That Thing Liv Wrote

Hello, teensy-weensy.

I am inhabiting the immediate and leaving gratitude for another day. I’m letting what is be what is. I want the God’s-eye-view. The one that looks and says, “It is good.” Without agenda or anxiety - the welcome of what is becomes delight in what is. So here I go…

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11 days ago · Liv Booth

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Since “Not Home Yet” is completed and published and selling like hot-cakes (well, we wish it were … ), I (Liv) have dived into writing a BRIEF, thoughtful moment every day on my Substack: “That Thing Liv Wrote”. I’m on day 158 as of April 22, 2026, so it seems to be sustainable.

If you’d like to read something other than (bad) news and (anti)social media for five minutes every day, HOP ON!

Subscribe to “That Thing Liv Wrote”! (And send me submissions! I’ve had guest authors join me!)

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We’re not ready to commit to a final date of publication just yet, but it will be this Fall. And maybe, just maybe, even late Summer.

And I’m really excited for you to read the final product. It’s substantially different from what you’ve read here on Substack. Not in topic or theme, but certainly in structure, and there’s a LOT of new content. We’ve found an awesome “through line” that ties everything together, and are reworking all the chapters to make the writing tighter, more vibrant, and more engaging. We’ve even written a couple of new chapters that we didn’t realize we needed until we put things all together and looked at them as a whole.

Short version: the book is going to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the Substack. You are totally gonna want to read it. And if you’ve been a subscriber, you’ll get to, for free! ‘Cause, remember, we’re gonna send you a copy when it’s ready.

In the meantime, why not send us a little note of encouragement? You know, because authors are notoriously self-doubting…

Thanks again for being a fan! We couldn’t have got this far without you! And just a note, if you are a paid subscriber, feel free to cancel your subscription. (Or don’t, it’s up to you, and we’re grateful to keep receiving the support :)

“Ooh yeah!” she said, “Let’s go to the library and work on our book!”

So we did. Here we are on our “date:”

We’ve made significant headway on our editing and rewriting. I’ve rearranged the first half of the book and am really liking the new flow of ideas. Much more sensible!

We’ve also done a lot of editing and additions. For example, here’s a new snippet from the first chapter. I think it makes the “thesis” much more clear:

…that’s what this book is about. It’s a survival guide for frogs living in a desert. An instruction manual to help you find oases full of froggy friends. It’s about strengthening your relationship with Jesus and with others.

How? Well, that’s a big part of what follows, but we also have another goal: to teach you how to be human in an inhuman world. To help you become a creator of oases–a froggy friend to other weary and lonely frogs.

So, our purpose is twofold. To comfort and welcome the weary and the lonely, and to help them become comforters of others. We will show you how a human can live in an inhuman world, and how to be a true human to others in one.

The references to “froggy friends” make a lot more cute sense in context 🐸.

We’re going to start prioritizing and scheduling writing times in the Spring. And we aren’t far from the end now! Thanks for all your support!

After a lengthy consultation we’ve realized that we had planned far too much content for this book and that what we currently have is more than enough. So we’re prioritizing reorganizing, editing, and rewriting in order to publish in the fall of this year.

We’ve already done some significant reorganizing and rewriting, so I know that the final version will be significantly better than what’s here!

Thank you for all your support and feedback. And feel free to cancel your subscriptions, all future update posts will be free for all. :)

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Plans fail when we forget to take into account fallen, limited human nature. You must consider your safety, and your children’s safety. Yes, God will provide so we need not fear being generous, but we must be wise with fallen human nature. Please keep in mind that Signpost Inn is not preaching a gospel of instant communal utopia. The gospel does not necessarily come with a house key.

We have been in ministry for 20 years of person-to-person conversation and incarnate welcome, so I speak from real success and failure. We have met many people, and many kinds of people. We have made the mistake of assuming too much good from some people, and we have offered welcome to others without firm enough boundaries.  I know now to operate by Jesus’ rules, not my own. In his love and grace and in Christian freedom, hospitality becomes human-sized, human-shaped, human-proportioned. Incarnate. I am not God. I am only human. And he does not require me to save the world.

