Interest

For the very first time, we will be staying in a Bed and Breakfast this weekend. We will be heading to my brother's "ranch" as he calls it for his fishing tournament, where my parents will be bringing my daughter back to us. I'm not entirely sure she will want to come back.

My cousin will be there. I've never actually met her, in fact. My brother established a relationship with her about three years ago, and I've just never been there when he has had her over. I used to be somewhat afraid of family - people who in theory you are supposed to be close to because there are blood ties. But I find there's no natural inclination to be friendly and sociable with people you haven't established a friendship with.

But as I've gotten older, I find myself echoing Fr. Henri Neuwen's journey from hostility to hospitality, developing as my first response towards people a charitable disposition. I do not necessarily find it easier to spend time with relatives that I do not know, but I feign it more ardently, and then my feigning becomes real as those first few tentative questions reveal an interesting person, waiting to be discovered by more conversation.

The simple fact of the matter is that most people are interesting in some way - their hobbies, their talents, their personal history, the lessons they've learned from a tough road. That I think leads to the benefit you reap from a charitable disposition - you find out just how intruiging different people can be.

I have friends who are artists, musicians, poets, carpenters, ex-politicians... I have friends who have lived everywhere from Namibia to Mexico... I have friends who've seen the world, and painted it, photographed it, or written about it. And I would never have learned about any of it if I hadn't asked, and I hadn't listened.