Hospitality at the hair salon

I love hair cut days.  An hour of relaxing, a scalp and hand massage, that hot water while someone else shampoos my hair (I’m always cold).  Can you envision that too?  (If your salon doesn’t do all these things, contact me.  I’ll hook you up!)

A Kind, Hospitable People

The hair salon employees are always so inviting, so hospitable:

“Can I take your coat?  Would you like water or tea?“

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the first definition of hospitable is

1a: given to generous and cordial reception of guests

a kind, hospitable people

Merriam-Webster

That day I looked forward to the quiet, the shampoo, the scalp massage … I did not expect to show hospitality at the hair salon, not when it was just days after Cody’s epilepsy diagnosis and I was barely hanging on.  I needed someone to look after me!

My stylist and I did not have a friendship outside of the salon.  I loved the way she cut my hair but she was a good decade younger and we had very different lives.  I had known her long enough, however, that we shared what was going on in our lives during appointments, and she shared that she felt overwhelmed with negative emotions and fear.

She said she was having a hard time and was “barely above water” with no lifeline in sight.  She had no idea that a lifeline existed.  I understood her emotions and could relate to them except that I knew that there was a lifeline – and I thanked God that I knew Him.

Grumbling Hospitality

A few months earlier, I had decided it was up to me to reach out to other moms in my neighborhood.  Instead of feeling sorry for myself and isolated, I made a point of stopping on walks to talk to neighbors and ask for cell phone numbers, to follow up with texts and invites to my house to chat while the kids played in the backyard.  It had never crossed my mind to invite my stylist even though she lived only a few blocks away.

While getting my hot, relaxing shampoo that day though, I thought, “Well, she is not someone I would normally socialize with – so maybe she’s exactly who I should invite to meet the neighbor moms.”  So I asked if she’d like to join us sometime.

She immediately responded, “Yes!”

At church the next day, the pastor in her sermon said, “Let others see and know that God is in you.”

God is in me and is my lifeline, no matter how terrifying life is.  I knew that with absolute certainty.  And I offered my stylist a lifeline, some hospitality, when she desperately needed it.

I wrote about her in my gratitude journal three days in a row and on my church bulletin as God sent me message after message to offer hospitality, even to people I don’t consider friends.

Faces of Hospitality

Two days after the haircut and a day after my pastor’s reminder to let others see God in me, I finally read a blog post from two months earlier titled, “Hospitality Is a Gift” by Mary Margaret Collingsworth.

“When’s the last time you had neighbors in your home?  It’s a part of being gracious to the people God puts in our life.  How is God calling you to be hospitable to those around you?” 

Not those who I like or are already friends.  But the people God puts in my life.

When’s the last time you were hospitable to someone?  We likely have had very few, if any, people into our homes in the last year but notice what else she wrote.

“How is God calling you to be hospitable to those around you?”

The second definition of hospitable reads,

1b: promising or suggesting generous and friendly welcome

hospitable faces

Merriam-Webster

You don’t have to invite people physically into your home to show them a hospitable face. You can do that anywhere, anytime.

Even in a pandemic. Masked. Six feet apart. On a video call.

After the year we have endured, everyone is exhausted.  Everyone else is cranky and tired of Zoom, overeating and filling out their sweats too much too.  But what if they don’t know there is more than the fear and emotions overwhelming them right now?  Maybe you’re their lifeline. 

Maybe yours will be the only hospitable face they see today. 

You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.

God is not a secret to be kept. 

Matthew 5:14 MSG