First - The 5 Elements

Reference the 5 elements with which I started this section “for scale”. We little humans do little things. God makes them great or keeps them small according to his will. But we have short days, little stomachs, and a brief attention span. Hospitality is human-sized. You share what you have and who you are. 

For those who try to do everything: If you have a fever, you cannot offer to babysit. If your bank account is empty, you cannot give $1,000 to the best cause on earth. Your day is 24 hours long. You do not have 26 hours a day to give.

For those who want to support hospitality, but have not yet found the way: consider the 5 elements above - perhaps there is a way to start very small. A guest, a space, a time frame, a consumable, an activity. Can you be the guest and look for these elements? Can you write out a sample plan and imagine carrying it out within these boundaries?

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Freedom is everything. GRACE (God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense) has been poured on me freely by the Lord who purchased and won me and included me in his kingdom. My enemies (sin, death and the devil) are defeated, and I live - unencumbered - free to be loved and to love. So there is no requirement in any of this. You don’t have to give your utmost best; you don’t have to prove your capabilities or worth by what activity shapes your time with someone.

So here’s a practical peek at my thought-process when it comes to choosing an activity:

“This person has asked for time to talk about something sensitive. We’re meeting at 10am on Saturday for two hours, and the weather is nice. 

I need something private and quiet but open so they don’t feel confined, something where we’re not right across from each other in case they need a minute to process an emotion. They’re pretty spry. Aha! Walking by the river where there are spots to get down to the edge and sit on rocks away from the main path.”

or 

“This person wants to be my friend, and I haven’t been able to welcome them to my new apartment yet. I know they like challenging their baking skills, and there’s that event coming up that we both intended to bake for anyway. Aha! I’ll invite her to my new place to try out making those macarons we’ve all been nervous to try!”

or

“This person has been part of my support system in this community, but now I’m moving away. Pizza and a couple hours packing my house up into boxes. That’s perfect.”

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Happily, reality is not quite as scary as that, but we all have trepidation in company, feeling we don’t know what to do or say. There’s hope! Once we have our guest, our setting and our time frame, we can turn to the fourth element of creating a welcoming space for the dear humans: a consumable!

Providing a consumable creates an automatically shared experience. Food and drink are the most obvious. We meet at a pub for a beer and fried stuff. (Poll: pickles, mushroom caps, or mozzarella sticks?) Let’s say your guest chooses the spot - great! They feel comfortable in familiar surroundings. Let’s say you choose - great! You are sharing something you like, which is a very real vulnerability move. Beer and fried stuff make it easier for awkward humans to be near each other. We all eat! We can all talk about what we eat! And remember: this is all just an excuse to share who you are and what you have with another glorious immortal being … who just really loves ranch with mozzarella sticks!

Beer not your speed? How about The London Tea Room in downtown St. Louis? Commenting on the rich, floral, herby perfume of all the teas as you walk in, picking a table, looking around and settling in, our inner alert mammal gauging and becoming convinced of our security (it’s what we do!). All these behaviors ready us for connection, and when the Earl Grey and fresh scones with Devonshire cream arrive, well! We share our en-meated ability to raise simple wheat and leaves to the attention of immortal beings, bringing significance to the consumables and a moment of connection between people. Powerful stuff! 

(Also - visit St. Louis so you can stop by the London Tea Room. We miss it terribly. If you feel moved to send the author a thank you gift, order me some loose-leaf …)

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Signpost Inn Evening vs Easter Feast

We only have so much time. As finite humans, sharing who we are and what we have cannot be without limit, and of course that includes our time.

My constant fear is that “it’s not enough”, or -  to be honest - that “I’m not enough.” To address this fear, I imagine that if I’m going to love and welcome someone “well enough”, surely I need to offer limitless access to my time and resources! Well, how does that feel? Daunting. Impossible. In my head I start to think it’s mean of the other person to need so much! Before I even make a plan, I’m already resenting my guest! It’s understandable, but it’s just my fear of not being enough. I feel these things too, and it’s been helpful to embrace my little-ness: Jesus loves little me; my space is a little space, and my time comes in seconds, minutes and hours, not eternities (not on this side of Heaven, anyway).

