The Expansionist Podcast

Hospitality as the First Road to Oneness

• Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake

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A grandmother takes a door off its hinges to make the table longer. That simple act becomes our compass for a bold claim: hospitality isn’t a niche talent—it’s a spiritual practice that can transform how we love, listen, and live together. We trace radical hospitality from the kitchen table to the inner life, challenging the idea that it belongs only to those with perfect homes or to women trained to “host.” Instead, we make room for a fuller story where the feminine and masculine both offer welcome, and where presence—not performance—is the currency that changes communities.

We move beyond labels to ask harder questions: Is hospitality a gift you either have or don’t, or is it a discipline anyone can learn? What happens when listening becomes our primary form of welcome? Through memories, lived examples, and the story of Zacchaeus, we show how a shared meal can lead to repair, how adapting a menu for a gluten-free guest can reshape our default settings, and how real inclusion costs us time, convenience, and sometimes restitution. Along the way, we connect hospitality to equity, feminist theology, and a vision of salvation as shared wholeness—no one fed until everyone is fed.

If you’re curious about practicing hospitality beyond the table—opening your mind, revising traditions, and making amends where needed—this conversation offers language, courage, and next steps. Join us as we trade scarcity for abundance, make space for difference, and practice the daily prayer of openness. If the episode moves you, share it with a friend and visit expansionisttheology.com to learn more about our community. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: who needs a seat at your table this week?

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices, and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit, and love. Good afternoon, Heather Drake. Good afternoon, Shelly Shepherd. I'm so grateful to be here with you in the studio talking about all things presence, beautiful, loving, merciful, Mary Magdalene, Jesus, transcendence, all the things that we are on a regular basis uh contemplating, turning over conversations that can change the world.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we could just roll, roll with all those today. Like on the tip of our tongue, we have such passionate uh desire to expand it all, right? Like just move this goodness out into the world and into the hands of other people. So I'm grateful to be here with you today and to be talking about maybe this continuation of from last week a little bit. Sounds like we want to dive into how to be hospitable people. Uh, what does that look like? And where does that show up and how do we practice it if we need to practice it? Um, I loved last week's image of just taking the door off and making a longer table. Like that is that's just a beautiful image. Just beautiful. Thank you for that one.

SPEAKER_00:

You're welcome. And we did get some response about that and and asked for further conversation around the idea of, and I told a story of when I was little, my grandmother had extended an invitation to people, and there were more people than she was prepared for, and the table wasn't big enough. So she asked my mother to take down the door, and my mother did, took down the door and created a table that was longer. And what that meant to me as a little person watching that expansion, watching that un not very typical way of how do we get more people here instead of telling them they can't come or we don't have enough, but how do we remove doors and make it so that more people can come to the table? And so we began to talk about that and think about that more. What does that look like for us? And I think in this particular time that we're living in, maybe more than we ever have, we need the practice of radical hospitality, hospitality for ourselves in the way that we're evolving and we're opening and growing, hospitality for others, and particularly in places where maybe people belonged before and they no longer feel comfortable or feel wanted there. And what does it look like for us as women, as um feminists, as as even as men and people who are engaging with the spirit and with love and saying, how do we build a more equitable world? How do we build a better life for everyone?

SPEAKER_01:

Did you just um did you just use the F-word here live on this podcast? Feminists? Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my goodness. Radical feminist, yes. Because feminism at its essential core is this idea of equity, equity for everyone. So, yes, Jesus has made a feminist out of us, and out of me in particular, and our tribe, and going, what is the way of Jesus? And maybe feminism is the doorway, maybe that is the radical place of going, this is what it looks like for us to live in a world that is different. How do we practice equality for everyone? And what does hospitality look like when everyone's invited to the table? What does it look like when we allow all the parts of ourselves to also be invited to the table? What part of ourselves do we need to allow to come out from behind the door that they've been locked behind and say you get to experience all of this? And it's welcomed at the table.

