Hospitality

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Neuroscience

Hospitality
by Peggy La Cerra, Ph.D

Spiritual people are likely to be characteristically hospital because they tend to hold the belief that everyone is connected to each other, and to live their lives accordingly. Their memory-encoded experiences reflect this view, and their mind-brain’s calculus does as well. As a result, taking care of others is processed – and felt – as if they’re doing something for themselves.

Rabbi Rami's Reflections

Hospitality
by Rabbi Rami Shapiro

I go out of my way to be hospitable to people, even people I don’t particularly like.

Sounds right to me. I would suggest, however, that not only should you go out of your way, you might try getting out of your way as well.

Come again?

The key to hospitality is making room for the other, and making room for the other means contracting the self. Don’t mistake being out-going for being hospitable. True hospitality requires you to make room, which means to make room for ideas, feelings and experiences that you may not like all that much.

I always equate hospitality with opening my home. I read that contrary to the custom of their time, Abraham and Sarah kept their tent open on all four sides to welcome strangers from all directions.

Yes, the custom was to defend yourself and your family by leaving only one side of your tent open. We can apply this to every aspect of life; leave open all sides of your tent, and in this way leave yourself open to new ideas from whichever direction they come.

Being open is one thing, but what about this notion of being undefended? Abraham and Sarah refused to defend themselves by closing the sides of their tent. How can we understand that in the practice of hospitality?

In other words, can we let our enemies into our tent? Can we be hospitable even to those we fear mean to do us wrong? I would say not only can we, but we must. Think of this is terms of Aikido. Unlike karate where you continually defend against the strikes of an opponent, in Aikido you welcome your opponent, you embrace your opponent, and actually side with the energy and direction your opponent is going. This is Jesus’ notion of “resist not evil” (Matthew 5:3). You don’t resist but assist, and in assisting your opponent you move out of her way and allow her momentum to carry her off balance and to in effect defeat herself.

Hospitality as nonviolent resistance?

There is nothing to resist. You have no opponents; only dance partners. This is hospitality as fearless living. It is not that you allow your partners to overpower you; it is that you allow them to overpower themselves. But don’t forget the more positive aspect of hospitality. When you engage with others as partners you leave yourself open to seeing things their way, to understand things they way they do. You may not agree, but you can understand, and this will allow you to deepen your compassion for others as well.

Best Practices

Building Empathic Accuracy
by James Duffy, M.D.

Social psychologists have made important discoveries about the social factors that support or impede our ability to perceive another person's emotional state, known as empathic accuracy. Certain social factors have been found to strongly support our empathic accuracy for one another.

These include:

- No physical power differential between the parties (i.e., parties communicate at eye level).
- No social power differential between the parties (i.e., neither party has control over the other).
- The expectation of a long-term relationship.
- The expectation of a favorable outcome for the relationship.
- Both parties are physically responsive and reinforce one another's nonverbal communication (i.e., smiling, making physical contact, etc.).

Based on this list, if one were to predict the best environment for supporting empathic accuracy, it would be a first date! We all can remember the powerful alchemy we experienced on our first date with someone special.

However, if one were to construct a social environment designed to inhibit empathy, ironically, it would look like a modern hospital. Straitjacketed by their white coats, doctors and nurses are taught to display little emotion -- while their patients lie immobile and often humiliated by having to wear a paper "Johnny." Patients typically feel overwhelmed by the hospital environment and retreat into silent submission for fear of alienating the all-powerful medical team. Harnessed by third-party payers and hemmed in by their subspecialties, doctors and nurses seldom expect to see their patients beyond their current interaction and are always wary of a potential malpractice suit that may haunt them for years. Patients who are seriously ill or dying lie quietly in the shadows of their diagnoses, too incapacitated to elicit any compassion in their caregivers. Doctors and nurses fail to respond to their patients' pain and suffering because we have created a health-care system that makes empathic communion almost impossible.

Now ask yourself, how are your gatherings building empathic accuracy?

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Practice Hospitality

Spirituality & Health Practices: Practice Hospitality Daily. Famous Quotes on Hospitality. Time: 1:58

Changing Our World Through Hospitality

A Personal Take: A Christian perspective of Hospitality using a foot ball stadium, to help communicate our need to put others at ease. Time: 7:38

A Personal Take: One persons view of Hospitality. Listening to others understanding of a practice provides insights we might miss. Time: 4:10

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