The pressure is off! Humans live in time, and it’s ok to love them in moment-sized spaces. At Signpost Inn, we say that “The most important time is the present. The most important person is the one you’re with. The most important work is love.” None of these guidelines say “To be enough, you need to give up your personal life to open-ended spaces of welcome forever.” Not at all. Your guest is a finite human, and so are you. Setting a time frame makes a little space for finite beings to taste a digestible bit of the infinite love of our welcoming God.

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We open our hands, abandoning to the Lord our perceived needs, recalling his kindness and provision over the years, choosing to believe that he will in fact provide my daily bread. This is a choice, a skill, a habit, even a spiritual discipline. But it’s an ironic one. I work and work and choose and struggle … to release. It is the central crisis of the fallen human heart to accept provision, acceptance, love.

I AM provided for. I AM loved. I CAN share what I have and who I am with those around me. The welcome itself is enough. It’s everything. What is incarnate grace other than a physical expression of unconditional welcome?

I don’t have to defend myself or wait until I’m “good enough”. After all, even if God himself were to call a forgiven Christian “righteous” (spoiler: he does), the forgiven Christian will struggle their entire life to believe it. We’re so contrary, we won’t even agree with God!

I am enough. My space is enough. The welcome is enough. 

My space then is ready to receive the most important person (the one across from me right now) and to offer a powerful welcome, God’s welcome. Hear me - my space is ready right now.

It takes some serious vulnerability to let someone into my “not good enough” space. The more unhappy I am with the place, the harder it is to believe that I could be worthy to give incarnate grace. But let me tell you something. There is a person in this world who is very, very deep in my heart, and they are a hoarder. It’s hard to say the term because I fully understand what happened to get them there. And there are valid reasons. At this point, they will not let anyone into their space. It would be among the greatest honors of my life if that person would invite me in to talk for a brief time inside, where perhaps they can’t even clear a space. What a HUGE privilege that would be! They would be the host, offering incarnate grace to me, believing that the welcome is enough. They would be welcoming me, overlooking my judgmental heart, forgiving me for any unkindness in my thoughts by being present with me, even in the midst of my messy selfishness. That welcome might change my life. 

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I’m excited to tell you about our matching fund drive. Several generous donors have pledged to match every dollar given to this fund by December 27th, up to $10,000! That means you can double the impact of your end-of-year gift!

You’re gifts are what keeps the doors of our “Inn” open. Your commitment to creating space to give the incarnate grace of hospitality to others is what keep us motivated. We are so grateful for you!

And now here’s the chapter:

“All this talk about therapy is just an excuse to hang out long enough for the relationship to do the healing.” – SEPI conference on Attachment and Relationships, 2002

“What is the state of affairs such that it is apt to say of a piece of bread, ‘This is the body of Christ’?” – Recent Philosophical Work on the Doctrine of the Eucharist, James M. Arcadi

A few chapters back I claimed that information doesn’t change me. Gathering and memorizing facts about God does little to change how I feel about him—does little to change my heart towards him. We need embodied experiences of God’s love to change. 

Sadly, knowing the right facts about God without having the real experiences of God’s love can be very damaging. Let me explain. 

We all learn to relate to others through our early relationships with our parents. The modern psychological study of “attachment” has shown that those early experiences with our parents have a huge influence on our ability to develop secure emotional bonds with others throughout our lives.

If we had parents who mostly responded to us with love and delight, we developed secure emotional bonds with them. We felt loved and safe, and could therefore experiment and grow more healthily. Later in life we are more likely to healthily embrace the complexity of relationships.

On the other hand, if our parents were more often distant, uncaring, or abusive, we grew up feeling unwanted and unsafe. This leads to several unhealthy patterns of relating later in life. Some isolate and avoid difficulty in relationships. Others anxiously fixate on relationships, desperately desiring approval and security, but always terrified of rejection. Lots of us do a combination of both. 

The common thread is that our early relationships with our parents were not safe, and so we have learned different coping mechanisms for dealing with this pain. 

