kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hospitality And Grace In Motion My dear nonscheduled readers, I have a perfect example at 4:24 am to offer up to you--of hospitality and grace. Please excuse if mine slips, but if I have to be awake at fucking ohdarkhundred, I might as well make use of the time. I have a friend. She's not a lawyer but she's been around them for a loooong time and she has opinions, and you know what that can lead to. She is a lovely gracious Southern lady, with the fatal (Southern) flaw of tact like mine (which is a Yankee virtue, but that's a story for another day.) So I was going through a period of Changes a bit back. My friend, inbetween lovely blunt advice to the effect of "kick people's asses up between their shoulderblades if they're asking for it so hard" was also gracious enough to gift me with a story, and doubly gracious enough to allow me to share it with you. You see, my friend is not a lawyer, but she's worked for them for a very long time and one evening while we were sorting out the folks who needed an asskicking from those who didn't she apologized for the clanking in the background and explained that she was baking cookies because she had to go on a research trip in the morning. My natural curiosity piqued (while All Things Good should, naturally, be sacrificed on the Altar of Libraries, I'd never actually brought cookies to the books before) she explained that this was how Business Was Done Here to the ignorant Yank. She was venturing out of her home county and her home contacts to request some cooperation from lawyerly and law-type folks from a few counties over for a situation that was happening on Her Home Turf. This was a situation that would gain them nothing, and while they were legally obliged to help her and answer her questions, in simple point of fact that help could be extended with enthusiasm or with the bare minimum but all of it rather hinged on, well, cookies. So the plan was to sail into Away Territory with some homemade cookies (and goddess FORBID they not be homemade) as a thank you to the powers that be in Away Territory, which would ensure cooperation with the nice lady lawyerly type who needed some information and a few calls made on her behalf, and such was the dance set in stone on all of this that the cookies would, indeed, win the day. Now, my practical Yank was completely appalled by this. I mean, damnation, up here it's all about getting the damn job done and everybody needs to go full speed ahead and of course the cops would cooperate because that's what the law says and can you really bribe people into doing their jobs with a plate of cookies? She laughed at me and said that yes, indeed, that was the way that it was done, and we hung up that night and while my Inner Yank was both amused and appalled, the part of me that struggles every day to understand and practice the extent of Sacred Hospitality was pumping a fist yelling "Hell yes, sing it!" One of the things that was hard for me to understand about hospitality is that it is a transaction--that the obligations lie on both sides, both host and guest, giver and reciever. There is a rune, Gebo (looks like an X) that means "gift" but it means not only giving a gift, but the transactional nature of gifts--if you get a rune reading with Gebo involved, it may mean that you will recieve a gift, but it also means you should return it as well--by giving a gift in return, or being effusive and truthfully so in your thanks. It is easy for a lot of people to place themselves in the position of being a gracious giver, a gracious host, but be terrible at accepting hospitality or gifts--equally, I think we all know the kind of people who suck up hospitality or gifts without acknowledging their host or giver, and simply keep draining everyone around them dry. It's why Sacred Hospitality is such a dance, a balance---the grace lies in the ability to be both host and guest, giver and reciever, so that all persons in the transaction end up feeling tall and proud by the time it's all done. Hospitality--and gift-giving--done badly, both diminish the host and the giver and make the guest and reciever feel like less, as well. So my friend gave me the giggle, and the thought to chew on, and the story, and when I called back the next night, dying of curiousity, her quest had indeed gone welll--she had gone as a guest, bringing a gift, and her hosts accepted her gift and extended their hospitality, and she got her information and phone calls made and it all came out well, because of this small gracious transaction of Hospitality in the decidedly strange setting of lawyers and law. To even more clearly boink me over the head with the nature of hospitality, my friend confessed freely that the cookies came out awful, but because they were made at home and carried across three counties they carried the same weight with the legal and the law-type folks--who clearly showed their own grace by not choking. I'm sure someone out there is thinking, as I did "she bribed them with crappy cookies?" with all the moral horror that the word "bribe" can carry. But no--this was a dance, a transaction; while the business she had to research could have been achieved over a longer time with less help, the trip itself, and the cookies, short-circuited a lot of back and forth and addition to transaction that telephones and faxes can add into an enquiry. And realistically, venturing out of her home turf to ask questions, she would have been handicapped anyway--so a polite offering, a guest-gift--both assured her hosts that she meant them no dishonor, but would also appreciate their assistance. Part of me, the horrified Yank, still is slightly appalled and amused. But part of me wishes that we were also so careful of each other's honor, aware of each other's status, and as generous every day with both gifts and thanks. 4:24 a.m. - 2007-04-05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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