Modern Monks Couch Surf

Mark wanted me to make the first post; instead I stared at the blinking vertical line on the word processor. Despite the blog readership being small, comprised mostly of family and close friends there are still nerves about my ability to do these topics justice. Being that this is my first post I find it fitting that it will be on the subject of hospitality and as we mentioned in our statement we would love for people to join in the conversation.

At the start of spring break a few weeks ago, twelve people from the Florida State Wesley Foundation (including myself) set out for the Holy Visitation Monastery in Mobile, Alabama. The name, however, was a little deceiving. This was no “monkery” instead it was a “nunnery”. The nuns weren’t cloistered (to be cloistered is to be secluded from the world, for nuns this meant they wouldn’t interact with others except through a medium such as a screen) but the setting was fairly traditional and the nuns dressed in the conventional garb wearing the black habit and the rigid white veil across their forehead.
Sister Margaret Mary greeted us in the foyer when we arrived Friday night; many of the other sisters were sick in bed, all of them on the greater side of fifty. After that first night, I didn’t see the nuns for about thirty-six hours and though our group wasn’t bumping into them all over the grounds there was a sense that if we needed anything it wouldn’t be a problem. We felt completely at home in their home. Ah, hospitality. We were staying in Mobile but being in the south probably had very little to do with the fact that we were so heartily welcomed. Southern hospitality may be famed but we have no monopoly, hospitality being one of the greatest monastic values.
St. Pachomios established the first Christian monastery between 318 and 323 in Tabenessi, Egypt, starting a shift from the hermetic style of monasticism made popular with St. Anthony. These new monastic communities were mutually beneficial for the monks but they also had a secondary effect of offering a warm place to stay for travelers passing through. The hermits may also have welcoming personalities but what were they going to offer, a cave? So this was a step up and welcoming strangers is a pretty biblical thing (Romans 12:13, 1 Peter 4:9, 3 John 1:8, etc.)
But we’re not in the business of inviting strangers into our home. For some of us it may be a stretch to even invite our families to spend the weekend in our residence let alone a potential ax murderer. So, we’ll be nice to all the people we do encounter, make soup for a friend that is sick in bed, but we’re not going to be radical and have a complete stranger in our house. That would be nuts, unless you’re signed up for couchsurfing.com.
CouchSurfing.com was started by Casey Fenton, a weary dot-com employee, who sent an email out before a trip to Iceland, found some hospitable locals to shack him up and show him around. Not only did he vow to never stay in another hotel, he thinks that we all have something to gain by not staying in hotels when we travel. CouchSurfing’s expressed mission statement is:

CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding. As a community we strive to do our individual and collective parts to create world a better place, and we believe that the surfing of couches is a mean to accomplish this goal. CouchSurfing is not about the furniture, not just about finding free accommodations around the world; it's about making connections worldwide. We make the world a better place by opening our homes, our hearts, and our lives. We open our minds and welcome the knowledge that cultural exchange makes available. We create deep and meaningful connections that cross oceans, continents and cultures. CouchSurfing wants to change not only the way we travel, but how we relate to the world!

That’s just it, they want to change not just the way we travel, but how we relate to the world. They want to “facilitate cultural understanding” and learning from interacting with travelers, which is exactly what happened in biblical times. Passer-bys were fantastic forms of entertainment. Not being able to flip on the nightly news or the O’Reily Factor the hosts would expect the traveler to regale them with stories about the outside world. But the marginal cost of inviting someone I don’t know into my house is greater than my marginal benefit of hearing some cool stories. I have the Dish network. If I want to know about Morocco I can watch the Travel Channel. Fear is a common concern.
Fenton probably hears those concerns in his sleep at night. In the frequently asked questions section of the website Couch Surf talks about being vouched for by a friend already vouched for in their travels as well as verification systems to reduce problems. They also have an E Bay style rating system where the host can grade the guest and the guest can likewise rate the host. There is a caveat however, once you sign up you are required to make your couch available, but, no, you are not required to accept everyone who knocks at your email box. Now there are 188,085 Couch Surfers world wide in 213 countries. The website already faced adversity when it had a database crash and reorganized to version 2.0 in 2006. Now the network seems poised to increase at a great rate. If you would like to get hooked into their network visit couchsurfing.com.
The most unique feature of the nuns was the peace in their complexions. They are human, yes, so I’m going to guess they had been afraid at some point in their lives but they didn’t show fear and certainly would accept someone showing up at their doorstep. In my form of asymptotic Christianity I will try to get ever closer to a Christ like attitude but I’m sure that I will never be quite the host that God intended me to be. Maybe I’ll just have to get over my risk aversion. Couch Surf looks like a helpful tool to curb my fear.

Among the extolled philosophies on Couch Surfing they have what they call, “The Center for Adventure Economics” which grapples with such economic subjects as risk reduction, efficient allocation, and motivation of non profit, pay it forward societies. In our next post we will deal more in the economic side of Couch Surfing.