\u201cWell,\u201d I say, \u201cI guess it helps that anyone who\u2019s been around these parts for long has probably been in here and bought shoes!\u201d<\/p>\n
This is something that Samuel Ewell<\/a> pointed out to me, a while back: it asks more of people to invite them into your private domestic space, when compared with a space which is, in some way, part of the common experience of the local community. I suppose that\u2019s why this house felt right, when we first set eyes on it, four years ago this autumn \u2013 because, for all that we talk about this as \u201ca school that starts from the conversations we bring together around our kitchen table\u201d, it\u2019s the liminal zone of the former shoe shop which eases the making of these open invitations.<\/p>\n Reading Rosie Whinray<\/a>\u2019s recent\u00a0Postcard from Brixton<\/a>, I was taken back to my\u00a0Spacemakers<\/a>\u00a0days, when we were running events in the empty shops in the arcades there, then starting up the community-owned and run street market festival they call the\u00a0West Norwood Feast<\/a>. One thing I learned in those years is that there\u2019s a magical threshold, whenever you make an open invitation to a gathering: at first, as people start to show up, you see them looking around a little awkwardly, wondering if they made a mistake, and you wonder the same thing too; maybe this is going to be a flop, an embarrassment, a proof of our foolishness. Then, all at once, while you\u2019re looking the other way, something shifts. It\u2019s not a gradual fade, it\u2019s a flip from one state to another, because suddenly everyone has forgotten to wonder whether they should have done something else with their Saturday night or their Sunday afternoon, and the gathering comes alive.<\/p>\n These things don\u2019t map straightforwardly across scales from a south London high street to a shoe shop in small-town Sweden, but I felt an echo of that experience on Saturday. By Anna\u2019s count, there were over fifty visitors who crossed the threshold in the course of the afternoon, easily the busiest gathering we\u2019ve held, and a good mix of friends, acquaintances and strangers. Partly, it was an easy invitation to say yes to \u2013 \u201cAdvent\u00a0fika<\/em>\u00a0with an English accent\u201d, mince pies and a bit of carol singing \u2013 and partly it\u2019s a reflection of a year in which we\u2019ve had the energy to look outwards and get engaged in the existing life of this community, joining the committee that runs the\u00a0folkpark<\/em>\u00a0on the edge of town, showing up most Sundays at the church across the road. We just know a lot more people around here than we did a year ago. That feels good.<\/p>\n I\u2019m standing at the shop counter, restocking the plate of tea bread, when a couple of guests who are heading off come over to ask how they should pay.<\/p>\n \u201cNo need,\u201d I say, \u201cwe\u2019re giving it all away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d the man says with a smile, \u201cthat really is the Christmas spirit!\u201d<\/p>\n Afterwards, Anna and I talk about an idea for next year, a simple monthly event during the term-time months: a soup dinner where we\u2019d sometimes have a guest to speak, or sing, or a film screening afterwards.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course,\u201d she says, \u201cwe\u2019d have to charge something. Or what do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a strong pull in me to follow the inspiration of the way that Adam Wilson<\/a> and friends are working at Sand River Community Farm, leaning all the way out into the logic of gift. But as Anna points out, if we don\u2019t make it possible for people to contribute, then they will find it hard to keep coming, and we don\u2019t have an equivalent just now to the \u201cfarm frolics\u201d at Sand River, the opportunities to make a contribution in kind.<\/p>\n As we\u2019re talking, I remember a little story from the David Schwartz essay in\u00a0The Challenges of Ivan Illich<\/a><\/em>, an essay which has been\u00a0on my mind this autumn<\/a>. Here\u2019s the story, which Schwartz quotes from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin\u2019s\u00a0Love Your Neighbor: You and Your Fellow Man in Light of the Torah<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n Rabbi Yitzchok of Vorki once praised the hospitality of a certain innkeeper who always treated his guests with much respect. \u201cBut he takes money from those who stay at his inn,\u201d someone argued. \u201cOf course he takes money,\u201d replied Rav Yitzchok, \u201cbut he does so to enable himself to continue his commendable conduct. The warmth of his welcome and the thoughtful care he gives are proof that he feels love for his guests. If he wouldn\u2019t take money, he would not be able to continue his hospitality.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I reckon there\u2019s a clue in that story, a lens through which it might be possible to discern two quite different ways of being, when it comes to money; two different tunes we can be dancing to. One of these is well described in the logic of the economists, the other falls out of view when we take their claims at face value. For there\u2019s a great difference between\u00a0\u201cwe do this in order to make money\u201d\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0\u201cwe take money in order to be able to do this\u201d<\/em>. Maybe you can think of pockets of hospitality in your own experience, even today, which are running to that second, hidden logic.<\/p>\n
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