And it is a serious pain! In fact, the need for secure relationships is a core human need. On the same level as food, water, and shelter—perhaps even more basic. Think about it, when you are three months old, having a loving caregiver is the only way to get food, water, and shelter. So the fear of being unwanted feels like an existential threat, because for those very formative years of our lives, it was an existential threat. 

As attachment scientist Louis Cozolino says, “We are not the survival of the fittest, we are the survival of the nurtured.” Or in the words of Curt Thompson, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist, “We are born looking for someone looking for us, and we remain in this mode of searching for the rest of our lives.”1

And here’s the real kicker: because many of these powerful formative experiences with our parents happened before our brains developed any linguistic or analytical abilities, our memories and learned responses are mostly implicit. They live below the level of consciousness and inhabit our emotions and instinctive physical responses. 

We automatically feel and respond with our healthy or unhealthy relational attachment strategies without thinking. And we will likely never even notice our feelings and patterns of relating unless someone from the outside calls our attention to them.

What does this all have to do with God, change, and church? Well, just as the attachment strategies I learned in childhood affect my ability to relate to other humans in adulthood, they also impact my ability to relate to God. I implicitly transfer what I learned through experience with my parents (and others) onto God. 

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If I may “be vulnerable” for a moment, fall has gotten very busy in the Booth home. Liv is teaching all the kids’ school, plus running the choir, and I’ve taken a part-time position as a “dadvocate” at the local pregnancy center to help pay the bills. So it’s been difficult to take the time we need to write at the pace we desire. Our original goal was to have drafts for every chapter written by November and begin the editing process immediately.

That’s clearly not going to happen. So, we’re being compassionate and realistic with ourselves and pushing our deadline back to late winter or early spring, with a goal of publishing in the fall of next year.

Thank you for your understanding! And to say “thank you,” we’ve published this entire chapter free for all readers!

My family loves watching reality survival shows. One of our favorites is “ALONE.” There are no camera crews, no gimmicks, just individual men and women dropped off in extremely remote places and left to survive with limited gear. It’s a competition of who can last the longest. The last person standing wins an absurd amount of money. The longest survivor to date? One hundred days. 

No matter how skilled the survivalist, they all give up eventually. The one thing that gets them all is in the name of the show. They are alone. They either can’t feed themselves sufficiently, or the emotional strain of being alone is too much. 

We are vulnerable by nature. It's part of what it means to have a physical body. We can be hurt; we depend on things and people outside of us to live. We are limited. We are mortal. 

Sometimes it feels like it would be better if we weren't vulnerable, but to cease to be vulnerable would mean to stop being human. We can't do that without destroying ourselves. 

We all need other people we can trust. We need secure relationships where we can be vulnerable, physically and emotionally. We need to be able to be vulnerable and be cared for in our vulnerability. It’s a basic human need; even more basic than my need for food and shelter. Why? Because for most of childhood getting food and shelter depends on having people who care about us in our vulnerability, and that carries over into adulthood. Both physically and emotionally. Think about it: how long could you actually survive alone in the woods?

Please, find places where you can be vulnerable.

Being vulnerable in safe relationships means being able to let my guard down. It means letting others know what I’m really like behind my everyday mask.  

When I drop my defenses and find that I am cared for—that I’m wanted. I feel valued. I feel safe. It means I’m not alone in this world. I don’t have to fend for myself. I have support. 

Being rejected is terrifying because it means I’m alone, unprotected. Being unwanted feels like an existential threat because it is an existential threat. No one has all the resources they need to survive alone for long. Without people who care about me I’m in serious danger. 

This fear of being undesirable causes much of my anxiety. I’m driven to isolate so no one can hurt me. Or to hide behind a mask to appear more acceptable. But neither move really helps. I instinctively know that isolation means death, and that I can only keep my mask up for so long. 

What I really need is truly secure relationships where I can drop my mask and come out of hiding, and experience the joy of being known, accepted and loved.