SPEAKER_01:

So lingering on this on this word feminist and feminism, we'll just make a plug for um Sarah Bessie's book. Several years ago, that book came out, that Jesus, Jesus is a feminist or was a feminist, um, leads me into maybe at the front end of this conversation, you know, is it your experience? Sometimes it's my experience, and maybe because we're women, we we see this more often. But um, does it feel like that hospitality is delivered through the hands of more women? Can we talk about that for a second? And how do we get the guys involved in in this act? And then right behind that, can we have radical love and acceptance without the presence of hospitality? If we could linger maybe on those two, those two pieces a little bit. First, is this just for women? Is hospitality just for women? And then how does how does that show up inside radical love and acceptance? Take us there for a few minutes.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's an unequivocal no that it's just for women. It's not possible. It is for all people. But is there a feminine side to hospitality? I think yes. In the making space or making room, I think ultimately it comes even from the idea of a woman's body in a woman's body that creates an entire space for new bodies to be formed. This is part of, I think, the rise of the matriarchy that our entire world needs right now, where the patriarchy has already run its course and we find ourselves in need of a revolution, a love revolution. And I think it comes from this idea of we need the masculine and the feminine. And so, do there need to be men that offer radical hospitality? Yes, because at the table, every single person is wanted. And whatever part of the spectrum that people find themselves on, I think that there have been people in my life, men in particular, who have offered a radical hospitality to me as a person, that we could learn from each other. We could learn uh to nurture each other and to be safe places for everyone. And I think that's what hospitality does. I think hospitality is sometimes witnessed but also practiced, and that allows us to expand our hospitable realities. I think that's what the church has offered to us. Maybe not all experiences of the church, but that's the intention of the church, that there would be so much diversity that we would look like the beautiful world that God created, so many different aspects. And again, the same is true at the table in our homes, the table that we offer to the world, to our neighbors, um, the table that we offer in business, the table that we offer in relationship. This understanding it cannot just be one gender. It has to be inclusive. And I think that's really what feminism does for us is says everybody is equal.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, I've got to soak in that for just a minute and kind of let that swirl around as I as I listen to you. Uh, there's just like things firing uh in all directions. It feels to me like hospitality is a nurturing gift. Uh it's a it's a welcoming posture. Um and and I think the experience of growing up in the church, having, oh, I don't know, six aunts and three uncles. It often appeared to me that the women were the ones that were nurturing hospitality, opening the doors, maybe not taking them off the hinges like your grandmother did, but actually opening the doors, setting a wider table, setting uh a longer uh space to invite others into. That sort of hospitality I grew up uh that was demonstrated to me that that people are welcome at the table, that that inviting more people than we had enough food for meant often that, well, you just fix something else and get something else and add it to the mix. Um but it felt to me like it was a feminine expression of the divine, uh of a gifting of the spirit. And then many years later, I became friends with some gay men. And I was just amazed at the level of hospitality and nurturing that was present in in their friendship and in their gifting and um you know watching them at church or you know, plan a party or decorate a room, like it became I stepped back from that and I was just like, wow, these are these are actual men that are that are demonstrating this. And then I took another step back and I was like, wow, what if what if this gift was just available to everyone, but it hasn't been nurtured, it hasn't been called for. There hasn't been a place in the church for men to be nurturing or men to be practicing, you know, hospitality or you know, those sorts of things. And so Heather, it's it's been this maybe unlearning or maybe expanding uh the idea of what hospitality looks like in our midst and not not just corner it off for or corner it out as a feminine right um posture. I don't know how I would wrap all that to say that what what we're talking about here is some based on our own experience where we've seen it, but I'm also looking for it in men as well, like paying attention, where is this showing up?

SPEAKER_00:

I concur with the or with the experience that it has very often been the feminine that offers the work of hospitality. But I believe that if you again, if you look even at the witness of nature, if you listen to the witness of spirit, hospitality is the evidence of love. And it is something that love offers to us. And God who is genderless and God who is spirit, I believe breathed it into all people, even the earth in its nature is hospitable to us, offers us water and air and sun and places to thrive and grow. And this response that we have perhaps needs more nurture in this area than maybe others. But this idea that hospitality is an outward flow of the love that we have already received. And hospitality doesn't always happen just around a table, although very often it does. Hospitality happens even in the way that we're open to other people's thoughts or their experiences or the hospitality that we have intellectually that says, I am open to expand my understanding of this. Hospitality is a posture, I think, of our soul. And what does it look like for us to offer our presence and join in the hospitality that others are offering? I think that hospitality asks us not to stand alone, which is so beautiful. It is the very essence of community and of nurture. And very often in our culture, the masculine has not provided that. But that's to our detriment. That's to their detriment. The invitation is that every single person made in the image of God, reflecting the image of God, would be these people that reflect hospitality, radical hospitality to all people, to all things, that we would even practice hospitality toward the earth, toward each other, that we would practice hospitality again in our consciousness, in our thoughts. In what ways do we open ourselves and become curious enough to say, I don't see that the way that you do. Show me what you see, show me how you feel about this, show me what this experience means to you. And this hospitality, I think, is how we share spirit and how we uh enlarge our capacity to offer a seat at the table for everyone.

