This juxtaposition of devotional décor and survival supplies met my husband and I at the entryway of our sabbatical lodging. We appreciated our hosts’ thoughtfulness. We were going to need bear spray, which can be expensive. Then we giggled at such a welcome: Relax and enjoy yourselves . . . but watch out! As the days went on, I started to ponder the deeper life-of-faith metaphor, as the life of faith always invites us to do: The way might be wild, but the Lord watches over us and leads us home.

We were about to start a two-week stay in Star Valley Ranch, Wyoming. My husband had been granted a sabbatical to work on a book. I was allowed a leave of absence to work on my D.Min. thesis. We spent the first weeks in a Bozeman condo, a gracious gift from lifelong family friends. The following weeks in Wyoming were made possible through a friend of a friend. (Bless you, Jill and Bob.) Mountain hospitality—what a gift!

On the drive to Star Valley, awed by autumn’s explosive color palette, one particular mountain, dotted by ruby red trees, caught my eye from two miles away. When Google Maps told us to turn that direction, my mouth dropped. We’re staying on that mountain? We climbed the gravel road and pulled into the driveway, my mind reeling and my joy welling. As my husband started to unpack, I texted the local caretaker to announce our arrival. He replied: Glad you made it safe. Enjoy the view! Welcome home!

Welcome home. Those two words landed on me like a hug I didn’t know I needed. Even better, my heart’s own welcome of those words was pure gratitude. I could have thought: Home? I could only wish for a home like this! And in two weeks I’ll have to leave. But the voices that try to rob us of joy could not stand against the beauty of that place and the generosity of our hosts, from bear spray on the table to cozy blankets by the fireplace. And indeed, it became home.

I have always loved stories and storytelling. And I’m starting to think all stories are about seeking and/or finding home. Not just a home but home, in the deepest, truest sense of the word. Though I’m not trained in philosophy or ethics, I humbly suggest that hospitality is the point of all virtue. Love, the source of all virtue, is the foundational what. But hospitality is the foundational why. Why love? Why grace? Because we all want to sit down, put feet up, breathe, and just be home.

In my Latin classes, students often confuse the words hospes and hostis: guest and enemy. A big difference there! And while they are easy to decipher if you think of the English derivatives (hospital, hospitality vs. hostile, hostility), they do look and sound a lot alike. In fact, they can both be translated as “stranger,” though with different connotations. But it’s striking, isn’t it? We were once strangers, separated from God—enemies even! But now we are invited guests. And more than just invited. We are welcomed and loved.

At a staff in-service day last summer, I spoke about hospitality as our core educational and community virtue. In our relationships at school (or anywhere), we can find ourselves on one side of the door or the other, invited as a guest or inviting to a guest. At the beginning of every year, students often must be reminded: Hold the door for the person behind you.

Children aren’t the only ones who need reminding. At the end of a long day, it’s tempting to rush home to a big cozy chair. If we’re honest, maybe we want that door to stay closed. Even locked? But we can’t put our feet up when there are weary and wandering feet yet behind us. And if “at home” means alone and unbothered by strangers we’d rather not welcome, which side of the door are we really on?

Thankfully, in our eternal relationship, we’re all guests and our host is all generosity. And he is the door. Note: When I wrote the first draft of my in-service devotional on my phone’s notes app, autocorrect changed hospes to gospel. Indeed.

Stories about hospitality can inspire us, of course, and this coming year, my colleagues and I will be sharing many good and true stories with our students. But reading about virtue does not, in fact, make us virtuous. The gospels have plenty to say about those who know the rules of hospitality but selectively practice them.

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.

Home is where the divine promise is always real. Yes, bears are real too, and you might need some spray along the trail. But the fears and other realities of human life aren’t unknown to the Promise Maker. After all, he made his home here. 

“Welcome home!” Welcome words from a man I’d never met. (Bless you, Marc.) If all stories are about home, then so is mine. My home is not just Grand Rapids, where I’ve lived now for 25 years, nor South Dakota, where I was born and raised, nor that Wyoming mountainside, where my heart still longs to be. Contrary to the proverbial saying, home is not where the heart is. Home is where God’s heart finds us. 

Autocorrect made no error. Home is the gospel. The door is open. The meal is ready. And there is more than enough room.