Hospitality, Trust, Civility
“Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.”
George Whitman, adapted from Hebrews 13:2
Ancient Greeks had one simple way of telling whether a person was civilised.
If they welcomed a stranger into their home, they were civilised.
If they didn’t, they weren’t.
We could learn a lot from the ancient Greeks. Starting with their code of hospitality.1
All too often, we fear that strangers are not to be trusted.2 But most people are trustworthy.3
Hospitality is the bedrock of society. Distrust destroys it.
I share my birthday this week with cunning man Ian Cat Vincent. Cat has been desperately unwell ever since he caught COVID, early in 2020, and has not left his house (other than for medical appointments) in almost 4 years.
Please will you join me in holding Cat in your thoughts? And head over to his website to send birthday wishes.
At the nadir of earth's heat
Imbolc
Root your right foot to the ground
And leave it there
Until the world's spin walks you forward
With the weight that's left.
This code is called xenia. And it went even further: the host was to give the stranger a bath, food, drink, gifts, and safe escort to their next destination, but was not allowed to ask for their name until all of their needs had been fulfilled (just in case knowing who they were might prejudice the host against them). Guests, in return, were expected to be courteous and respectful.
I recently listened to someone complain that they were afraid to hire a company to clean their rural church, because it would mean handing over the key to “somebody from a city-centre estate”. I also recently heard of a service-user, described as a kleptomaniac, but who appeared to steal only from people who’d expressed concerns about their kleptomania. Mistrust breeds mistrust.
It’s true that we have the potential to lose much. But if we abandon trust, we have already lost.