An Attitude of Hospitality

I’m currently visiting my friend Martha in St. Louis, where the local gas company is installing outdoor meters at all the houses in her neighborhood, requiring much digging of holes in yards and streets. Consequently, the roads and sidewalks are dotted with orange utility signs, flag markers, and cones, piles of gravel, stacks of metal plates, and bobcat vehicles. The project is noisy and inconvenient, and it is easy to grumble about it.

My attitude changed when, as I took a walk this morning, I saw a young boy squatting near a utility worker, who was patiently answering the boy’s his questions as he dug a hole. In the midst of doing a hot and dirty job, the man responded to a child’s curiosity with grace and what could even be termed hospitality—welcoming the boy into his work space, as it were. We usually think of hospitality as welcoming guests into our home, but hospitality is an approach to life that we can practice wherever we are and in the midst of whatever we are doing.

Encountering this worker also reminded me that I rarely think about the efforts of people who labor to keep gas and electricity and water flowing so all of us can live comfortably. When I write up my weekly prayer list of needs for healing, special intentions, birthdays, and death anniversaries, I need to add an intention for the public workers I generally take for granted—fire fighters, police officers, prison employees, utility workers, parks crews, and city administrative workers, for example. It’s the hospitable thing to do.