Virtues: Hospitality (Dedicant Path Essay)

ADF’s virtue of hospitality is rooted in both the ancient obligations of hosts and guests, as well as the idea of reciprocal giving to the kindreds. In this essay I intend to talk about hospitality in a daily, non-ritual sense, and will talk more about the ritual sense when I discuss piety. Hospitality is an obligation that everybody has, from the lowest to the highest, but it brings us to the beginning of the third function virtues, the virtues of the ordinary folk. Hospitality was a matter of life or death in the ancient world, there is evidence that Bronze and Iron Age people traveled great distances, and there were no hotels or cities to take refuge in. If something happened, from illness to inclement weather, being able to rely on the hospitality of strangers could save your life. This was evident in Greece (where strangers were protected by Zeus Xenios) and Rome (where the obligation could even extend from one city to another) and into the medieval era in monasteries across Europe, the monk or nun responsible for guests was called the “hospitaller”.

I find hospitality to be applicable on two levels: about interpersonal reciprocity, the traditional host and guest relationship and more than that a general spirit of community and responsibility for each other. The second level is about living as a community. As a community we are interdependent on each other, as John Donne famously wrote, “no man is an island.” To live out the virtue of hospitality, I don’t think we are required to give without expectation of immediate return, but with the expectation that our community will also give to us if there is need. We are a money based culture, which can change the way we live out hospitality too. Traditionally this is a virtue expressed in material goods: a meal, a bed. In modern times, it could just as easily be a gift card, a ride, or a couple of dollars.

Celtic Bronze Age Roundhouse (reproduction)
Photo by FruitMonkey via Wikimedia Commons

For myself personally, I see some of my politics as an expression of my commitment to hospitality, our public safety nets are the way that we care for and provide for the members of our society that are in need of a temporary (or permanent)  “place to rest”. These are people that are part of my community, my kin on a certain level that I cannot invite into my home myself, but who I still want to see cared for and supported. I consider it an obligation to support policies that direct my taxes back into the community, knowing that that safety net would also be available for me in times of need. I also try to live out hospitality on a more local level, we have more than once opened our home to friends who needed a meal or a place to stay for a few nights or a few months.

These exchanges create obligation between the giver and the receiver that strengthen the bonds between individuals and families, creating the interdependence and reliance that makes a community, and I believe that strength of community is both necessary and rare.