Area to consider
Values and behaviours are in tensionYou have found a working balance between independence and genuine interdependence. You can ask for help and offer it freely. You value time alone without withdrawing from the people who matter to you. However, although you believe in hearing different views, some opinions test that commitment. You can find it hard to know when to speak and when to hold back and peace sometimes comes at the cost ... Show full
You have found a working balance between independence and genuine interdependence. You can ask for help and offer it freely. You value time alone without withdrawing from the people who matter to you. However, although you believe in hearing different views, some opinions test that commitment. You can find it hard to know when to speak and when to hold back and peace sometimes comes at the cost ... Show full
To be human is to be wired for relationship.
The most important moments of our lives – good and bad – nearly always involve other people.
We know relationships can be challenging. People let you down, misunderstand you, hurt you (intentionally or not). Friendship can be the most wonderful and painful part of our lives.
The Relationships section of Ethos invites you to look more closely at how you live alongside other people – not just when life’s good, but when it’s really hard too. It asks questions like: do you genuinely need other people, or do you prefer to manage life on your own terms? How do you love people you profoundly disagree with? And is conflict something you avoid at all costs, or do you find yourself creating it without meaning to?
We live in a culture full of division and isolation. Many of us organise our lives so we don’t have to depend on others or spend much time with people we find challenging. But is that really the best way to live?
Below is a spiritual practice to help you explore a different way.
Start with the spiritual practice of hospitality
Building in a regular practice of being with others, especially those not like you, is transformative in a world full of division, tribes and loneliness.
We have more ways to connect than any other generation in history, and yet some of the highest rates of loneliness ever recorded.
We can be surrounded by people but still somehow not quite known. Many of us have learned to curate who we let in, to only show the version of ourselves that’s doing okay. It makes sense. But what if that’s exactly what’s keeping us lonely?
Hospitality is an ancient Christian practice and it’s not about dinner parties or having a clean house. It’s just the radical act of opening your life up to someone else and saying, “Come as you are, into my world as it actually is. Have a coffee. Sit on my sofa while everything’s a bit chaotic. Come and do life with me.”
Jesus was extraordinary at this. He had this habit of eating with exactly the wrong people, the ones everyone else avoided. He told a story about a feast where all the excluded, overlooked, forgotten ones end up with a seat at the table. Not because they earned it but because they were invited and said yes. That’s the kind of welcome Jesus offers to you, and to others.
So why not try hospitality this week? Invite someone into your life, spend time asking questions, then listen and share vulnerably.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Revelation 3:20
To learn more, click on the button to start your four-week journey on the practice of hospitality.