A couple weeks ago, I read “Never the Stranger” by Kate Kooyman on The Twelve blog about not just offering, but receiving hospitality. Kooyman writes:
I’ve never spent much time as the stranger. Living how I’ve lived — white, American, Christian — I’ve been so long in the center of the story that I’ve rarely had a sense for what being “the other” is like. And this works well for me when I’m shopping at Target, or interacting with the police, or watching the State of the Union. But I think it puts me at a disadvantage when I read Scripture and try to actually live its truths. Christine Pohl is so smart about hospitality, and has so much to teach. She says that half the practice of Christian hospitality is welcoming others — but the other half is being welcomed. We’re not actually practicing hospitality in its fullness if we are never “the other” who is in need of welcome, who allows another to extend their gracious gifts. In fact, Jesus was not often the host in the stories we tell about him. He owned no dishes, no table, no welcome mat. Jesus himself was, most often, the receiver of hospitality (and, often, receiving hospitality from someone who was decidedly not “one of us” for the Jewish community he was part of). And I need this challenge, because the Christian language and Christian life that I’m most immersed in has a lot to say about my call to serving/helping/saving/fixing, and little that holds me accountable to the calling to be served, helped, saved, fixed. It leaves me without that grounding that Scripture takes for granted, the one that says “you were once strangers.” It is memory that is critical, and I don’t have it.
I’ve been thinking about Kooyman’s words for a few reasons–because being the stranger has shaped my life and because it is still much easier for me to offer hospitality than receive it. Living as a non-Chinese person in China, I am a foreigner. And living in China as a foreigner is learning to live well where I don’t belong and will never belong. I first moved to China right after I graduated from university and lived here for three years. My formative early adult years, I was a stranger. I was learning to live dependent on others, because there was so much I couldn’t do for myself.
Me and an old stone horse at a small museum for the rural area I visited recently.
The experience of living overseas affected many of my decisions when I moved back to the U.S. I spent several years working with refugees, and I found it deeply gratifying, in part because it was a way that I could offer the welcome to my country that I had received when I was overseas. One time I was visiting a refugee family in West Michigan and they asked me to help them go through their mail. As I sat on their couch, sorting mail on the coffee table, I was profoundly grateful for the opportunity to sort out the junk mail they didn’t need to spend energy on from important mail they needed to pay attention to. It was a small act, but I knew that when you are living in a second language and unfamiliar culture, those little things feel overwhelming and add up. The things that are intuitive in your home culture are no longer intuitive. Being the stranger opened my heart to offering hospitality.
But being the stranger is hard. Receiving hospitality is hard, especially for those of us from Western cultures that emphasize taking care of ourselves and being in control to produce results. Being the stranger means we often have to let go of some of the rights and practices we think are necessary. Even though I’ve lived more than seven years of my life as an outsider, there are still times when I struggle to receive hospitality.
This became abundantly clear to me recently, when I went to visit a Chinese friend. She lives in another city–actually the rural area of a city–and I stayed with her and her mom in their apartment. They were wonderfully welcoming. My friend let me stay in her room while she slept on a couch/bed in the living room. They actually have a number of couch/beds in the living area. Her mom sleeps there regularly, because it is easier than climbing the stairs to a bedroom, and when her mom’s family comes to visit they are prepared with beds. They had bought lots of groceries–fruit, vegetables, fish, and other treats. They cooked more food than necessary and marveled at how little I eat. I developed a cough right before I went, and they cooked me lots of dishes with sesame oil and other ingredients that are supposed to be good for curing coughs. My friend polished my boots before I left and her mom trimmed the fuzzies off my coat.
And despite their excellent care and warm welcome, part of me had a hard time accepting it. There were moments when I wanted to say “Stop giving me so much advice. I can take care of myself.” I won’t be cold, my coat is very warm. I am drinking enough water, and if it isn’t boiling hot I’ll still happily drink it. I wanted to feel independent, but had to give up that desire to accept the care my friends were showing me.
The most delicious noodles I’ve eaten in a long time! My friend’s mom made them, and they were so good.
And I wanted to blend in and belong in a place where I will never blend in or fully belong. Even though the people we met meant to be complimentary when they remarked on my eye color (blue!), or skin color (fair and pink!), or hair (weak/soft and naturally curly!), it gets exhausting after awhile to fawned over. Being an exotic beauty is othering–stroking my unusually textured hair points out, again and again that I’m living in a place where I don’t belong. I have to die to myself to respond graciously and receive this love and care for what it is.
Being in a position to receive hospitality shapes me. God is using it in my process of sanctification. It helps me to learn humility. I don’t deserve so much of the attention I receive. There are ways of doing things that are different but just as valid as my own. And it helps me to learn to be interdependent. There are still many things I don’t understand or need to ask for help with. I have to trust friends to make wise decisions about what would be safe and appropriate for me to do.
In my life I am often the stranger, maybe even always a stranger, because I usually feel a bit like a stranger when I go back to the U.S., too. And even though it is sometimes hard, I am thankful for the ways that being a stranger forms me and allows me to understand scripture and Jesus in new ways.
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