"She said to her husband, 'I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. Let's make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us." 2 Kings 4:9-10.
I have been thinking a great deal about the people who flow through our lives. I have been contemplating the above passage and thinking about this woman who opened her home to a man of God because of his need and out of her kindness. She seemed to grasp the concept that extending hospitality is a sacred act. Just as the Shunammite woman did, I hope that I can follow her example and open my heart and my home to those who flow through my life.
Publish Post
Ellen Anthony wrote a poetic essay based on the above passage entitled The Extra Room. The essay eloquently highlights the difficulties of creating an aura of hospitality both within our homes and within ourselves. It challenges us to continue growing, to become softer, and to consider how we interact with the people who pass through our lives. I would like to share parts of the essay with you. For the sake of brevity, I have not reproduced the entire essay.
I
A long time ago
someone in Shunem
built an extra room
on the roof of her house
for the holy one.
That's what I want to do.
I want to go up
to the roof of my house
where the sky starts
and make this room in case the holy one
needs a place to stay.
A table, a chair,
a bed and a candle.
I'll work on it
when I can,
weekends maybe
or before breakfast.
II
It's coming along.
I go up there,
work with what I have.
Some wood, some stone.
The chair and table
aren't hard to make
and I got a candle
from a friend.
But the bed is still stone.
And I know that isn't comfortable.
It's grey
and looks billowy from far off,
like a feather comforter,
but it's stone.
I put my hands on it,
on the faces of the stone.
Questions come up
all about work and what my life is for.
I answer what I can.
We're getting softer, I think,
but not yet a bed.
IV
Someone is waiting there
in that room upstairs.
Someone is dying.
Someone is holding the river
in their hands.
Someone is letting it go.
Someone is crying.
Someone is getting ready.
Someone wants to be softer than stone.
Who is waiting for me
in the extra room?
V
I go up,
open the door.
It's pretty much done.
The room.
All I can do anyway.
I sit in the chair.
Plain square chair.
Look at the table.
Flat relaxed wood.
Strike a match
to the wick of the candle,
see the light
pulling the walls into the glow,
corners going blurry.
Holy chair?
Holy table?
Holy candle, holy walls?
or just extra ones?
I sit in the extra chair
watching the extra walls
wondering if we're holy.
Over there
the stone is taking a long time becoming a bed.
So am I.
We will wait here together.
VI
I wonder what the Shunammite
went through.
Whether hospitality came easy to her
and if the furniture
knew itself right off.
I wonder what my extra room is for. Who will come
and whether it is holy
the way it is, empty.
IX
I go up there some days
and all the furniture is dead.
Even the wooden stuff
gone to stone on me.
I want to cry and I do cry
and the bed is no comfort to me.
Why? Why did the table and chair
come so easy and the bed so hard?
Is it about working and resting?
Easy to work but hard to rest?
The in-between time,
when nothing is happening,
can I rest in those?
I touch the old faces
of the stone. Someone is dying,
someone is crying, someone is trying
to become softer than stone.
XI
I don't know.
I usually don't know.
I touch the stone bed, kneeling,
and say I don't know
who is waiting or what will happen
from day to day in this extra room.
What my new life is
or when it will die on me.
But I have this extra room,
and I just know that I believe in it.
I believe in the extra room,
in making an extra room,
in the possibility of the holy one's coming,
in making new life, in its sometime dying,
and in constantly watching what sleeps there
as if I were ready for the sky
to come in over and over again without edges.
This place, this extra room,
is where I'm becoming
hollow and ample at the same time.
XII
I won't ask
what your extra room is like.
Or what went on
inside the Shunammite lady.
It's not for me to know other people's
private stuff.
But I want you to know
that when I say my extra room
is for the holy one,
it means you.
It means whoever
needs an extra room that night.
I can't guarantee
there won't be dead furniture
in there from time to time.
Or that the bed will be comfortable.
But if you ever need
an extra room to stay in,
a place where seeing and hearing
have no edges,
I have this place inside me now,
and you are welcome there.
Consider the following:
1. Do you have a sacred place to retreat? for your friends to retreat?
2. If not, where and with what could you begin to prepare such a space?
3. What do you want from your space?
4. For whom are you preparing your space?
5. What hospitality do you extend to others? to yourself?
6. How might your life be changed by having such a space?
May God give each of you grace and a place to stretch out your soul.
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