If you read Mrs. Tellinghuisen’s recent post “There’s No Place Like Home,” then you’ll understand the delight I felt as she opened our August in-service devotion with the suggestion that all stories are about seeking and/or finding home, and that if each story had to be condensed into one word, she would choose the word hospitality. When I heard her say that, I wanted to jump up and shout, “That’s my word too!” Well, one of my words. Without any prior conversation with Mrs. Tellinghuisen, I had planned for the afternoon’s professional development session to set the stage for a year-long focus on two things: scholé (more on that in an upcoming CCEC) and… you guessed it, hospitality.
I began the session by playing part of the theme song from the popular 80’s television show Cheers. While referencing a sitcom might not seem particularly “classical,” I’d argue that in this case it’s not so far off. First, staff members of my generation quickly recognized the song from the popular culture of our teen years. Such recognition demonstrates the power of a classical pedagogical (and advertising) principle: content set to music often sticks with us, for better or for worse. Second, the song captures something central to human nature, and human nature is a central subject of classical education.
Here’s how it begins:
Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you’ve got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn’t you like to get away?…
Sometimes you wanna go
Where everybody knows your name
And they’re always glad you came
You wanna be where you can see (ah-ah)
Our troubles are all the same (ah-ah)
You wanna be where everybody knows your name
The song expresses quite well the deep human longing to be known, to feel “at home” and to be convinced others are glad to be with us. Because it satisfies this fundamental longing, Mrs. Tellinghuisen suggests that “hospitality is the point of all virtue.” I tend to agree.
Of course, classical Christian education should help us to go deeper than the Cheers theme song (and it should give us better content than the show provided). The lyrics reference the sitcom’s setting when the singer croons, “Be glad there’s one place in the world/ Where everybody knows your name/ And they’re always glad you came…” That “one place in the world” that feels like home for the characters of Cheers is a bar in Boston. Where is that “one place” for us? At Trinitas, we hope there are several places—that in our school, our homes, and our churches we feel a deep sense of belonging. We hope these are all places where the forms of hospitality are learned from our Lord himself and demonstrated in acts of invitation, preparation, sharing, service, listening, and welcome.
Our upcoming Grandparent/VIP Day provides an occasion for us to practice these forms of hospitality. Invitations have been sent. We’re preparing a program and classroom activities to share our school with grandparents and VIP’s. Early next week, with help from our faithful Parent Service Fellowship volunteers, students in grades K-8 will make all of the treats to serve our guests. Some will arrange flowers. Discussion questions are planned so students can listen to loved ones’ memories of what life was like for them when they were young. In these ways and more, we hope to welcome our guests so they will know we’re very glad they came.
Such occasions for hospitality are mere imitations of the hospitality our Lord extends to us. Scripture teaches that he is preparing a place for us and that he makes these preparations out of love for us. Out of that same love, he became incarnate, lived and died and rose and will come again in the greatest acts of sharing and service ever known, for he rejoices in finding and restoring the lost. Scripture also teaches that the Word, through whom all things were made, does not talk all the time. After declaring it “good” and “very good,” God welcomed his creation with rest and with silence, and he built these into the rhythms of the world. The wise and the hospitable have learned from this that there is a time to speak and a time to be silent, a time to listen.* Perhaps most remarkable of all is that the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the universe invites us by name. He knew each of us in our mother’s womb, even choosing us before the foundation of the world. There are no greater acts of hospitality and no greater ways of being known and welcomed home than these.**
*Neal Plantinga, “A Rhythm as Old as the World,” LaGrave Christian Reformed Church, July 28, 2024.
**Some of the Scripture referenced: John 14:1-3, John 3:16, Romans 5:8, Luke 15, Genesis 1, Ecclesiastes 3:7, Proverbs 18:3, Isaiah 43, Isaiah 49, John 10, Psalm 139, Ephesians 1:4.
© ALP