Hospitality is not to change people

Hospitality is not to change people,
but to offer them space
where change can take place …
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;
free to sing their own songs,
speak their own language,
dance their own dances;
free also to leave
and follow their own vocations.

Henri Nouwen