Our Practices Make Us Who We Are

"How do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice, Practice, Practice"—musicians saying

 I am a long time sober alcoholic. When I first stopped drinking, I learned a lot from Roz, who is a very direct fiery lady from L.A. We were in Oklahoma, a place not so direct. Roz said over and over, ”You can act your way into right thinking, but you can’t think your way into right acting.” She said, “ If you care then do something. Love is a verb not a noun. “

 I’ve traveled around a lot working with lots of groups. I have seen many organizations that are like dead zones while talking about community, and seen some organizations that feel completely alive with a beating heart you can hear. One place you feel like if you had a heart attack and died, people would step over you, and wait for someone to clean you up later. In another place you feel like a long lost brother? Why is a place one way and not the other way?  Lucky?

 I was once working with a congregation that was very welcoming to me, and I said to a lady who’d been a member there a longtime, ” You all are so kind to me. Its amazing.” Mary patted me on the shoulder and said, “Mike it has nothing to do with you.”  It stopped me... And after a few moments of silence, then we both laughed.

 Mary started to tell me about the commitments people make as members there. She called them ‘our practices’ that make us who we are.  One thing they do is to meet anyone they don’t know. Another is that any group has room for one more person. They don’t say you can’t play.  Another is that we go towards anyone we don’t like. I asked what that means? Mary said , “We know you can’t hold a negative label or stereotype about someone if you actually get to know them. If I think all teenage boys are dangerous and bad, then I make a special effort to know teenage boys as real people.  

 Whenever I find a group who is living hospitality I have been asking and looking for the practices that make them who they are. I ask; what are the practices you see?, what have you committed to do?, what could you commit to do? I think that groups who are welcoming have intention. People make commitments to practices. Practices are intentional actions we do over and over. They take our ideas into action to be fulfilled.  My meditation teacher said to me about commitments to practices , ”We don’t make decisions, so much as decisions make us.”  

Hospitable groups make commitments to practices to create a container for their experience that can hold water, the meaning and life of their shared experience.

  Hospitality is not helping someone but accompanying someone. The practice of hospitality turns strangers into friends, and transforms our lives in the process.

 

“Greater is an act of hospitality than an encounter of the divine presence”-The Talmud