Story of the Month: September
Discover the Power of Hospitality
Back in the 50’s, Nancy Schwoyer’s mother fell victim to breast cancer. She underwent a radical mastectomy that left her unable to perform some household chores. The family hired a black woman, Inez to help out. When Inez first came to the Schwoyer’s home, Nancy went to the front door to let her in, but to her surprise Inez said to her, ” Honey, open the back door.” Nancy’s mother intervened, insisting that the newest member of the Schwoyer “family” come in the front door. Inez balked, explaining that if neighbors saw a black woman entering through the front door of a white person’s house, she might suffer bitter consequences. “That night at dinner, my mother said, ‘I hope Inez will feel comfortable with us and welcomed by us.’ That was a pivotal experience. So many people in our society have to go in by the back door; I wanted everyone to be able to use the front door. I wanted to be welcoming like my mother.”
Not long after that, Nancy’s mother died. A student at an all girls school run by nuns, the sixteen-year-old girl signed up to join the convent. Almost immediately she regretted the decision. “In retrospect, I realize that I was looking for some kind of family and security after my mother died. It was literally only hours after making the decision that I realized I made a mistake. I was in this funny black and white outfit, running up the stairs in the convent, and at the top of the stairs, the sisters looked at me sternly and said, ‘You’re not allowed to run here.’ I thought, ‘What have I done!'”
Nevertheless Nancy stayed the course, taking her final vows a decade later.
For the next thirty years she pursued her calling as a nun. During this time, she had many amazing life altering experiences. She became involved in social change and righting injustices. But the nun’s life was making less and less sense to her, and she went into a spiritual crisis. She became deeply depressed. She tried different jobs within the order, but she knew that way of life was not for her. At first she couldn’t imagine what was next. But a picture began to emerge as she talked with other women. After 30 years as a nun, she asked to be released from her vows in 1981. She and six other women, all lay leaders, wanted a place where they could live together and create an alternative reality. They found a beautiful, welcoming, antique farm house in Gloucester, MA and named it Wellspring House:
“There was a well in the front yard,” Nancy explained, “and it was a perfect metaphor for our mission. Wellspring is an endless source of nourishment, and a place where people gather for refreshment on their journey. We decided we would participate in social change by practicing hospitality; it would be our spirituality. Hospitality is a way of being open; it is a criteria for change. We wanted to have a house big enough so that we could invite people to stay with us. We would welcome homeless women and their children and changed things for them. We were a community where we made decisions by consensus and dedicated ourselves to mutual learning with no hierarchy. We were very rooted in the land–we grew organic vegetables and were sensitive to how we used the environment’s resources. It was immediately attractive to people, and they started to come. I believe if you imagine that you can do it, the act of imagination unleashes something. When people come together and say we can do it and articulate it, the forces that you need come together and what is imagined gets carried forward. When I think of the problems we face, what is lacking in our country is imagination.”
Opening their home to the homeless and living with the disenfranchised as a way to create change is nothing less than radical. People, myself included, think of their work as heroic. This is how Nancy thinks about it. “I don’t know how people can work in partnership with homeless families unless they actually live with them. I can’t imagine not doing this work–the disenfranchised teach us so much if we are willing to listen. It’s what keeps me passionate.”
Wellspring House has alleviated the poverty for many mothers and their children and changed the lives of these families. They change lives because not only do they provide temporary housing, but they also invest in solutions that caused the homelessness in the first place. They are changing the conditions of poverty by helping homeless women and their children obtain homes, education, jobs and job training, parental support, counseling, and a stable family life in a safe environment. Nancy’s hospitality is no band-aid treatment. She is helping homeless women find a place in society, transforming their vulnerabilities into new strengths.
Today, Nancy, as the executive director of the non-profit Wellspring House, has lived with over 500 families and provided shelter for over 1,000 homeless mothers and children. Wellspring generates a budget of over $2 million, has a staff of 25, and a volunteer corp of more than 200.
“We are not just a social service organization,” Nancy told me, “we are a social change organization, which means relationship change. We help people who are victims of injustice adapt to unjust systems. I say to women, ‘I’ll teach you how to work the system, but that’s not the end game. We want to change it. But if you are going to survive, you have to know how to play the system first.”
Nancy’s hospitality provided roots for the wandering, created new possibilities for women where the homeless received a real chance to change their lives. Nancy’s work can only be described as sacred work. The spirit of Nancy’s mother is alive in Wellspring; no one comes in the back door.
This holiday discover the spirituality of hospitality and you will be given the gift of gratitude and something to be grateful for.