Open Heart, Open Home, Ch. 7 and 8

  Join me and three other mothers of large families every Thursday when we discuss rearing a large family. Starting August 1st, the Four Moms, 35 Kids blog through Large Family Logistics.

Wednesday, I'm discussing Open Heart, Open Home, and will be posting a link-share so you can join in the hospitality discussion. Here's the first week, more on ch. 2, then the second week, , and last week we discussed chapters 5 and 6, being a good steward and servant. Today we'll discuss chapters 7 and 8, the Telltale Marks, and Welcome (we be specifically addressing how hospitality begins at home, and hospitality toward children, including your own).

Parts of these two chapters made me wince and rub my poor battered toes, and parts of it made me sigh in relief, because, hey, that's at least one area where I'm not doing too badly! How about you?

The book was first written in the mid '70s (1976), and I think the approving reference to the psychologist who recommends we just be friends with our children and treat them like guests in our home is very Seventies. Kids have friends. They need parents who are parents. I can't treat children like guests in my home because it is not my job to parent and train guests, who are, after all, moving on. Other than that, there is a lot of good stuff in this chapter, if by good we mean, "Stuff that makes me cringe and feel guilty."

She begins with the story of a little boy who tracked mud through her house to get a drink of water, and she sharply suggested he could do that at his own house. Minutes later, of course, she found herself smacked in the head with Mark 9:37:

Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.

And also  Mathew 10:42:

And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

 Naturally, she'd been studying the synoptic gospels that morning, so that's what she read. I often wonder if this happens to me so often because God deliberately brings those verses up in my face, or if I'm just such a slacker all the verses I meet are convicting (this is a rhetorical question meant to make a point while being funny. It is not an invitation to debate Calvinism vs Arianism)

So she asks, "Why is it always easier to extend the courtesies of hospitality to those outside our immediate family?"  "Hospitality," she says, "Like charity, in order to be true, must being at home."

What are some of the ways we can do that, show hospitality to those who already live with us?  Some of her suggestions include:
Welcoming family members when they return home.
Make sure you're communicating with your kids and spouse daily, real communication about real things.
Family meals at the table.
Reduce or eliminate those things that interfere with family time. They got rid of the television.
Welcome your children's friends, too, keeping in mind the way Jesus treated those wriggling little children who the disciples believed had interrupted an Important Man while He was doing Important Stuff.

What would you add?

Although the Mains family did apparently send their children to public schools, she points out the folly of expecting children to 'witness' on their own.She says she wishes that her own Christian parents had had more time to extend the warmth of her own family to others, to her nonbelieving friends, and welcome them into the family circle. It made me think of this verse.
Is your family a place where the lonely can go?
Do you know the names of your children's friends?
Of the children at church?
In your neighborhood?

A couple years ago I was feeling irritated with a neighbor child, and I let my irritation show. The child was a self-invited party crasher to a birthday party.  My son-in-law Shasta told me, "You know, that kid just wants part of what you all have here. The kid wants in.  I can relate to that. I felt that way once."
Shasta, if you are a new reader, used to be one of our 'projects.' We babysat him and his brother for free for their single mother many years ago, and then he grew up and married our second girl.  I was humbled, and I appreciated the reminder.


I recognize that to some (many?), our hospitality has seemed a bit extreme- more than fifty over night guests in a year, the little boys who come for weeks at a time, the homeless family who lived with us for a month or two and left in a huff, leaving us all feeling like we had PTSD. Even the dog acted traumatized after that family. I've received some very kindly intended hints that my children will grow up to resent this, that the time for this kind of hospitality is after the kids are gone. I won't say this isn't something that hasn't worried me at times, too.  Thankfully, most of the kids *are* grown now and I can ask them- and they've said that they think it was good for them. They learn, as Mrs. Mains says, the 'tools of hospitality,' greeting guests at the door, noticing when a small child needs attention, offering a glass of water.  They also learn deeper things, compassion, that suffering happens, pain is not foreign to the human condition.Sometimes, people use their children as an excuse to absolve them of any responsibility for hospitality,and somehow, I just do not think the Lord would agree.

Chapter 8: Welcome- are the people in your household 'gladly and cordially received?'  The focus of this chapter is your relationships with the other adults in hour home, whether that is a spouse or a room-mate. These relationships can be rich and rewarding, models of warmth of peace to the world. It takes work. It takes commitment. She talks of discovering as a young wife that she no longer even loved her husband. Her response was hours on her knees in prayer.

Families that wish to exude the fragrance of Christ for a dying world would do well to practice the following things together:
Shared prayers
Shared worship
Shared faith
Support and encouragement for each to develop their own gifts
Shared work projects (actually, I don't remember if she said that, I just think it's important)

She also suggests that married couples work on some common outside interests.  The chapter isn't all about married couples, however. She has quite a bit to say about singleness and the role singles play in the kingdom, and how we shouldn't take it for granted that marriage is for everybody. That is certainly true, and life does not, as she says, begin when you marry. Singles have work to do in the kingdom, including hte area of hospitality, before they ever spot a shiny new potential spouse.
Nor should singles be treated as second class citizens.  That said, a single friend of mine points out:

Paul says that the ability to forego marriage/children for the sake of Christ is a gift. He is describing a highly spiritually minded person, someone whom God has enabled; this is perhaps even a spiritual gift. I submit to you that many of us who find ourselves unmarried or who deliberately choose to remain single (and are therefore childless) are not the sort of person Paul is writing about -- we don't have a gift. Rather we are single as a consequence of sinful choices earlier in life, mostly our own. And some are single because of sinful choices of other people -- godly girls who were passed over for unbelievers, folks whose spouses abandoned them early on, etc. ***We are living with a consequence and not with a gift.***

Still have work to do in the Lord's kingdom of course, still deeply cherished by the Lord, but not necessarily an ideal situation.

I have a little study guide that was written for this book. Here are some of the activities and questions recommended:

Share three things you like about your children (or a child you know).  I would add, do the children know this?

What are some things involved in showing hospitality to your children or their friends?

Pick a child and resolve to pray regularly for that child and get to know the child better.

The author says 'each household has the option of creating family.'  What does that mean? 

"Love does not spontaneously sustain itself over the living together of days, but must be gardened- hoed, weeded, watered." What are some practical ways of hoeing, weeding, and watering a marriage?  What are some ideas for bringing freshness to a stale relationship?

Is your home a place of hospitality to your own family?

What inspired you from these two chapters? What depressed you? Can that feeling of falling short motivate you toward inspiration? What would you like to share about these chapters?

(linked at Homemaking Linkup)

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Easy-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.