Visitors

Here's a group that came to use the Space today. It wasn't a pre-arranged thing. Just my friend, Narot (on the right), turning up and asking if she and her colleagues could use the Space for a reflective time after a week-end of conferencing down in Sihanoukville.

Narot's been to the Space a few times before now, usually calling in unannounced. I kind-of knew her before but not that well. It's only been through these random meetings that I've got to hear some of her story and some of her hopes.

So when she turned up today with this group I was chuffed.

Glad to know that she gets the idea of the Space and felt free to come and ask and be confident of a welcome and of hospitality.

I like that. I like it that the Space could host a group whose job it is to care for HIV and TB sufferers and give them space. And, for me, to just be among them in that space. Writing whilst they were talking and enjoying the quiet moments together too.

"Hospitality . . . means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place...."

Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life