Whispering Winds Blog

Three years and three and a half months ago I started writing a book on hospitality. Last Wednesday, 1200 days after starting the project, I signed off on the book with the publisher. In a week or two I should hold the first copy of the published book in my hands.

Why did I want to write a book on hospitality? I guess it’s because I think I know something about the subject. Forty years ago Mim started to teach me everything she knew about hospitality. Then we learned new things together about being hospitable. The more we learned, the more we were ready to begin new adventures – like having both short-term and long-term roommates, turning our home into a B&B, and then caring for people who are dying in our home.

Besides learning about hospitality from trial and error, we also were curious about whether or not God had any instructions for us in the Bible about being hospitable. Needless to say, we’ve done our homework on the subject of hospitality. That’s why I felt ready and able to write a book on it. I also felt driven to do so because I think hospitality is so important.

But now it’s done. After 1200 days, writing the book is no longer on my to-do list. How do I feel about that? Strange. I guess it’s the “empty nest syndrome.” My baby has left home. I went to Christmas Mountain again for a few days last week. That’s where I wrote a lot of the book over the last few years. It seemed strange not to feel that I had to focus all my attention on writing or revising the text yet one more time. The last version, number 13(!), is the last. The book – Come , Lord Jesus, Be Our Guest: Adventures in Hospitality – is finished.

So what’s next? I hope it’s not writing another book – at least not for a while. I have about 1200 books I want to read first. As British novelist Angela Carter said, “A book is simply the container of an idea – like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.” I guess that means I have about 1200 more ideas to explore. That’s the magic of books. They provide a means of exploring new ideas. Fortunately, now it’s time for me to do some more exploring. Maybe I’ll write another book later, when I can’t help it. I’ll let you know.