“I was afraid that I would never see rain again”. When I read those words, I thought there is a man with a story to tell! Who in their right mind would ever say that? Especially when they live in Seattle!
I came across the story as I was struggling with what to say as a further thought-provoking bridge to Pastor Brent’s message on hospitality this past weekend. After that message, my heart was stirred with the question, “what compels me to be hospitable?” Is it a response to a command (which would be legitimate) or is it something else? I thought, ‘if I were a skeptic of Christianity, how ‘might’ I respond to a list of methodologies and strategies surrounding the topic of hospitality?
I know that the message was far more than that but what if I were ‘skeptical’ and only heard what I wanted to hear?
Michael Knapinski is his name. The man from Seattle who uttered those illogical words. He had essentially frozen to death last week while lost on a hiking trip in Mount Rainier Park, Washington. His heart had stopped beating for 45 minutes in the hospital and in the words of his main attending physician, ‘he was as close to death as you can get’, but he is alive to tell about it.
Amid the avalanche of words surrounding this story there is this thread of emotional interaction where ‘care-givers’ and ‘care-receiver’ meet and this man asks himself, ‘what do I do in response to this amazing miracle of life brought back to me?’(my paraphrase).
As I read the story I thought, is the essence of hospitality…CARING?
There are several articles that you can read on this story. In the core of the story Michael struggles with the question, ‘who cares enough to not give up on me?’ The response of the medical community is, ‘the team’.
In response to the human condition, when the odds seem enormous to us, who cares? God does!
Jesus was once asked, ‘who is my neighbour?’ The response…ANYONE IN NEED!
Some might say, ‘I don’t know ‘how’ to be hospitable’. My response… “as you care, you’ll figure it out.”
We are neighbours after all.
Hi, my name is Dennis, what is your name?
Dennis Wasyliw