Mrs. Tellinghuisen opened our August staff in-service with the following devotion. We were blessed by it and asked her if she would share it as our opening Classical Christian Education Corner piece for the school year.
Think of a good story you once heard. It can be from a book, film, play, or even sitting around a campfire. What was it about? Not just interesting characters, compelling plot, what did it say to you that really mattered? Can you condense that story—and more than the story, your experience of the story—into one word or a simple phrase? I would choose the word hospitality.
It seems all stories are about seeking and/or finding home. Not just a home. But home, in the deepest, truest sense of the word. And though I’m not trained in philosophy or ethics, I suggest that hospitality is the point of all virtue. I’d call the source of all virtue love, the love of the divine maker who made us what we are and is making us much more than what we are. Love is the foundational what. But hospitality is the foundational why. Why love? Why grace? Because we all want to sit down, put feet up, just breathe, just be. Just be home.
In the years I’ve taught Latin, I’ve found certain word pairings that students mix up. I see it the most with hospes and hostis. ‘Guest’ and ‘enemy’. There’s a big difference there, and while they are easy to decipher if you think of the derivatives (hospital, hospitality; hostile, hostility), they do look and sound a lot alike. And maybe it’s telling that they are so similar. The Bible says that we, even while we were yet sinners, separated from God, enemies even, even then we were invited to the banquet, guests of the master. Welcomed and loved.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.” (Luke 15:1-6a)
He gives the lost sheep a home. The Good Shepherd is hospitality itself.
This is the honest truth. I wrote my idea for this devotion on my phone at some ridiculous overnight hour when inspiration struck. When I typed hospes, the auto-correct function changed it to gospel. I loved that.
At the June staff in-service, our first-day devotions were from the last few pages of Professor Jennifer Holberg’s book, Nourishing Narratives. She shares four things she most wants her Calvin University students to know: You are loved. You are enough. I want you to succeed. Your voice matters.
The teacher-to-student messaging here is essential, of course, but so is the self direction. We want our students to be able to say these things to themselves. And we want them to say them, in words and actions, to one another. In our relationships, we’re all of us, at different times, on one side of the door or the other: invited as guest or inviting to a guest. And let us not forget, in our eternal home relationship, we’re all guests, and our host is all generosity.
Imagine what this school (or any place) would look like if, at any time, a person felt invited and welcomed here. Valued here.
Here at Trinitas we love books! And reading books about virtue is important and beneficial. But reading about virtue does not, in fact, make us virtuous. The gospels have plenty to say about hearers of the word as opposed to doers of the word, those who study the law and those who actually see its purpose of loving God and neighbor.
You are loved. You are enough. I want you to succeed. Your voice matters.
To these four, I would add a fifth that naturally follows: You belong here.
Every story is essentially about seeking home. The best stories are where home is found. So, by all means, let’s teach those stories here at Trinitas and in our homes. But more importantly, let’s embody them by opening doors, pulling out the good chairs, and offering refreshment to any and all, but especially to the hungry, the hurting, and the overlooked.
Now that school is back in session, the Trinitas hallways are full of activity. And because we’re all human, on any given day, we surely have among us those who are hungry, those who are hurting, and those who are feeling overlooked. Our hospitality will tell them they belong here.
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. (Romans 12:10–13)
© RRT, September 2024
I was going to title this post “Screen-free Learning at Trinitas,” but our decision to be a screen-free* environment is about more than helping kids build their attention spans for academic achievement. It’s also, and more importantly, about helping them build their ability to pay attention to others, to engage the person next to them or across the table, to “be present” in community. We founded Trinitas in 2006, the year before the first iPhone was introduced. Already many schools were jumping on the screen-learning bandwagon. We resisted that temptation, not primarily for budget stewardship reasons but rather for the sake of the students (and their teachers and families). We suspected that benefits of screens in schools might turn out to be something like the emperor’s new clothes. What we had not anticipated was how screens at school and at home and in cars and in pockets and nearly perpetually in hands could be worse than the naked emperor.