SPEAKER_01:

I think what you're what you're suggesting and offering here is a way to expand on Absolutely, it's a practice, absolutely, spiritual practice. Yeah. We we've interpreted hospitality in in one light or in one vein. And what you're asking us to consider is how do we how do we expand it? How do we move uh from one way of thinking about it to another? And I think I shared with you earlier that in many ways the church uh sees hospitality as a spiritual gift. And so there's people who have that spiritual gift, and there's people who may not have that gift. They have another kind of gift. Um maybe they have the gift of ministration or evangelism or uh leadership or something else. And so we have maybe compartmentalized hospitality in a way that um uh lets people, other people off the hook that might not have that gift. And um and I think what you're uh begging us to to understand is that wow, this is a fluid movement of the holy presence. Absolutely, like it is empowered by spirit, and each of us have maybe there's people that are more inclined to have this, um, and people that are less inclined. But but does that let us off the hook of being hospitable? And and what does that look like? Um, does it mean giving up my parking space that I've waited, you know, 10 minutes for because I see someone else might need that um parking spot more than I do? Or, you know, does it mean offering to rake the leaves in in the neighbor's yard who's you know 87 years old because they're in a walker? Or you know, what is what does this mean? What does it mean to be radically hospitable if we don't have that gift? Where it just doesn't come as natural for us to go up and knock on the door and say, Hey, I see you have all these leaves in your yard. You know, should I rake them for you? How do we get there?

SPEAKER_00:

I think first of all, it is this understanding that it I would like to take it out of the realm of gifting. I really would. Some people are more practiced, right? But the idea of gifting means You have to talk to the founding fathers about that.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I'd be willing. Put me in a room, I would be willing. I would tell them this listen, this kind of language can be weaponized. This kind of language is gonna let some people feel like they're off the hook. I don't think love allows us to not be hospitable. What I'm feeling like is the invitation of spirit into reminding us that hospitality is in fact an outflow of someone even being aware of the movements of spirit and the invitation into divine presence. So if we're gonna live a life of extraordinary presence, if we're gonna live a life of hospitality or of saying, how do we make what's beautiful the story? We have to begin to see even the ordinary as sacred. And I that's one of the things that hospitality does for us is acknowledge the presence. Hospitality says every person is made in the image of God, and therefore none of us have ever been in the presence of a mere mortal. This understanding of going, what does it look like for us to cultivate spaces, not only physical spaces, but to cultivate spaces where people can expand and experience their own self or experience the what it looks like to love your neighbor, to love yourself, to love enemy. Hospitality is, I think, the first road that allows us into oneness, to be able to pray with someone, to be able to be in silence with someone, to grieve with someone, to weep with someone, to um hospitality invites us into feasting and fasting and into more. And these practices that absolutely revolutionize us. I I'm excited about hospitality. I have been. I've had many times where well you have you have the gift of it. This is this is why. You have the gift. I know I'm calling more than baloney on that. It's a practice, it's an intentional. It is it is a practice, it is a practice of saying this is not only about me. That's what hospitality is. I recognize I am not alone in the world. And in hospitality, in nurturing people that are gonna be hospitable, in having a place that has a big table, or making idea, making space for someone else's ideas. Now, not every idea is good, Shelly. At least that's where I am in my spiritual journey right now, full of judgment still. I'm like, that's a bad idea. But, or like, don't put that in the pot, please. That's not gonna make this taste better. You know, so even cooking with someone can practice hospitality. We can learn somebody else's recipe or somebody else's way of doing things. But the idea is an open mind. Hospitality allows us to practice in very real ways how to be open and open to the other and open to more, open to transcendent and open to miracles, and open to, again, just more, but practicing radical hospitality is a spiritual practice. I think that's gonna unlock the world for us, this kingdom that we want so much, so different than our own. It starts through radical hospitality.

