Expect life-changing impact! “Those who feed people lead people.”

Twelve years ago, our friend Garrett Miller came home for lunch with my husband on their lunch break. He ate leftover Manicotti, sat down at the piano and played a Bill Evans tune, and then he left me a note and thanked me for the lunch. I wish I would have been there, or saved the note!

Three days later Garrett died. His red BMW motorcycle hit a deer, the bike flipped, and he died instantly.

Garrett was a very spiritual man, a father of 4 young adorable children and married to a strikingly beautiful Italian wife, with many gifts. He was an artist (he was returning from an art show, and for those of you familiar with Britt Festivals here in our town, his jazz watercolor was the Britt poster that next year), musician, poet, and writer. He was a great inspiration to our family, to my husband specifically. You can see my post here, on our last dinner in their home (Perfection & Hospitality).

Garrett use to say: “Those who feed people lead people”.

Garrett was a person of impact, a person of inspiration. From that moment on, Paul and I decided that we would impact the world as Garrett had. With God’s help and love, we would open up our home for people to feel welcome and wanted. We determined to offer others the same laughter and encouragement that Garrett had given to us.

This post is so appropriate for completing my 10 Commandments that I live by when entertaining. I hope you have been inspired. I hope my posts have gotten you thinking about what types of entertaining you can do in your life and home. How you can apply this to your life. How you can look for ways to open your doors and make hospitality a “natural” in your life. How things don’t have to be perfect, and how you don’t have to be rigid in the way you entertain. How successful entertaining means relationship-building, and not necessarily a beautiful production or a lot of people impressed because of the “image” you created.

Here’s an email I received today, from a friend who started reading my blog back in October 2006:

I want you to know that your blog has been a part of why I am pursuing a better way of living. I want to be comfortable opening my home to people and since I am so uneasy in my own skin, it’s been just about impossible to think much about hospitality. And yet I desire it. So, thank you for that as well!

That is so encouraging to me!

Whether you are a seasoned entertainer or an entertaining klutz, let’s keep the 10 Commandments of being hospitable in mind as we go out and change the world. If I have the mindset and expectation that I am going to make a difference in this world, and it starts in my home, I believe that I can literally transform the structure of my community and of my world!

What part of the 10 Commandments resonated with you?

(Above picture taken of the Rogue Valley, November 2006; picture below of me with3 of my greatest friends who are a great inspiration to me when it comes to hospitality!)