Radical Hospitality, Session Six
UUCMP Covenant Groups
Created April 25, 2007

OPENING WORDS
“We can't know how our behavior changes everything, but it does. We call that faith.”

– Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love by Daniel Holman and Lonni Collins Pratt (unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from this book.)

CHALICE LIGHTING 
Leader:   We gather together as a community of memory and hope to celebrate life and its infinite possibilities for love.

ALL:        We light this chalice as a symbol of the light within every human heart.  May our individual sparks meet and merge bringing both light and warmth to the world.

SHARING OF JOYS & CONCERNS
•	What has been your experience with seeking to know another better in the past few weeks?

READINGS
“When it comes to hospitality we become less by what we omit doing. Every time we turn away we drop a little of our humanity.”

“These are little acts [helping someone we see in need], to be sure, but little acts push at the great big darkness, the darkness that is so huge we feel helpless and so we do nothing and try to make ourselves feel good about it. This is a heart problem. We don't lack the resources or opportunity, we lack heart. You can't fix the problem of world hunger. Well, no, of course you can't. Where did you ever get the idea you were supposed to? But you can help the single mother feed her kids....You and I, we can help the one in our path. That is enough. Try to get this straight, that really is enough.”

“I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
UU minister Edward Everett Hale

Henry Van Dyke wrote a story of a fourth wise man who sets out on the quest of a lifetime - to present the Prince of Heaven with three precious gems. He misses Jesus in the stable because he stops to help a dying old man.  He spends the next 33 years searching for Jesus and along the way the healer is delayed often to tend to the needs of the poor and the sick. Twice he makes the agonizing decision to use the gems meant for this cosmic quest to help someone in desperate need. Finally, he finds himself in Jerusalem at the the time of Jesus' execution. He thinks maybe there is something he can do with the remaining pearl to save Jesus, when a young woman being dragged by guards falls at his feet and begs his help. She has been sold into slavery, she says, to pay her father's debts. He worries about the decision, but with a sigh presses the pearl into her hand that will buy her freedom. And, then he is struck a fatal blow by a roof tile in the earthquake that was said to herald Jesus' death. As the wise man lies dying, both he and  the young woman hear a voice saying, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me.”
Summary and interpretation by the session editor, Jolinda Stephens

“There is a kind of gentle hospitality with the self that most of us fail to practice...We don't accept the stranger within. We dread the regions of ourselves we don't understand. By learning to value the otherliness of the actual stranger, we honor the mystery within us, too.”
 
SILENT REFLECTION
•	Every day in many ways we turn away from those who are in need. To what extent do I turn away because I feel overwhelmed?
•	Is it truly enough to have faith that what I can do is enough? Can I have faith that what I do to help individuals in need is an act of love for the divine or for all humanity?
•	In what way does the story of the 4th wise man have meaning for me? Is the most important part of life really those times I help individuals, rather than my major achievements?
•	This chapter talks a lot about not being judgmental in helping the stranger. There are stories about helping the homeless, even though you may suspect that they are responsible for their state, for instance. Is there a way in which losing some of my judgment about others will soften my own self-judgment and help me honor my shadow selves? 

COMMUNING (Sharing & Listening without cross conversation)

DIALOGUE (Sharing & Listening with cross conversation)

CLOSING CIRCLE