SPEAKER_01:

Aaron Ross Powell So are you equating uh hospitality with the same as love?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know, I would say the same, but I would definitely say it is love. Hospitality is uh is is an expression of love. Yeah, I would say it's an expression of love. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

And so we're all called to be expressive of just for fun, let's throw in hospitality is the friendly and generous treatment of guests or strangers involving the act of making others feel welcome, comfortable, and valued. Um qualities of kindness. Um looking for love, food, lodging, entertainment, the word yeah. So this warmth, this welcoming spirit, this kindness, um engaging with, you know, making someone f feel valued and being kind to people feels like love. It feels like that you're being loving. Um and so um the welcoming piece to me of hospitality is when you invite them into a space. To me, that begins to change from oh, I'm experiencing love with this person to I'm experiencing hospitality. Now I'm serving this person, I'm valuing this person, I'm being kind in these ways, I'm extending myself um, you know, beyond maybe what I would do if they weren't in this space. So I'm trying to, I'm trying to parse this out with you. Um, particularly for maybe our even our own time where it seems like it's really hard for us to be even loving to somebody. Like we want to lead with hate instead of love. So we can't get to hospitality. We can't get there because maybe love's a precursor to hospitality.

SPEAKER_00:

We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend. And if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionisttheology.com. But how do you learn to love someone until you've heard their story? I think that hospitality can get us to love. I don't I think that hospitality expands our ability to love people well. And having a hospitable uh spirit or idea or creating a space that is full of hospitality allows us to hear someone else's story, allows us to gain a different perspective, allows us to expand. I believe it has to be nurtured. I just see even the very image of God in hospitality, where, you know, God is community and God invites us into community, and everything that God makes in this world that is so full of abundance invites us into hospitality. And in the ways that we have said, this is my house, my space, my church, my city, my and we've narrowed it down to these singular spaces. I think hospitality opens it up into so much more. And this idea of what do I do to be hospitable to my neighbor? What do I do to be hospitable to my enemy? How do I even practice removing those things if it's not without hospitality? And so I think that hospitality is a gateway for all of these things that we want uh uh love to be or love to be expressed in us through. So what do we do to be people who are hospitable? I see this so much in the life of Jesus and in all the ways that Jesus met people in hospitable ways where they found themselves outside or not being seen. And Jesus sees them and in the seeing of them presents the miracle and then the invitation for us to witness those miracles and that way of being. Hospitality was a huge part of the story that was told of how God comes into the world. And then again, commissioned by Jesus, um, Mary is the first witness, and and Jesus says, Yeah, go and tell what it looks like. You know, how does this hospitality, you know, change everything? Everyone's invited to the table. Everyone's invited to this grace, everyone's invited to this way of thinking that God is with us at all times. And it radical hospitality costs is very, very expensive, but everyone has the commodity for that, and it is presence. Will I be present? Will I open myself and be able to listen, to be able to see, to be available? A lot of times we like to wrap it up and say it's not my gift or it's not my thing because I don't have a Martha Stewart's home or I don't have all these things to offer. And but you do, you have your own presence to offer someone. You, even in their grief, we can be hospitable. In their anger, we can be hospitable. In every situation, we can practice divine hospitality and then offer that to the world. Here is how God participates with us. Here, this is how love attends to this situation. It is through us, it is our hands, our feet. And it is the understanding of the nurture of hospitality in our own lives that we then offer it to others. But I definitely think it has to be nurtured. Perhaps it has to be witnessed. Again, Mary, given the invit the task, witness this. Go tell them. Will you be my witnesses?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm thinking uh as I'm listening to you share these thoughts uh today, I'm I'm thinking about all of the spaces where people try to find hospitality. You mentioned in community, or maybe it's like social groups or meetups or nature walks. Somehow we are all in need of this sort of community. We're all searching for places to belong, either sacred or in nature or you know, inside the church or outside the church. But you also touched on something that I was thinking, and then you said it. I wonder if if listening is the most hospitable practice that we could offer as expansionists, right? Like, I'm just gonna listen to you because in our world we have so many talkers, so many people giving us opinions, so many people driving the agenda, so many people promising X, Y, or Z. But who's listening? Who's actually listening? Perhaps listening is the most hospitable practice that we could bring to others.

