my attempt to make feel people welcome wholly as they, but to also keep them open to the possibility of change. For I do belief that life is flux, always changing. As Heraclitus so beautifully put no one steps in the same river twice, because the river is never the same and neither is the person stepping into it. Change of course is something to be celebrated, my hope is people will always feel welcome exactly as they, without apology. I want everyone to feel welcome in my company and this community. So, I’m kind of glad that folk find me approachable.

And when I say come as you are, exactly as you are…but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition, I really mean it.

I hope that people always feel welcome in my company...

“Welcome” is one of those very interesting words. It is derived from and old English and Germanic word meaning a wished for guest. So when we welcome people it is more than just accepting folk as they its about wanting nay wishing for what these guests bring. So in the communities I serve when we say all are welcome here, we mean that you truly are wished for guests, although we are not yet sure exactly what it is we are wishing for.

Who you are as you are is wished for…No need to explain or apologies for who you are…

Now of course people don’t always feel welcome in certain company. People have been rejected for all kinds of reasons, whether that be race, gender, sexuality, beliefs or lack of. I and the communities I serve aspire to make no such exclusions, but I know we fall short of our own ideals at times, who doesn't . We do attempt to make no exclusions. We say all are welcome as they are, you are a wished for guest as you are.

It is not just we ourselves who sometime do not feel welcome, sometimes we do not wish to welcome all of life. Some aspects of life and some people are not welcomed by we ourselves. What is unwelcome in our personal guesthouses? What are life’s unwished for guests?

This brings to mind another one of Rumi’s better known poems “The Guest House”

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

I, like so many folk, love the mystical poetry of Rumi. I particularly love his notion here, that being human is like being a “guest house”. In life we are visited by all kinds of guests, so many unexpected visitors occasionally show up and stay for a while, including some you’d really like to throw out. Such guests are certainly not wished for. And yet perhaps such guests are the ones that we ought to be wishing for the most, because if we do welcome them then they may have something to teach us, they may lead us to some new truth, new experience. Perhaps these are the guest we ought to be wishing for, maybe they are the true gift givers in life.

If only we could just simply do that. Just let all life in without fear of what might happen to us, if we could live without stranger danger, whether that be people, situations, feeling and thoughts. Rarely do any of us make the uncomfortable feelings and situations welcome guests.

There are conversations in my life that I avoid, that I would rather not have, that I swerve around. I did it on a couple of occasions with the man I the gym, especially when he moved the subject to politics. I’m sure most folk experience this with family and friends in these increasingly divisive times

Not that I ignore what is going on in the world around me, quite the opposite actually. Sometimes I get a little stuck in the troubles of life. Yes of course there are people places and things that I would rather not listen to; things I would rather ignore avert from my eyes, than pay attention to. There are things in this world I don’t like and do not approve of; there are actions in my nearest and dearest that I don’t agree with; there are aspects of myself that I wish were different. Should I turn from them? There are those who would say so and I have certainly done so in the past, but I try not to these days. Nobody is perfect, no one is complete, but that does not mean that they should be shunned, they should be locked outside love’s gate. They should become un-wished for guests, unwelcome.

This brings to mind a passage from Luke’s Gospel Ch18 vv 9-14 In the passage a prideful Pharisee, who considers himself better than others, is described. He follows the laws and commandments to the letter. In the same passage a tax collector is also described who recognises his imperfections and does not feel he is worthy of God’s love. In the passage Jesus holds up the tax collector and not the Pharisee as being the exalted one. Jesus says “For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbelth himself shall be exalted. You see the Pharisee turns from the tax collector and others who he believes are beneath him. He sees their wrongs and thus believes that unlike himself they are not worthy of God’s love. The Pharisee fails to see that by rejecting his neighbour he is also rejecting God.

There is something in this teaching, a theme repeated in the Gospels, about being a good host and a good guest. It’s about accepting our humanity and the humanity of one another. It’s about love and acceptance of ourselves and one another; it’s about universal love; it’s about perfect love. I believe that the only thing we can do perfectly is love. This requires us to love all, without prejudice. In my eyes this is how the love that is God comes to life, how it incarnates. I fall short of this mark every day, but I believe that it is possible to attain such love, not just for myself but for everyone. We can accept all people, we are capable of love. The key is to make all of life a wished for guests.

Now of course to truly love someone requires you to get to know them and this can be both scary and at times painful. And of course to know someone requires us to understand what a person loves and what causes them pain. To truly welcome someone means we welcome all of them. We can’t ask the guests we wish for to leave part of themselves outside of the guesthouse

There is a wonderful story told by Madeleine L’Engle in “Walking on Water”, which describes this oh so beautifully.

“(Here is) a story of a Hasidic rabbi, renowned for his piety. He was unexpectedly confronted one day by one of his devoted youthful disciples. In a burst of feeling, the young disciple exclaimed, “My master, I love you!” The ancient teacher looked up from his books and asked his fervent disciple, “Do you know what hurts me, my son?”

The young man was puzzled. Composing himself, he stuttered, “I don’t understand your question, Rabbi. I am trying to tell you how much you mean to me, and you confuse me with irrelevant questions.”

“My questions is neither confusing nor irrelevant,” rejoined the rabbi, “For if you do not know what hurts me, how can you truly love me.””

To know someone is not only to share in their joy, but also in their suffering. To welcome someone is to welcome them wholly, to make every aspect of them the wished for guest.

I believe that one purpose of religious communities is the development of intimacy, real intimacy, something that is lacking in our increasingly isolating culture. Something that modern day consumerist spirituality does not offer. It does not offer the intimate encounter that community brings. Spirituality cannot occur in the privacy of our lives or hidden away on mountain tops it can only come to life in real lived encounters with other people. In awkward difficult encounters with people like you and me, perfectly imperfect people who know both joy and pain. With folk who practise what t it means to truly love. Who worship wholly in all areas of life, not in a superior way, but humbly and because they love life and their souls need this worship and love of life.

The communities I serve say all are welcome, we say come as you are exactly as you are...but don’t expect to leave in exactly the same condition.

We say we accept people exactly as they are in their faith, doubt and confusion, in their joy and sadness. This is true hospitality. Welcoming the weary traveller with open arms, whoever they are and where ever they have come from. Welcoming them wholly body, mind and soul; that they leave no part of themselves at the door. All that we ask is that those that we welcome are good guests and hosts themselves, that they accept us as we are and others who come as they are.

We say this is a community of love, where we aspire to offer perfect love, to accept people as they are.

So come as you are, exactly as you are, become the wished for guest, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition…