Longing is a compass that guides us through life. We may never get what we really want, that's true, but every step along the way will be determined by it.
Hospitality means we take people into the space that is our lives and our minds and our hearts and our work and our efforts. Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step towards dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around, one heart at a time.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Hospitality is the act of welcoming others into our lives, which helps break down barriers and fosters understanding.
In this quote, Joan D. Chittister emphasizes the profound impact of hospitality as an expression of openness and acceptance. By inviting others into our personal spaces, be it our minds or hearts, we begin to break down societal prejudices and foster connections that can change the world one interaction at a time. This act of welcoming is presented not just as a physical gesture but as a transformative step towards building empathy and understanding in a divided world.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community service, this quote can highlight the importance of welcoming others.
More from Joan D. Chittister
All quotes →Feminism without spirituality runs the risk of becoming what it rejects: an elitist ideology, arrogant, superficial and separatist, closed to everything but itself. Without a spiritual base that obligates it beyond itself, calls it out of itself for the sake of others, a pedagogical feminism turned in on itself can become just one more intellectual ghetto that the world doesn’t notice and doesn’t need.
We talk religion in a world that worships the bread but does not distribute it, that practices ritual rather than righteousness, that confesses but does not repent.
The question is not, do we go to church; the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor.
It is a pathetic moment in the history of the human condition when the outside world tells us who and what we are - and we start to believe it ourselves. Then, bent over from the weight of the negativity, we start to wither on the outside.
To be contemplative we must remove the clutter from our lives, surround ourselves with beauty, and consciously, relentlessly, persistently, give clutter away until the tiny world for which we ourselves are responsible begins to reflect the raw beauty that is God.
Similar quotes
When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it's like giving them emotional oxygen.
"I hate you." My sister said it different than she said it to my dad. She meant it with me.She really did. "I love you," was all I could say in return. "You're a freak, you know that? Everyone says so. They always have." "I'm trying not to be.” Then, I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.
I love my sons, I love my husband, and I love my country. But in kingdoms of men, there are few - if any - choices for women. Or the choices are such that there is no greater pain than having to choose.
I was eight years old when I got the talk about what to do if a police officer stops me. I was 15 when I was face-down on the curb for the first time.
She felt, with her hand on the nursery door, that community of feeling with other people which emotion gives as if the walls of partition had become so thin that practically (the feeling was one of relief and happiness) it was all one stream.
The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.