I can remember many times when I really experienced that kind of acceptance. They are like oases in the desert of life. One was when I cried with my head in the lap of a friend. We were sitting on an old couch in his garage, he was listening to me talk about a deep pain in my life. He didn’t say much, he just made it clear that it was safe to express the grief I was carrying. When I fell apart, sobbing like a baby, he reached out to put his arm around my shoulders and I fell over weeping. 

It’s one of my proudest moments. I’m not kidding! I look back at that time and see my courage. I dropped all my defenses and took a “leap” of faith to trust my friend. Do you know how much courage it takes for a grown man to weep like a baby in the presence of another man? A LOT! And the reward of feeling cared for is even greater!

I also feel deeply accepted when one of my and Liv’s favorite love songs plays on Spotify. I won’t scandalize you with all the lyrics, but the chorus goes like this: 

“Because I've seen you
And I know you
And I'm not going anywhere” 

When this song plays, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing, we both stop, look into each other’s eyes and sing with everything we’ve got. We’ve been through a lot together. She knows me—good and bad—and she isn't going anywhere. 

I’m not alone. People know me and accept me. I’m enough. I’m loved.

How do you feel right now? Afraid? Maybe a little bit jealous? Maybe you have some secure relationships in your life where this deep need to be wanted is met, so you feel grateful. 

I hope it’s the last one. I hope you have many secure places and relationships in your life. But if not, and you're feeling a little bit afraid, please take a moment to pause and feel beneath that fear. What are you afraid of? I’m willing to bet it’s a fear that you are uniquely disgusting. That if anyone knew the “real you” they would throw you away, and leave you alone.

The great liar: Shame

Shame drives that fear. Shame is the voice in the back of your head always whispering that no matter what you do, how you look, or what you accomplish, there is something uniquely disgusting about you. It tells me that I'm not enough, that I don't know enough, haven't done enough, am not good enough, and that I never will be. Shame says that I am disgusting and unloveable.

But shame is a liar. Jesus—God—says otherwise. He says you are enough for him. He knows your frailty, your weakness, even your sin and he isn't disgusted. He's attracted. Like an ocean of love, the deeper the holes in my soul the faster he rushes in. 

You are not uniquely bad. You are not too burdensome or two needy or too dumb. Jesus sees you, and knows you, and he's not going anywhere. He loves you like his very own son or daughter. You will never be alone!

But…

Now, that's all well and good, but for many it's just words. It's the right answer to a theological test question. But that's it. 

How do I feel like that's true? How do I experience that love as reality? 

The incarnate grace of hospitality. Other human beings physically welcoming us into their spaces and explicitly telling us that we are valuable to them. That they care about us. We need Jesus' love to be enfleshed. In plain language, we need other human beings to give us little tastes, little experiences, of Jesus' unconditional approval and love of us. Hospitality, as we’ve said many times, preaches the gospel.

So, I implore you to seek out people with whom you can be vulnerable! Communities where you can feel and hear that you are welcome, known, and cared for. You need that more than anything.

There are several ways you can find such places. One is obviously spiritual direction or a retreat with Signpost Inn. Another is with a good therapist. Another is with a good church community and or small group. A support group for whatever your issues are is another good option (they exist for almost everything now!)

Whatever, or however, you can get connected with another human being who can hear what's really going on in your life, and look you in the eyes and say, "You are loved, you are enough. I see you and care about you." You need it.

Please, create places where others can be vulnerable

And then, create those places for others! 

In ancient Hebrew culture, being hospitable was required by God’s law. A host would go out and meet a stranger on his way. He welcomed the guest, fed him and cared for his basic needs and those of his animals before even asking his name or the purpose of travels. The host brought him into his home, offered him a place to stay, and took responsibility for his personal safety. Then, upon departure, the host would travel some distance with the sojourner and ensure he had everything he needed for his journey.

God’s reasoning for all this? “For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:34 ESV). The Israelites knew what it was like to be vulnerable. They had been cared for, then enslaved, and finally rescued and welcomed into a new home. The Israelites knew, first hand, what it was like to be alone and then cared for. 

And so do we. All of us have experienced the terrifying threat of being rejected. And many of us have also experienced the glorious security of being welcomed. So we too have the responsibility and privilege to care about others as Christ has cared about us. 

