The reviewer at Publisher’s Weekly described my understanding of hospitality as “capacious.” I had to look that word up! (You can read the full review on the Amazon.com site.)

Capacious means containing or capable of containing a great deal, roomy. Yeah. So, not only my book, but hospitality, too. A roomy heart and life. Capacious!

Priest and author Henri Nouwen (pronounced Now-win) wrote so beautifully about spaciousness of heart during his lifetime. One beautiful image I got from him was the understanding of “poverty of heart” as “openness” of heart. He wrote of this in his book, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. I highly recommend this book.

Nouwen wrote,

A good host not only has to be poor in mind but also poor in heart. When our heart is filled with prejudices, worries, jealousies, there is little room for a stranger…[W]e have to remind ourselves constantly that an inflated heart is just as dangerous as an inflated mind. An inflated heart can make us very intolerant. (pg 106-7)

But how can we let go of these “prejudices, worries, jealousies” and let our hearts relax into openness? First we have to realize that we are carrying these feelings around with us and that requires self- awareness. There are lots of ways we can improve our self-awareness: through meditation practices, through talk therapy, through conversation with friends, through journaling, or any number of spiritual practices. (I write about these and others in detail in my book, along with step by step instructions to try different practices.)

Hospitality involves awareness of the self–what’s really going on inside me–as well as awareness of the other. We have to see others clearly, and not through a haze of preconceived ideas about them.

With poverty of heart we can receive the experiences of others as a gift to us. Their histories can creatively connect with ours, their lives give new meaning to ours, and their God speaks to ours in mutual revelation. (p 107)

So if we can develop the kind of poverty of heart that means uncluttered, then we will have a much greater capacity to welcome others truly. We will have a capacious capacity for hospitality.