Over the last few months, I have been thinking a lot about the way that places and spaces hold us. Walking through our old neighbourhood for the last time, I walked under aged elm trees, whose branches provided cover from a gentle rain. In other seasons, that park was a playground of snow, and a mountain of leaves. It was a space that held our family so beautifully over the last few years. 

I cleaned out our home to make space for new owners, remembering the laughter that filled the walls. The house held our nieces and nephews for sleepovers, dinners for friends, and hours playing games and doing puzzles. We have moved many times and each time, I am reminded how our homes become characters in the stories of our lives. Their rooms hold and shape us, asking nothing in return. Their spaces make us.

And as I have meditated with gratitude about these spaces, I have been so mindful of the way that people make space for us too. It takes willingness and intention for people, distinct from nature and buildings. We can choose to make space for people or not. And all of us have such a deep and important need for the space others make for us.

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As our family makes another move to a new city, we are keenly aware of the depth and breadth of the space that has been made for us. We are grieving the shifts in the friendships we have made. We are already sending notes and setting up video chats to stay in touch. At the same time, the kids are watching out the windows for the moments when they hear playing in the park. We are watching for the people that we can make space for in this new place. We know that some of them will give us the gift of making space for us.

Over the years, I have observed three things that I think are essential to the art of people making space for one another. First is gratitude. When we recognize that everything and everyone we encounter is a gift, we are more ready to make space for each other. For many years now, I have noticed how easy it is to love people when we expect them to be gifts. Each one has something to teach us, something to show us, something to appreciate.

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The second practice for making space for people is hospitality. This is essentially different from entertaining, where we clean everything up and make our best recipes and show people the best of ourselves. While entertaining can be fun, hospitality is essentially different. Hospitality is inviting people into our lives as they are on an ordinary day, without advance preparation. It is the willingness to have people witness the ordinary. And it is cherishing the invitation into others’ regular life. Hospitality allows people to open the junk drawer, come over for leftovers, bear witness to our faults and our strengths.

Finally, making space for each other invites us to practice compassion. To allow ourselves to be moved by and share in one another’s suffering. Rather than keeping our distance from the deepest joy and suffering, we enter into it together. We get willing for our lives to be a bit messy or inconvenienced by each other. 

Of course, it isn’t possible to make space for absolutely everyone we encounter in the same ways. Some people come in and out of our lives for a moment, and others stay for a lifetime; most are somewhere in between. But as we travel through life, we can always be on the lookout for the ones who are ours to hold. And for the ones who will hold us. 

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Just as we find the place in nature that stop our breath, give us comfort, we will find along the way the people whose lives will be interconnected with ours. The people who make space for us, shape us, change us in ways we couldn’t have imagined or known. 

May our hearts be inclined to make space for the ones that God has entrusted to us. And may we let ourselves be held by the ones who will make space for us.