But how do we create places where people feel safe letting down their guard? Simple. We first let down ours. 

Notice the principle at work in the ancient Hebrew practice of hospitality. The host went out to the stranger and met him on his way. He asked no questions until the stranger’s needs had been met. It’s an intentional move of vulnerability on the host’s part. The host willingly exposes himself to potential harm by leaving the safety of his home and offering care before he knows anything about the stranger. 

Every culture has a version of this. In its simplest, and least vulnerable form, it's a handshake. Or, in my martial arts training, I was taught to bow and grip one fist in the palm of my other hand. Both traditions are a form of “showing your hands” so the other can see you don’t have a weapon. They are mild ways of dropping your own guard so the other person can drop theirs. We create safety for others to be vulnerable by being appropriately vulnerable first. 

This, I think, is one of the first jobs of any host desiring to offer Christian hospitality. I want to make you feel comfortable, safe. And that means being the first one to be a little bit vulnerable. As we discuss the practical aspects of hospitality throughout this book, I hope you’ll see the many ways you can appropriately do this.

For now, here’s X little examples. 

When I meet a new directee for spiritual direction I often tell them just a little bit of my own spiritual journey. Without going into detail I let people know that I’ve been through severe family tragedy, and struggled with intense anxiety. Sometimes, if they ask, I’ll give a bit more detail. For example, I will let them know that I have had such severe panic attacks that I’ve curled up into the fetal position for hours in my closet, trying to hide from the world. These are past struggles, things I’m not currently struggling with, so they don’t feel like I’m asking for help, but they do tell you about some of my weaknesses and vulnerabilities. 

I have to be careful not to overshare. That would be manipulative. Instead, I’m giving folks a small peek behind my mask. I’m human, just like you, and I’ve trusted you with an important part of my life’s story, you can trust me too. 

Another, perhaps silly example, but one that I find effective, is to answer the question, “How are you?” honestly. I like being a greeter at church, and, in my previous ministry work I greeted parents dropping their children off at camp every week of every summer. In both cases it's sometimes helpful to answer the question, “How are you?” with a little more honesty than, “I’m good, how are you!”

I might smile and say, “Ah, that’s a complicated question, do you want the real answer or the standard one?” If they say they want the real answer I give a little specific about my day. For example, “Well, honestly, my baby puked all over my good shirt this morning, (a frequent occurrence during my younger days) so I had to do an entire load of laundry before breakfast this morning!” or “Well, honestly I got out of the house late today and totally forgot my computer bag until I got here. Had to rush home and get it and rush back here, so I’m feeling a little bit harried.” 

Again, remember that all of this is context and person specific. What is appropriate welcoming vulnerability on the part of the host in one situation is inappropriate oversharing in another. This takes some discernment and practice. Go slowly at first, feel your way forward carefully. You’re not trying to manipulate or make things about you, you’re just trying to give a little bit of yourself so that the other person feels comfortable giving a little bit of themselves.

“It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.” Genesis 2:18

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Leviticus 19:33-34 ESV

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As you practice inviting people to share what you have and who you are, within this manageable structure, it will become easier. Your comfort and your instincts will change and so will your own surroundings, bit by bit, into a space formed by and for hospitality. Like the picnic basket picked up for one invitation and now available for many more, you’ll notice that you become equipped for welcome. 

You may not be ready to host a banquet, but you are able to offer a mug of tea to a friend. So you set it up: call your guest, set the space, the time frame, the consumable (tea of course!), and a loosely-committed-to activity. And then, before your friend comes over, you realize you only have one mug that you really like. You don’t feel like offering tea in a mug with a gas station logo on it (how did you even end up with that mug?) A quick run to Goodwill, and voila! Seventy-five cents later, you are set forever to offer a friend a mug you like! Your life is being transformed by generosity and welcome. 

Little changes in your surroundings will make it easier to offer welcome. And I have found these changes only happen when a guest is imminent. It’s an exercise in futility to wait until your space is “ready to receive a guest”. It will never feel ready. But the point is not for you to feel ready; it is to offer incarnate grace to another human desperately in need of welcome.

