Come down from heaven, the way they do, / Disguised as strangers from abroad or whatever

Abraham was sitting at the entrance of his tent during the hottest part of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When Abraham saw them, he ran from his tent to meet them. He bowed facedown on the ground before them and said, “Sir, if you think well of me, please stay awhile with me, your servant. I will bring some water so all of you can wash your feet. You may rest under the tree, and I will get some bread for you so you can regain your strength. Then you may continue your journey.” Genesis 18:1-5

Thinking of hospitality as a major theme in a literary work may seem odd to modern readers. In Homer's world, however, hospitality is essential. Fagles and Knox refer to hospitality as a dominant part of "the only code of moral conduct that obtains in the insecure world of The Odyssey." Cliff Notes

It may see a bit odd for an English teacher to be quoting Cliff Notes early Saturday morning, but remember I have approximately 176 Odyssey essays (thesis, support, detail, support, detail, conclusion) to grade this weekend. And 46 character sketches. And 46 final exams. And 308 game board evaluations.  And 17 biome community service project proposals. And I know I assigned all of this work but I have pretty good rubrics and actually I enjoy each and every single paper because it is a conversation of sorts with a student that I have grown to know and love over the semester, and I am so very, happy happy sometimes with the depth and articulation of the thinking. It is just the endlessness of the stacks that I am hauling around that weighs on my mind. And major themes.

Telemachus saw Athene (disguised as a visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians) long before any one else did. He caught sight of her and went straight to the gate, for he was vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took her right hand in his own and said, "Welcome, to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall tell us what you have come for." He led the way as he spoke, and Athene followed him. He conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet, and he set another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence. (1.118-134)

And Abraham did a great job of hospitality. He had Sarah prepare loaves of bread from twenty quarts of fine flour and killed his finest calf and served it up cooked in curds and milk.  And this hospitality was a great example for the LORD conversing with Himself, “I have chosen him so he would command his children and his descendants to live the way the Lord wants them to, to live right and be fair.” Hospitality is right and fair. We are all sojourners on this earth, this insecure world.

And I may grumble about a lot of things, but inviting others into my home is not one of them. Nor doing dishes. Somehow it fills me with happiness. And maybe even the closely correlated and quite necessary trip to Fry’s, which has the added bonus of announcing to me on the bottom of the receipt that I saved over 40%, which is a quiet little game I play, two or three times a week. And I am about to head on over, before swim practice this morning.

Man, what a privilege it has been to share our table with so many people, Even just this week, the candlelit conversations bring a sense of wonder at what a delight it all is.

And how I long for this to be true: All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. What a joy it will be to hear the words of The King, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

And I wonder how many angels have walked through the bright blue front door.

Come and go with me

O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. Psalm 34:3

There’s a new book out this year about children falling pretty far off from the familial apple tree, but that sure isn’t me, which was only confirmed by my brother Tom’s detailing his spiritual, emotional and intellectual journey as we sat sipping tea in Vermont.  We certainly share the same sturdy roots twisting into the same rocky soil with both core strengths and lots of room for growth and change.   

And I am pretty sure that I first memorized and wallowed in Psalm 34 because my mother loved it so.  She had that verse about magnifying the LORD with me hanging above her heaped-up-high desk at Calvary Missionary Press as her constant reminder about what she was all about, and then Scott mounted it on a sanded board and hung it over the living room entrance as a declared mission statement on living through one day after another in a place that she never imagined or hoped for.  

And I overheard a conversation she had with Heather last night at family dinner, about working outside of the home after the children were born.  And she said that she spent so much time reading and studying the Bible after she stepped into Christianity, that it might as well have been a full time job.  That’s the thing about my parents choosing Jesus as all-grown-up adults with no religious preconceptions to push through and overcome- they leapt into the Word as if it were indeed true and applicable with no qualifying habits of complacency.

So when my dad read: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress, it was perfectly obvious that he needed to start The Mexican Christian Children’s Fund and gather and haul food and shoes to a veritable bevy of orphanages clinging to the squatter hillsides of Tijuana and Ensenada every other weekend, month after month, year after year.  And we children joined them in the blue push-button-geared station wagon every other Saturday, and gave the kids our Halloween candy and cleaned the rat-filled pantries and shaved the lice-filled heads of hair because that’s what is pure and faultless.  

And when my mom read: Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels, it was perfectly obvious that she should open up the kitchen table to all sorts of people, mostly very strange missionaries dressed in missionary-barrel shifts and boots and very strange people sitting alone in the back pew and very strange kids who got kicked out of their parents’ homes for staggering home drunk one time too many or for an awkward pregnancy or whatever.  And I know that I didn’t always appreciate sharing my bathroom and my time and space with these strangers and I promised myself that I would be different, but no, plop, I fell right under the apple tree because deep down inside I knew that it was good and made my life so very full and rich and bubbling over with flavor and grace.

And as I set out the trinkets from every possible bit of the world that clutter the fireplace mantel after neatly folding the Christmas stockings and stacking up the Christmas books swirled around the round plaster table by the front door and sweeping up the Christmas pine needles that found their way into every possible crevice, I know that this grace still bubbles, sending a sweet fragrance throughout my life.  No regrets, even after all the Moldovan Christmas jokes this season.  

So Jinsheng Wang arrived.  And he got the traditional welcome, Pippen wiggling unwelcomed at his feet, orange cat leaping onto his bed, a warm tasteful lunch with Jack and MaryAnne and the Alan Safari tour.  And after quite a few hand motions and careful, slightly too loud enunciation, I figured out that he would like some milk and sweetly handed him a glass...complete with one of those creepy brown cockroaches which fill me with continual despair and humiliation.  Drats.  

And who knows what the year will bring.  I will choose to not feel dismay with a very weary shell-shocked sixteen-year-old who doesn’t seem to be able to dig up any of his hard-learned English lessons.  I don’t know what any of it will look like, but from experience I certainly know that it will be unexpected and far more wonderful than I could have guessed.  That’s the good thing about being a bit of a Puddleglum.  It only gets better.  What I do know is that I want him to join in the picnic under that old apple tree, O magnify the LORD with me, let us exalt His name together.  

And yesterday, as Zach hugged me goodbye as he heads off to the big big world of not-falling-too-far-from-the-apple-tree, first stop Guatemala City, he hugged my jacket too.  The Mexico Outreach jacket.  Oh man, I think about that place often, he whispered.  I do too.  And one of the songs that I remember singing under the stars with thousands of tired but happy people was one with lots of jumping up and down and hand motions, 

Come and go with me to my Father's house.

It's a big, big house with lots and lots of room.

A big, big table with lots and lots of food.

A big, big yard where we can play football.

A big, big house, it's my Father's house.

All I know is a big, big house with rooms for everyone.

All I know is lots of land where we can play and run.

All I know is you need love, and I've got a family.

All I know is your all alone, why not come with me.

Perfectly obvious.