Chanelle Freese on "Making Room" by Christine D. Pohl

This book comes highly recommended by many people who I understand to be practitioners of hospitality. It will not be read and acted upon by the complacent but only by those who read to make change for themselves or their neighbors. Hospitality is practiced by those who truly find themselves following Christ. Many of the things the author touches on, that we as a culture worry about include: strangers, marginality, safety, boundaries etc. What if Jesus were to call those he doesn’t know in society, “strangers”? When did he not see those in the margins? When did he seek “safety” and would he have boundaries? Questioning these things and thinking of those I daily walk past or go around the block to avoid, I have to ask myself the convicting question: “where is the love I proclaim to have in Christ?”. What does hospitality look like in every day interactions with people I don’t know, or to those who have no one? Maybe it’s in a smile, a hello, a handshake that we find ourselves making welcome those who need it most. It can’t stop there though, hospitality itself has to become a lifestyle you live into. Continually giving of your resources, spiritually and physically. How hard would it be for someone with physical wealth to read this book, would they choose to put the book and their convictions back on the shelf? Or is hospitality the heart of Christ, the heart that drives us, because we are living in Him, to give of ourselves till there is none left to give? Whether rich or poor, we should never have to say there is no more. There is always “more” in Christ.