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I don’t know about you, but I have a tiny pang of panic when I know I’m about to be around people. Even if I know and love them and have spent tons of time with them, I get a crawly feeling and a moment of foggy disorientation just before a human engagement. Somehow I imagined that the high school or college freshman feeling should dissipate. Surely the more I attended events and had conversations, the easier it should get? Well, sometimes and kind of, but really I have not left the awkward freshman behind. She is right there, ready to make it weird.

If we’re going to live hospitably, we’re going to face The People. We’ll have to be where humans are, and even invite them into a space with us. I have a hard time believing that the welcome is enough, and I have thought that I have to make everyone comfortable and happy for the time to be “worth it”. I have avoided extending hospitality or partaking in it because I’m terrified that there will be awkwardness. 

Guess what? There will be. And that’s ok.

Human beings in a room with other human beings are awkward for a while. You’d think we’d have figured out, as a species, how to speed past the painful bit and slide into acquaintance and friendship gracefully. But that’s not possible. Humans are awkward.

It’s not just you. And I find that helpful.

Ours is a Lonely Generation, desperate to be found and included. We’re all afraid that no one will come after us, no one is interested in us, no one wants to hear our stories. You feel that way. The People feel that way. One guest at a time, we need to be the hero who creates a pocket of welcome in the world and reaches out a hand to one person at a time. 

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1. Not everyone is a host! 

2. There are essential boundaries in sharing who you are and what you have!

That said, on we go!

How do we make this beautiful ideal happen in the real world? Hospitality, a habit of sharing what I have and who I am with others, plays out in the details. I can tell you, “Be hospitable!” But it’s terrifying to leap into it without very particular help.

Use This Framework

A basic framework to hang ideas on:

1. A guest

2. A space

3. A timeframe

4. A consumable

5. A loosely-committed-to activity

Here’s where I give you a few ideas, you copy and then improvise. Maybe this feels a little forced, but it’s got to be done if we’re going to brighten up all the corners of our lives with incarnate grace! We have to practice.

Here are some examples. Scenario One and Two are from my life. Three and Four are from Brandon’s. In general.

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Dear reader, once again I’d like to remind you that these posts are “drafts” of what’s to come in the actual book. I’ve borrowed the phrase “technologies of change” from Simeon Zahl’s book The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience, and I love it. But I’m afraid it feels a little forced here, and doesn’t truly aid understanding. Your thoughts?

Also, thank you for bearing with any mistakes and clunky writing! The busyness of Fall has only increased, and at this point I feel it’s more important to plow ahead than to make sure each of these drafts is carefully proofread.

Thank you for being on this journey with us! I’m so grateful for your support and feedback!

In the last chapter I covered a lot of theory, in the next several chapters I want to get my head out of the clouds and talk nuts and bolts. But first, we need to lay a little more groundwork for understanding. 

By asking the question “How do we change?”, we assume at least two things: first, that something is wrong with us that needs to be changed, and second that that change can actually happen. 

What’s wrong with me that needs to be changed?

Jesus’ answer is very simple: my heart needs to change. He said, “It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth—this defiles a person. …what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a person. For from the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slander.” (Matthew 15:11;18-19).

By “heart” I mean my desires and my loves. These are the engines that drive behavior. I pursue what my “heart is set on.” 

Sin is like a plantar’s wart. You can see the ugly surface behaviors, but treating those doesn’t do anything to fix the root of the problem. I might be able to alter a behavior or two but I have to dig out the seed buried deep down under the skin for real change to happen. In the same way my spiritual problem is that my desires and affections aren’t for God. My heart isn’t set on God.  

And hearts are extraordinarily difficult to change. As you’ll know, if you’ve ever tried to convince someone that their love interest isn’t good for them, or tried to reason someone out of their strongly held religious or political positions. 

More knowledge has little effect on me. More information, more awareness, has very little power to change me in significant ways. I know, for example, that eating a bag of Oreos is bad for me, but honestly, that information has done little to change my behavior. I really love the taste of those little cookies, especially when they are baptized by total immersion in milk! And the discovery that I’m lactose intolerant—or lactose “incompetent” as my kids like to say—hasn’t changed my behavior much either. 