SPEAKER_00:

Because what if listening allows us to truly see? What if we need to hear in order to see? What if listening to someone else we can hear the pain and then see it? Or we can see the exclusion and then meet that need? What if listening is the beginning of hospitality? But then hospitality wouldn't allow us just to listen and then do nothing about it. Although we don't have to correct every problem. Sometimes what we need is to not be alone in the problem that we find ourselves, you know, to have listened, to have carried that burden, to just be present with someone while they're walking through something or while they're experiencing something. I I do believe that there could be some powerful, miraculous bridges built if we would stop and listen to each other. If then that listening would say, What is in my hand? What is the miracle that I have that I could offer here? Or what can we do together?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I believe it's a key ingredient. I really do. Um well, I don't think we listen enough um to what's going on in other people's lives or for very long, like we're we're busy or we've we've got an appointment, or you know, there's something happening outside, some kind of commotion. I just had to like mute the microphone to make sure that the um the police sirens didn't get in on the podcast, but there's always something going on, right, for us to pay attention to. And so listening to a friend or a coworker or a relative or somebody that yeah, just needs that kind of hospitality. That that's what they need today. I think there's some wisdom in that, yeah, and maybe even for myself today.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that listening to people will also um cause us to inconvenience ourselves and maybe learn another way of doing things. We as a family um have included someone recently who is gluten-free. And um, in our home, we have many different um, you know, eating types. Um, my daughter is vegetarian, but this person who is a part of our family at this moment is gluten-free, and none of the recipes that I know are gluten-free. Like it takes effort for me to say, how will I offer them a seat at this table and acknowledge their particular way of eating? And what does it look like? I've practiced vegetarianism. I I think I could cook an incredible meal for vegetarians and they'd be very happy with this. But the gluten-free one, I have to stop and think, okay, how could I modify this? What could I do to include something else? And I think that that's important in not just eating, but in the way that we listen to someone and say, How do you need something prepared so that your body can receive it as nourishment? I mean, her body is severely allergic to the problem, and the things that are nourishing to my family are not nourishing to her. And so how do we change things? And what does it look like for us to say, when we listen to someone else, even the things that are that we feel are nourishing to us spiritually, what if it's causing harm to someone else? We need to remove those things to be able to say, how does the table benefit everyone? What does it look like for us to practice radical hospitality, re-examine the things? You know, if we're those people who say, well, everyone in my family can tolerate this, so you know, it doesn't matter that your lactose intolerant, you know, or those kind of things. But I think that listening requires us to change. And that's what we're so afraid of. We're so afraid that if we change that somehow, and I think this comes back to that idea of lack and scarcity as opposed to abundance. Hospitality recognizes that we will need the miraculous for this to nourish everyone, for this to be enough for everyone, miracles will have to happen. And very often that fear or scarcity or lack generally lead us to be not hospitable, for us to circle the wagons. It's us and them, as opposed to going, nope. The idea is we may have to learn to cook this differently. We may have to take certain things out of the diet or out of rotation so that everyone. Can feel nourished so that everyone can be whole.

SPEAKER_01:

I I love those um those suggestions and those examples. And um one of the things as I was listening to you that came to my mind was if you're Jesus, basically you just walk up to somebody sitting in a tree waiting to meet you and invite yourself to their to their table, which is also this beautiful expression of hospitality. Really, Zacchaeus was like, all right, I need to see this person. I have been hearing about this person, you know, I'm gonna climb this tree and and and get uh a really good glimpse uh of who he is um as as as he walks by or passes under the tree. But the intention, um uh and and maybe something that that happened in in some sort of transcendent way between them. Uh some scholars think this, but something happened. The two of them met under the tree. Zacchaeus, come on down. I I'm gonna dine at your table. Well, was Zacchaeus prepared for that? You know, did he have a menu already? Like in his thought of okay, this is this is what we're gonna eat uh together. I I don't think I went to the market and got fish yesterday, but okay. And and so as as I'm listening to you talk about this, these unforeseen moments, these unplanned opportunities, this way of uh of showing up for other people in radical, expressive tones, is just a beautiful way to live, whether we're people of faith or not. And I and I think that's the expansionist place that I am in at this moment today, that you know what is the right thing to do is going the extra mile, if if calling it I'm gonna go the extra mile today, call it that. But that looks like hospitality, right?

