Hospitality is a central value in our family. We enjoying hosting friends and guests in our home and teach our children to help make our guests feel welcome. It has occurred to me that hospitality is really a broad relational category not simply connected with serving people who visit us in our homes. It should be practiced in our interpersonal relationships just as much as with our guests.
There are a couple people that I feel very uncomfortable around. I don't know what to say to them or how to interact with them. My solution is to avoid them when in public. This avoidance is actually inhospitableness on my part. I'm realizing that they likely feel this even if it is not completely conscious. It has nothing really to do with them it is just my discomfort but it nevertheless affects them negatively.
Being committed to hospitality must mean learning to live with some discomfort. Pushing past my discomfort to be welcoming and accommodating.
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