The Mystery of Hospitality

Hey Beloved,

I'm writing this after recently hosting 12 women for a retreat here in the PNW.

And I keep circling back to a verse that has essentially become my mission statement/ethos/calling…

Take care of the saints. Practice hospitality. Romans 12:13.

That's it. That's the whole assignment. Simple.

Which is good because I need simple.

But I've stopped mistaking simple for small.

One of my fav hospitality quotes of all time is from the book Making Room by Christina Pohl.

To essentially close the book, she writes, ”Often, the practice of hospitality is a window into some of that mystery — a mystery that is as mundane as soup and as transcendent as angels.”

Mundane yet transcendent.

What a beautiful tension.

Let’s dive in a bit..

These women serve. Constantly. They pour themselves out for athletes and coaches, for communities, for the people in their care.

The hope wasn't to just give them a break from that.

The hope was to help them remember something they might have forgotten in the middle of all the giving.

That they are beloved.

That rest is not laziness — it's a gift from God..

That there is a space in this world where you aren't needed.

You are just wanted.

So we made meals that felt like feasts. We set the table. We paid attention to the details. We tried to make everything feel like five-star care.

And then we tried to disappear.

That last part is harder than it sounds.

Here's something I keep bumping into the longer I do this work:

Hospitality is wildly transformative.

For the ones receiving it.

And for the ones giving it.

I watched it happen in real time this weekend. Women who spend their lives caring for others got to be cared for. And somewhere between the fly fishing and the feasts and the long evenings, something shifted. You could see it in their faces.

A kind of exhale.

A coming alive.

And the crew I got to serve alongside? They were getting transformed right along with me. The guide who poured his whole heart into the river experience. The chef who treated every plate like it mattered. The teammates who showed up with grace and strength and full presence.

We were not observers of this mystery.

We were caught up in it.

I've been working on something I keep calling The Salt Principle.

Salt is one of the most transformative forces in a kitchen. It elevates. It preserves. It draws out what's already there and makes a dish taste more like itself.

But here's the thing about salt.

It never becomes the dish.

It goes in. It does its work. And then it disappears into the whole thing.

The best hospitality and leadership works exactly the same way.

You're not trying to impress anyone. You're not trying to make the weekend about the hosts or the service or how hard everyone worked.

You are trying to help the guest get a glimpse and taste who they already are.

Beloved. Seen. Worth the feast. Worth the welcome.

And when it works — when it really works — they won't remember the linens or the food or maybe even your name.

They'll remember the feeling.

The feeling that someone noticed them. That someone went to the trouble. That for a few days, the world arranged itself around their rest instead of their productivity.

That feeling is not nothing.

That feeling is the whole point.

When someone is reminded they are beloved, something wakes up.

In their work. In their rest. In the way they see themselves.

And the host?

The host gets woken up too.

Every single retreat I've been part of has given back more than it cost me. That sounds like a bumper sticker, but I mean it practically. I left the weekend more alive. More sure of the calling. More grateful for the people I got to serve alongside.

Hospitality does not deplete the host.

Done well, it restores them.

That's the mystery nobody puts on the brochure.

You probably won't host a retreat this week.

But you will sit across from someone.

You will send an email. Make a call. Show up somewhere.

And here is the question worth carrying:

Am I trying to be the star of this moment, or am I trying to elevate the person in front of me?

Salt doesn't perform. Salt just works. Just because.

Just like you are beloved. Just because you are.

That's the kind of hospitality I keep believing in. The kind that goes beyond hosting. The kind that helps people feel seen, valued, cared for, and maybe even reminded of who they really are.

Go be salt this week.

More soon,

Nathan

P.S. If someone in your world is pouring themselves out for others right now, forward this to them. They might need the reminder that they are beloved too.

And if you want to talk about these kinds of retreats…hit reply. We want to do more!