Hospitality

Goal: Intentially be hospitable to people in Chicago.

Mission Accomplished?: Barely

Was it hard?: YES!!!!!!

You'd think that being nice to people and being extra curtious would be an easy task, but it's not. Sure, you can do the simple things like opening the door for someone, or smile and say hello to everyone you pass, but when intentially trying to do good for people isn't as easy as it seems. The first problem I encountered was trying to come up with ideas on how to be hospitable. Others in the house had good ideas like giving out free hugs, or carrying comfy armchairs out to the sidewalk and sticking a sign to the chair that says "Wanna talk?" That last idea was genious! But I had a bit of difficulty coming up with ideas. Finally I decided on letting God decide on how to be hospitable for the day. What I ended up doing is walking around downtown and doing random acts of kindness.

Here's the story:
When I arrived at the train station to catch the train that was heading towards downtown, there was a woman standing halfway up the stairs. As I passed her, I did a sideways glance and saw that she was all sweaty and was holding onto the siderail for dear life. Now, the thing on my mind was "what am I gunna do for this hospitality activity!? Man, this is going to be hard!" Then as I looked at the lady, I felt compassion for her. Honest to goodness, it never crossed my mind that this would be my act of kindness! Well, I stopped, turned around on the stairs, looked at her and said "are you okay?!" To try to give you an image of this I will try to describe this woman. She was an African American woman, probably in her late 40's, and a little on the heavy side. She was drenched in sweat and looked like she wasn't going to make it up the rest of the way which was about two more flights of steps. When I asked if she was alright, she looked at me and said "These steps make me want to go pee! I just came from McDonalds, and man, I shouldn't be drinking this coffee!!" This was not the response I was expecting, but okay. She said "Don't these steps just wear you out?!" I said "yeah, they are pretty grueling! Can I help you with anything?" This woman just looks at me, and with much enthusiasm she said "yeah! you can go get me an elevator or and escalator!!!" I just smiled and said "well ma'am, I don't think I can do that!" She said, "well then, I guess you can't help me... but you sure are sweet for asking!" What I did do was finish walking her up the stairs and starting conversation. When I got off at my stop, the lady gave me a big ol' smile and said "now you have a good day now, ya hear?" I said "Yes ma'am, you too."

When I got downtown I thought to myself "man, this hospitality thing is HARD! To be honest, I didn't find much else to do but be kind and say hi to people and help a few people with directions to Navy Pier. It didn't occur to me until the train ride home that the lady I escorted up the stairs was a pretty hospitable thing to do... That's my story.

Lesson learned: Do things that are kind all the time... you never know when it'll be hospitable. :) Plus, it brightens up your day as well as theirs (hopefully).