This is not a sermon on hospitality.  Or maybe it is. But it includes cigarettes, so it’s probably not the kind of sermon you’d hear from the pulpit.

We hosted Thanksgiving lunch at our house, which I truly enjoyed, and I just got to thinking about how much less we open our homes now than my own grandparents did when we were kids.  Is that generational? Is it because I’m an introvert? Or maybe it’s the shortage of coffee and cigarettes. That seemed to be what drew people in at my Grandma Eldeane’s.

My earliest memory of Grandma Eldeane is in the dim kitchen in her house in Mississippi when we had gone to visit.  I don’t know if it was morning or evening, I just remember it was dark. She sat in the dining chair with one leg under her and the other foot on the chair with her knee sticking in the air as she smoked cigarettes and poured tan coffee into her saucer to cool.  I sat in a chair near her, at the same dining table that now lives in my own house, just taking it all in.

At Grandma Eldeane’s house, the coffee was percolated in an electric pot near the back door.  There was powdered creamer and sugar right next to the tree of coffee cups, and at least one pack of cigarettes always lay on the table.  But she and my Papaw smoked different brands, so usually there were two. 

She always had dominoes on the kitchen table or on the shelf above the wall oven, and she’d play just about any time you asked. We grand kids got lots of practice counting by fives and tens to keep score, and you better pay attention, because if you scored but didn’t call it she wasn’t giving you any points. 

When I stayed at her house, after they’d moved here to Arkansas, the back door would open and close all day long with aunts, uncles, and cousins coming and going, sitting down for a cup of coffee or a cigarette (or three) and a game of dominoes. There wasn’t any real knocking, just “Knock, knock!” yelled loudly as someone else came in.

She sat at the dining table most of the day, holding court, occasionally going to her bedroom to sit on the bed and watch her “shows” when no one else was there.  Sometimes I watched with her, but she always made me cover my eyes when the kissing started.

You knew Grandma was going somewhere if she had clothes on and was wearing jewelry.  I don’t mean that she usually entertained in her birthday suit, but the lady knew what she was about.  She wore pajamas ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. She would’ve been the queen of yoga pants if that had been a thing about fifty years earlier.  Scandalous.

So if you came in and she was fully dressed, she was about to go “gallyvattin’,” and the visit didn’t last long. She didn’t ever mind if you came over, but she also didn’t change her plans because you had. 

She taught me many things well, some of them to the chagrin of my mother.  Namely, she schooled me on sneaking olives and shredded cheese from the kitchen as she cooked. Mama was sure she was training me to be a thief and a cheat.  Grandma also told me, “You can sit at the table with the a-dults (pronounced with a short /a/, and heavy emphasis on that first syllable) and hear plenty as long as you’re quiet.  But once you start talkin’ they’ll remember you’re here and tell you to go play.”

See? Hospitable, even to the nosy kids.

And she also told me approximately 478 times, in her thick Mississippi drawl, “Bevely, now you remembah, purty is as purty does, and ugly is as ugly does.”  That particular statement always served as her gentle redirection to let me know I had stepped out of line, and it was time to find my way back into it. One time she decided to inform me that she’d only ever had to use that adage on me and my cousin Stephanie.  Apparently all the other grand kids were saints. Or lost causes.

She was hospitable, but she wasn’t into putting on a show. I don’t know if ever saw her mop a floor, but I never heard anybody say anything about how clean or dirty her floors were, either.  Sure, she was wearing pajamas, but she was in her home, and if you didn’t like it I’m pretty sure she would’ve told you that you were welcome to stay at your own house if it was a problem. But that she sure hoped you’d get past it and wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t changing who she was for anybody.

She was always hospitable.  Always. But my grandma was welcoming people; she wasn’t entertaining them. I don’t really think the assorted visitors came for the percolated coffee and cheap cigarettes, but that was something shared across the table when they were together – whoever they might be. She was prepared to share her life and the constants in her days with whoever showed up.

I wish I’d paid attention to more than sneaking cheese and olives when I was younger.  I wish I’d had the presence of mind then to realize what she was teaching me about being welcoming, and hospitable, and true to myself all at the same time.  I wish I’d understood how she was living the difference between “being hospitable” and “entertaining guests.” I wish I’d done a better job of thinking through what was going on around me.  

But I was a little kid.  That wishing is wasted, and anyway I can still learn from her now.  

I think I can practice her kind of hospitality.  I think I can bring people into my home, let them see me for who I am, and then leave it up to them what they do with it or make of it.  I’m willing to embrace a hospitality that isn’t about performance, or proving, or impressing. Those suck, and I’m not interested in any kind of life that takes me back to that place again.

“Entertaining” kind of drains the life out of me.  But practicing true hospitality, sharing my home with others instead of showcasing it for them, that feels good.  That’s life-giving, and honest, and real, and meaningful to me.  

I may not drink much coffee after breakfast or keep cigarettes on hand, but I can share a Diet Coke or a glass of unsweetened tea, or some lukewarm tap water.  And we usually have whales and granola bars, at least.

Maybe you’re the entertainer.  I’m not faulting you for that. I don’t think entertaining is a bad thing, or that it’s inappropriate, or that you shouldn’t do it.  But it’s not who I am, and the confusing of hospitality and entertainment have discouraged me from being hospitable on many occasions.  So if you love to entertain, then this probably isn’t for you, and that’s ok. You go right on doing you, and I’ll be super impressed and have a great time at the next party I attend at your place.

But as for the rest of us, here’s to holding court in our pajamas.  Cheers.

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