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Prayer is a response to God’s personal presence.

Let me set one thing straight right away. There is no right way to pray. 

It’s tempting when talking about prayer to jump straight to discussing “methods” as if prayer is a discipline to be mastered like playing the piano or a sport. But the moment we do that we set ourselves up for failure. 

The truth is, the only way we can fail in prayer is to not pray. That’s because “prayer” is just a fancy term for conversation with God. And just like your conversations with your friends or your spouse, there are as many different ways to converse as there are relationships and circumstances. 

So, we talk to God in one way when we are alone in our rooms, and another way when we are in church, and another when we are scared, or angry, or happy, or just bored and driving in our cars. There is formal prayer and informal prayer. There are “ex corde” prayers (spontaneous prayer “from the heart”) and written prayers, but all the different kinds and methods have one thing in common: they all begin with God attending to me first.

This is the big difference between Christian prayer and every other kind of prayer: God is always the one who moves—who loves—first. Prayer is never me talking into a void, or babbling a bunch of holy sounding words hoping God will notice and approve. No, the fundamental truth of Christian prayer is that God loves me, that he is always directly and personally attending to me, that he has made himself present to me. 

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Hospitality is more than action; it’s a posture of generosity and welcome. It’s who we are, living in the world in Jesus’ name freely imitating his limitless love. 

Hospitality is a way of being, an orientation of the heart and body toward others. It becomes a character trait more than a practice. So what are hospitable people like? I think it’s always a good idea to let C. S. Lewis explain. 

Remember “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”? The four Pevensie children scramble into Narnia together for the first time. It’s midwinter, bitterly cold, and they’ve just discovered that the only contact they have in this enchanted world, Tumnus the Faun, has been arrested for being kind to Lucy. 

Their best path forward seems to be deeper into the wood following one little bird that flits from tree to tree, always just out of reach but not out of sight until it suddenly flies off, and the children are truly alone and suddenly hungry.

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What is grace?

Grace is real. It isn’t indulgence, or leniency, or turning a blind eye to little sins and failings. It isn’t even big mercy, forgiveness or gentleness. And it certainly doesn’t originate in the human heart. Let’s not hear again, “we just need to have a little grace for her, she didn’t really mean it.” Grace isn’t little. Grace is big; it is real and specific.

When I was a kid in Sunday School (which is actually a really big deal - read my section on vocations in this book), there was a poster on the wall with the acronym G. R. A. C. E. in bright colors. “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense”. A small way to teach a huge, pivotal truth. When we spoke of GRACE, we meant the dismissing of all charges against humanity because Jesus has satisfied what the Law required. We meant our status as sons and daughters of the King. Not in a cute way. Heirs and heiresses JUST AS MUCH AS JESUS of eternal, physical, glorious life. We meant freedom, utter freedom. Freedom from shame. I am guiltless. Freedom from fear. I am defended. Freedom from anxiety. I have nothing to lose, nothing to risk. 

Grace, won by Jesus, is innocence, dignity, freedom, security, serenity. How enormous does this word become? 

My act of hospitality is God’s loving presence with you in the world.

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And even if I can believe for a moment that God really loves me—that he delights in loving and caring for me—I still find that a part of me refuses to accept that his love is enough. I need something more! Something more immediate. God can’t give me a hug! His ethereal presence can’t replace sex, or friends, or money, or respect, or a spouse, or __________! 

If only I could let go! If only I could rest in God’s loving presence! But how!? I always seem to fall back into doubt and grasping. Today I feel pretty good about trusting God, but tomorrow the car breaks down and there’s no money in my account, and I behave like I’ve never trusted God at all. Today I’m able to believe that I’m God’s beloved, but tomorrow I embarrass myself at work and immediately I’m convinced I am total trash. Today I’m able to believe God is enough, but tomorrow I’m tired, or scared, or hurt, or even happy and, well, I need that sin, or I deserve it, or “what the heck, it’s not that bad!” What gives?! HOW do I change!? 

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