Hospitality

The Benedictines believe that you should greet all as if they were Christ.  Many Benedictines Abbeys are retreat centers, where all are welcome.  Here on Iona we are also in the hospitality business.  During orientation they ask us to be helpful and hospitable, even if we don’t know the answer we should take the guest to someone who can be more helpful.  It is funny to listen and watch how this plays out.  Some of the vollies give long explanations about how that is not their area, but if they can have a moment the guest will be taken to someone who works in that area.  These explanations tend to be long.  Others tend to just take the guest by the hand or arm and lead them directly to the source.  Others pretend to know the answer, and muddle their way through it.  The housekeepers are the fountain of knowledge for the guests, in most cases, and because of the variety of their tasks they can be difficult to locate.  And because the kitchen is next to housekeeping, we are often called upon to respond to questions for which we can’t even make up an answer.  But still you give it a go. 

One of the ways we are asked to be hospitable from the kitchen is to prepare special meals for those that have differing dietary requirements.  We prepare food for vegetarians, gluten free, dairy free, nut free and vegan.  Much of what we cook daily is vegetarian, so that is never a challenge, because occasionally it can be very trying to come up with meals that are not repetitive for guests with special needs.  We were quite excited this week to learn that we only had 10 vegetarians, with no other specials.  Last week we had a young man that was strictly vegan, and he approached me with a question about the salad dressing, “was it something he could eat?”  Not being fully versed in vegan limits, I just took him to the kitchen to view the recipe for the dressing.  His group leader was impressed by that show of hospitality. 

We are also asked to be hospitable to one another.  One of the ways we show hospitality to one another in the kitchen it by working over on Friday shifts.  Every other Friday is a cleaning day, two people will be scheduled for early shift, finishing at 11 and the other two will be scheduled from 11 until 2:30.  The other center will be responsible for our meal, so we can give the place a good scrub.  We have agreed that the early folk will stay a little later and we can finish the clean and restock by 12:30 so that no one comes back after lunch.  Over the course of your stay it works out that you work over once or twice, and get out early once or twice. 

This is a thin place.