Hospitality Spelled Backwards
Is Martha Stewart in League With the Devil?
Amy Laura Hall
October 1, 2001
I think it was the Ellsworth American that broke the story two summers ago, under the wry headline "Martha Stewart's Hospitality Is Inescapable." Late one night, a befuddled limousine driver accidentally pulled into the unmarked driveway of Martha Stewart's home on Mount Desert Island, Maine. He was confronted by none other than Martha Stewart herself, who not only called the police (three times in 20 minutes) but blocked the limo with her SUV until the police arrived, treating the driver and his passengers to some choice words about her privacy. It was, shall we say, a less than hospitable welcome.
Before you decide that I need to get a real cause, or that I harbor resentment because I am a young wife who cannot make a cherry pie, consider carefully the part chosen, and encouraged, by our sister Martha. They say that evil is live spelled backwards, and that Satanists like to recite the Lord's Prayer in reverse. Martha Stewart herself may be performing just such an inversion. Yes, I am suggesting-with a soupcon of hyperbole-that Martha is in league with the Prince of Doom.
As the spiritual grandchildren of a wandering Aramaean, Christians have a real stake in the matter of hospitality. Reminding us that we were once one step away from starvation, God commands us to feed and offer shelter to the alien in our midst. If not for the hand of a gracious stranger, we and our camels would have quite literally bit the dust, and so we are repeatedly told in both the Old and the New Testaments to cultivate the art of generosity. The Gospel of Matthew even goes so far as to warn that, inasmuch as we do or don't practice hospitality, we do or don't serve the Lord himself. Making space, making room, making pies as well as making beds, is ...
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