Crafting a space

A lot of what we do at Give Us Names has to do with crafting a space where people can be the best versions of themselves. When we tell stories about people who have been taken away from home, and subsequently use those stories to help restore home to them, it's because we believe in the power that their home has to bring the best out of a person. There is a quote a friend shared with me last week that got me thinking a bit about what these spaces are for, the quote was from a really wise and wonderful priest named Henry Nouwen.

Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.

Hospitable spaces can do incredible things to a person. One thing in particular they can do is cause our imaginations to come alive with the prospect of what could be. Two summers ago I went to a small event a couple of friends of mine put together and their mission was to experiment with what a space like this could do for a person. The event was called IdeaFARM, and it was more a guided brainstorming session than any kind of event I had been apart of before. We met at a beautiful lake house in south Georgia for three days and talked about what could be. The results were amazing, many of the people who attended that conference have gone on to make their ideas happen, and others found relationships that have helped them kickstart other ideas.

My encouragement for you this week would be to find a hospitable space where you can brainstorm, maybe even a space where you can be cultivated by someone older and wiser in your brainstorming. My experience is that these kinds of spaces can do a lot for my soul and for my ideas.

If you are interested, my friends are hosting IdeaFARM again this summer, and they would love for you to check it out. If you are interested check out their site here.