Hospitality means receiving the other, from the heart, into my own dwelling place. It entails providing for the need, comfort, and delight of the other with all the openness, respect, freedom, tenderness, and joy that love itself embodies. . . .
Hospitality is essentially an expression of love. It is a movement to include the guests in the very best of what we ourselves have received and can therefore offer. It is the act of sharing who we are as well as what we have. Thus, hospitality of the heart lies beneath every hospitable act. The classic elements of hospitality offered to guests are food and drink, shelter and rest, protection and care, enjoyment and peace. These paired categories cover a basic range of physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. They reveal that hospitality is concerned with the total well-being of the guest.
In offering shelter, nourishment, rest, and enjoyment to our guests, we often discover that they gift us with their presence. The relationship of host and guest is a mutual one; "the very root of the word 'hospitality' . . . hospes means both host and guest." The uncanny sense of receiving more than we give applies to many situations.
— Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast