Stuck on Hospitality

Yesterday I took the car into the city and had a full day of just walking around. I wound through the alleys and the streets and the side streets. I passed the street vendors waiting for customers, women chatting on street steps, foreigners with their huge backpacks and large maps unfolded in their faces, and the rows and rows of motorbikes lining the curbs. I felt home.

The beaches in Hua Hin during September are rather bare. Everyone is tucked away in their own resort pools or cabanas. So, when I tried to sneak into the Hilton to use their pool, I was convicted, mainly by the large stares I received by the employees. Before I even could reach for my sunscreen, I was high tailing it to the public beach, past the security guards and Hilton workers. For the first time, I felt really on the outside of the hospitality "inner circle." The circle seems smaller when you don't have access to it. It seems grander and overflowing with privilege and delight.

Then the funniest thing happened, I got really bitter at the Hilton. I was laying on a large rock in a cove under the side shadows of this large hotel monstrosity and I felt bitterness and disgust rise up in me. It was really strong and I can still taste it in my mouth. I found myself trying to prove why I was better than these people staying in this hotel who were not really tasting true Thai culture. I visited the international supermarket later the day and found disgust again at all the ex-pat families buying lunch meat and Goldfish in bulk. I glared at them, like they were in the wrong. The hilarity of the whole day was that I walked away with bread products, Nutella, jam, and peanut butter. I was hypocrisy in all its false glory.

So last night when I got back to the Juniper Tree I had a long thought about why I felt so disgusted with these people or this corporation that I thought stood for everything but cultural immersion. The anthropologist and the hotelier in me were waging war on each other and I was stuck. I was stuck on hospitality. I was stuck in my love for it. I couldn't think anything bad about it, even though my outrage flared as I laid in the shadows of the very large concrete "man." My failed past of working in a large hotel looming on the front of my brain with my guttural need to create a space for people to feel rest, delight in their surrounding culture, and feel the presence of the Lord courting them in all His intimacy and truth, trying to take its place. Even as I'm typing this, it's hard for me not to get emotional. I am ultimately confronting my pride. It's large and in charge when it comes to this topic. My calling is at stake. God has given me this dream to start a hospitality venue filled with good food (a bakery no doubt), lots of community movie watching, loud praise and worship nights, and truly personal accommodations. How can I do this if I'm judging other industries trying to give people rest, too? How can I hear God if I'm sinking in the sand of my past?

I haven't gotten really far in the thought process, but I have repented for trying to sneak into a space I was not given access to and then disliking those that make the rules. I think I'm most scared of admitting that something in this field is not giving me pleasure. I had a similar feeling when I wrote a paper debunking the "most magical place on Earth" in college. It was like drowning my pet or something.

This is probably really silly to read for most of you. There is just so much of my heart tied up in this encounter: my failure, my pride, my passion, my fear. And it's just sitting in front of me. And God is whispering "Give it to me, darling." So I will.