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Hospitality is at the heart of our community. |
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Rev. Keith Reynolds I have lived in Southampton for about three and a half years and have a growing sense that the history and present reality of this community has hospitality as one of its essential tenets. This may also be true for Port Elgin and other communities around this area, but because I am located in Southampton, it is from this context in which I write. By hospitality, I mean quite simply how we welcome one another. As a port town, there is a long history of visitors coming and going. In many ways, location defines identity. First Nations people have known this long before non-aboriginal people arrived here and claimed it as our town. Hospitality has shaped the identity of Southampton for many years. How visitors are welcomed. How guests are treated. How holidays are spent. How the beach is cared for. Not all of Southampton’s history has been marked by the extension of hospitality. There have been very painful moments in our past. And yet, somehow this town on the Lake Huron shoreline has survived, and I would suggest thrived because people have been welcomed. What hospitality does is that it takes us out of ourselves and into the life of another person. Hospitality defines itself not by the host but by the guest. The guest is the important one. The guest is the one who takes priority. The guest is valued and respected. |
(continued) When the guest becomes the focus, the possibility for community occurs. This kind of community is marked by an openness and respect from the host. I value your life. Your humanity means something to me. You have worth. The openness of the host becomes an opportunity for community between the host and the guest. If the host is closed, preoccupied or distracted, the guest knows this and the possibility for community decreases. The hope for a friendship becomes limited. When I am preoccupied with something, there is no room for someone else. I am in my own world and that person has no place in it. Community becomes very difficult. What moves me about Southampton is the time taken for others. The time shared by looking someone in the eyes and saying "hello". The time together picking up mail at the post office and catching up on each other's lives. Taking a walk on the boardwalk and stopping to admire the view with a stranger. Hospitality takes time. In this 150th anniversary year of Southampton, there are many ways in which hospitality will be extended. Staying in touch with this publication will give you lots of information and scheduling. What I wonder about is the continued cultivation of hospitality in our area. In what ways are guests and visitors inviting us to grow more fully in the spirit of welcome? In what ways are those different from us offering an opportunity to discover a wider community? How is the stranger among us asking us to be more deeply rooted in the gift we already share? With gratitude for this place and the people who call this area home. Keith Reynolds
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