SPEAKER_00:

If it looks like I'm gonna listen today, let's let's talk about Zacchaeus, but let's do that on a whole other podcast because my mind is swirling with good ideas about that and that understand that. I'm also thinking about, you know, if you go to the text and look at it, the mother who puts a basket together for her kid so that her child can be fed, and then put that in the hands of Jesus in 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 by the time you had children and women. Let's not just count the men. But this idea of practicing the sacred in the ordinary, providing a meal, a loving meal for our own can actually expand to so much more. And I I love this idea of sometimes there are women behind the scenes who are still offering this, but I have to go back to the story of Zacchaeus and we have to have a conversation about it because there's a point where Jesus says, salvation has come to this house because Zacchaeus makes amends. He goes back and actually does the work. And what does it look like for us as people in this century, in this culture, in this 2025, to say, what kind of amends do we actually need to be making because we practice hospitality? How do we say, I have taken too much and I need to return this? How do we say, I have taken more than my share, and how do I return this?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and and to add to that is first there was some kind of breaking of bread, there was conversation, there was listening, there was some kind of exchange of uh between the two of them that that rendered this. And maybe it wasn't immediate. I I don't think the text says he immediately went, and and if it does say that, so be it. But you know, sometimes we have to have that that lunch meeting over and over and over in order to get to that practice. We can't just like, wow, I'm gonna go and make amends. I just had I just had a meal with Jesus, I'm gonna jump in the car and I'm going across town right now. Yeah, it happens that way sometimes. But I think for the most part, it is here's a reminder, here's a suggestion, here's something to practice, here's a way, you know, to get your hands and your heart and your mind around how to be more hospitable. And and maybe hospitality wasn't the exact tone uh of the story of Zacchaeus. Maybe it really was about salvation for his soul.

SPEAKER_00:

But either way, but what if salvation is directly tied to hospitality? Certainly it's God's hospitality toward us. And what if true salvation coming back to ourselves, the wholeness? What if that's absolutely tied to hospitality? Because we are not whole unless everyone is whole. We are not fed unless everyone is fed. So true salvation, true restoration comes when we understand this is the invitation always of the divine is to dwell with people, mankind, the dwelling among each other.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm glad you went there. Because salvation, somebody might be thinking, oh, I need to get XYZ and baptized and turned over three times. Um so thank you for going there with that word, because there are things that are saving us on a regular basis. Oh, yes, please. There are things that are saving us on a minute-by-minute basis. Um, but we maybe we're we're not paying attention, but maybe we are and and seeing them in hospitable ways as, well, these practices will save us. These are the things that will turn radical love and radical acceptance into radical hospitality. Thank you for this beautiful conversation about this today. And yeah, if we need to press press in again next week, let's do. Let's let's break open some some bread and and cup around Zacchaeus and um and take that and and some of these other lessons that I know that are um you know so dear to you and and into your heart uh of how you see love in the world. So just grateful for this time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we hospitality is not something that we can talk about in just one particular podcast, but it is a way for us. Yeah, and where do you stop? I don't know that we have to. Well, this particular point, we just stop here and say to be continued, to be further talked about, to be further practiced, to be further expanded. But what does it look like for us to invite spirit to nurture within us a hospitable place? How do we ask the spirit to expand our ability to make safe and nourishing places for everyone? How do we ask the spirit, other than just saying open my eyes, that I could see a place that I could make space for someone else at our table, at our in our thoughts, in our intentions.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that key word is open open open.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to read a prayer Lord, open unto me by Howard Thurman. Open unto me light for my darkness, open unto me courage for my fear, open unto me hope for my despair, open unto me peace for my turmoil, open unto me joy for my sorrow, open unto me strength for my weakness, open unto me wisdom for my confusion, open unto me forgiveness for my sins, open unto me tenderness for my toughness, open unto me love for my hates, open unto me thyself for myself. Lord, Lord, open unto me. It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionist theology.com.