inward hospitality . . . an open door to what arrives in our life

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi

I wouldn’t say I’m really in a place where I am “grateful for what comes.” And reading this poem — with the echoes of Kaleidescope by Coldplay coming to mind — I realize how challenging and poignant the words of Rumi are for me. It is in this poetry that I begin to consider what I have been willing to open my doors to and what I’ve been dismissing.

I’ll use the language of open door or hospitality, but Tara Brach refers to it as as Radical Acceptance — it’s that willingness to be aware of all that is going on internally — in our thoughts, our emotions, and what’s going on in the season of our life, the direction our life is taking— not just being aware of things we “like”.

We can say yes to the whole life we are living. Yes to our friendships, to our parenting, to our physical appearance, to our personality, to our work, to our spiritual path. However, because we are usually shooting for perfection, when we step back to take a look at ‘how we’re doing,’ we often feel as if our life isn’t turning out quite right . . . (a shadow is cast) over the goodness and value of how we live. — Tara Brach

For me, it is often a habit to accept the negative voices and replay those on loop in my head. I can easily dismiss a compliment, barely hearing it, but a criticism I can never get rid of. I can go through life, and if things are running pretty smoothly, I’ll tend to say things like,

“Well, I wonder when things are going to fall apart — life seems to be going too smoothly.” Or, “I really like my life right now, I wonder when the next upheaval will hit.”

Do you ever say such things? Or maybe your habit is to hear, expect, see, only the good — completely avoiding the hard emotions, the grief and the pain. We probably all do a little of both. Right?

Rumi and Brach are both voices cheering us on to recognize the entirety of our lives. We are each an blend of beauty and heartache, brokenness and splendor.

Listen to your Life

See it for the fathomless mystery that it is

In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness:

Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it

Because in the last analysis

All moments are key moments

And life itself is grace. — Frederick Buechner

Am I actually listening to my life?

Do I encounter both hurt and kindness with an embrace?

Embracing such things is to acknowledge that this is my real life, and to face real life (all of life) it is to not avoid or dismiss.

Real living is in the embrace of the whole. Freedom is in the willingness to encounter what comes with an unlocked and open door.

All this consideration of open and closed doors leads me to recall the language in Scripture where Jesus is on the porch, waiting to be invited in to share a meal.

“Now pay attention; I am standing at the door and knocking. If any of you hear My voice and open the door, then I will come in to visit with you and to share a meal at your table, and you will be with Me. — Rev. 3:19–20 (The Voice)

Some translations reference Jesus eating the meal and building this friendship at the table. The language here is about receiving, about opening the door, about welcome, about hospitality. To invite in, is to be present and aware — to share the moment — life with the one who has come to you.

AN EXAMEN OF GUESTS

Review your week (or you are welcome to go further back through the season, or as near as the past 24 hours). Imagine your interior as a door — one that is open and closed at times. Often we might assume that we are open to those things we like and closed to the things that we wish to avoid. But sometimes this is exactly the opposite of our interior habits. So, with the imagery of a closed door as avoidance and the open door as welcoming, begin the examine.

As with any Examen practice, you can rewind and begin to replay the narrative of your life. With this examen, direct your focus on that which you have allowed into your interior (the door imagery) to process. And, in the same way, consider that which you have closed the door to.

• Do not judge your reasons for opening or closing your interior door — just make note of what has been let in, and what has been turned away.
• What are the thoughts that you have let in? • Where have you been engrossed in thought? • What occupies your mind?
• What have you resisted? • What have you dismissed?

After several minutes, you may have developed a list or awareness of patterns in your open/closed door of your interior.

In Rumi’s poem we are invited to, Welcome and entertain them all.

What might be the value in inviting in those things we don’t love? What might be the value in reminding ourselves to welcome the things we actually love?

Listen to your life.

I pray we might be willing to open the door . . . to all that comes.