“The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free…” Henri J.M. Nouwen
Rita and I started volunteering at the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge in February this past year, mostly in the Visitor Center. During a typical shift between fifty and a hundred visitors will come into the center to ask questions, look for directions, cruise our little shop of nature books, clothing, and art, browse the well-designed exhibits while their children try to complete the scavenger hunt identifying the various animals and birds, get a drink of water, or use the restrooms. The rangers estimate they represent about a quarter of the total visitors walking the two and half miles of trails. It’s a busy place, but it rarely feels crowded.
We’ll feed the critters in the tank, make sure there’s plenty of toilet paper in the bathrooms, close out any sales from shoppers who buy from the gift shop, guide the visitors with trail maps and the large mural of the refuge for visitors, answer questions about what they’ve seen, or just point out the entrance to the bathrooms for those who come in looking a bit frantic.
One of the pleasant surprises for us has been to dispel the common misperception that the work ethic of
government employees is somehow not up to the standard of private employees. The rangers we’ve had the honor to meet are dedicated, smart, knowledgeable about wildlife – both flora and fauna, friendly, sensitive to visitor needs, diligent about protecting all things wild, and work hard and long. They don’t direct from afar; when plantings are needed to recover and protect erosion areas, they are on their knees with dirt on their hands. Understaffed, they rely heavily on volunteers to help with building and trail maintenance. They have a mission, and willingly fulfill it with dedication and no small measure of joy in their calling.
A second and more transformative surprise comes in meeting the many strangers who come from all over the country and the world to enjoy the trails and beauty of Sachuest Point and marvel at the array of nature through hiking or studying the exhibits. Hospitality in this sublime place has benefits for the visitors and those who welcome them. Hosting a visitor center turns out to be a minor apostolate and an opportunity to make decisions to love other human beings we meet along the way.
Most of the questions we field are prosaic. “Do you have a trail map?” Yes. This is how you orient it to the visitor center. Ocean View is a bit longer, but more open to the sea out by the point. Harbor seals have been seen there. “Can I fish off the rocks for stripers?” Yes. In season and with a license you can get online. “I heard there is a scavenger hunt questionnaire for kids?” There is, and we have stickers for them when they attempt it. “How much do I owe for parking here?” A hundred bucks, cash, is my usual answer, but no one ever believes me or pays. It is open and free to all. “Where are the bathrooms?” For the guys, there is a very big one out back in the woods. Rita gives me ‘the look’ when I say that. Or you can use the ones right behind you that have a flush. “Can you tell me what this bird (or bug or snake or shellfish or snail or flowering shrub or vine) is on my phone camera or as I describe it?” Sometimes we can. Other times we need to consult the many books on our wildlife shelf. It’s enjoyable to search and learn with them. “What is that animal we saw that looks like a weasel?” Probably a mink. “I saw a pair of pheasants (with great enthusiasm)!” Yes. They are very beautiful. “Does anything eat the deer here?” We have a good herd of about forty here. Please don’t feed them. Sometimes coyotes get a small or a weakened one. And sometimes the velociraptors get one. (That may get “the look” again from Rita, but kids like my answer. Wide eyed, they laugh.)
“’Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
Come in, she said, I’ll give ya shelter from the storm.”
Bob Dylan, “Shelter From the Storm”
The word “hospitality” derives from the Latin “hospes.”[i] Other related words derive from this root like hospital, host, hostel, hotel, and hostage or hostile because the Latin could mean guest and stranger or even enemy. Hospitality implies a mutual social obligation to provide welcome and shelter to neighbors and strangers who might prove occasionally to be a problem. That is always a risk with hospitality, I suppose, but has never proven to be a problem for us.
Like other venues that welcome all comers, Sachuest has regulars who become known and comfortable with the place: men, women, and children who walk the trails weekly or daily. Most are folks like us who have come to love the varying moods and seasons of the trails and walk them year round. We never tire of hundreds of migrating songbirds that come and go, raptors, waterfowl, insects, snails, and flowering plants. We recognize the regular hikers from the trails, and they recognize us. They are invariably friendly and smile easily almost without exception. I have yet to meet a cranky person there – either because the environment eases their angst or because it tends to attract people who don’t carry a lot of it anyway.
But some of the regulars are familiar with loneliness, heartache, and hard lives. They come often; we know some of their names. Occasionally they might drag a chair over to the welcome desk and bring us up to date on the assisted living or nursing home where they live. We have greeted visitors with a terminal diagnosis; they are brought by a friend or family member to remember the many good times here. Not exactly a bucket list visit, more of a bittersweet farewell. Sachuest visitor center offers them a respite from the grinding routine even if they can no longer walk the trails.
One regular visitor lives in an assisted living and only gets out when her friend (platonic) drives an hour over a couple of bridges to pick her up and bring her to the center after their AA meeting. They come almost every week, sit for a while on the benches outside and chat quietly, enjoying some people watching, and taking in the view of Sachuest Beach with the spires of St. George School on the southern end along with distant views of the Bellevue Avenue mansions across the bay. Oftentimes they come in for a visit and sit in the chairs by the visitor desk to bring us into the conversation. He is a pleasant sort of absent minded fellow who is a retired bus driver, gentle and unassuming without pretensions. She has a couple of black belts in two martial arts, which apparently were helpful in her old job as a bartender and occasional bouncer. Her life remains difficult and now is physically challenging. They seem an unlikely pair but clearly benefit from discovered kinship and support. He lifts her up with quiet small acts of kindness.
And so can we try as well — listen, smile, console and commiserate, if that is what seems needed, laugh together if we can, empathize, share stories. Take them by the hand sometimes. How fragmentary and imperfect and partial our response is, but God uses even our inadequacy to comfort and build up in insignificant actions and words of little consequence. Connect. Acknowledge our common struggle. Lighten the load for a short time. Offer solace and momentary affable companionship. Sachuest Point Wildlife Refuge is a good place, and we will try to make it even more of one if we are able.[ii]
“To love someone means to see him as God intended him.” Fyodor Dostoevsky
[i] https://www.etymonline.com/word/hospitality
[ii] Pictures from my phone and The Good Samaritan, Vincent van Gogh. Public domain, Wikimedia. One is a phone picture of me taken by a ranger on the day fifteen or so rangers and volunteers planted 1,200 indigenous shrubs and grasses to return an old trail to the wild after it had to be moved due to erosion. It was a grand day among grand company.
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