The opposite of hospitality is hostility, and we're living in it.

Hello {{first name | Dearest Reader}},

Well, the world feels extra heavy this week, and while I love a good ol' TACO Tuesday, yesterday was not the kind I wanted at all. Yes, I wanted Trump to chicken out on his promise to commit genocide, but I also never wanted to have my favorite food tied to the safety of fellow humans.

But here we are.

And in the middle of all of it--the grief, the doomscrolling, the struggling to show up--at least I finished a book. "Unreasonable Hospitality" by Will Guidara, thanks to a dear friend. The timing felt like more than a coincidence. Because it's not lost on me that the complete opposite of hospitality is hostility. And right now? We are swimming in it.

So in the spirit of where we are, and the very real struggle to keep showing up (which I have a feeling isn't just mine), here are some parallels from Will's work and how you can use his experience and advice to be unreasonably hospitable in a hostile world.

1. Make people feel valued. Starting with yourself.
One of the central questions Guidara built his entire career around is: How do you make the people you serve feel seen and valued? In a world where our government is actively making people feel disposable, that question becomes an act of resistance.

Start with yourself. Value isn’t something you wait to feel, it’s something you demonstrate through how you treat yourself. Ask what it would look like to take yourself seriously today, not just in comfort, but in care with standards. Maybe it’s keeping a promise you made to yourself, saying no without over-explaining, choosing presence over numbing out, or allowing yourself to acknowledge what’s heavy instead of minimizing it. Name it, then follow through, because self-respect is built in the follow-through, not the intention.

Then extend it. Reach for someone with intention. Making people feel valued isn’t about grand gestures; it’s about being deliberate with your attention in a world that constantly tries to take it from you.

2. Create connection in unlikely moments.
Guidara talks about hospitality being a dialogue, not a monologue. It's not about performing generosity, it's about genuinely meeting people where they are. The current climate is isolating by design. Divide, distract, demoralize. The antidote is connection, and it doesn't require a grand gesture.

Create a moment of genuine connection this week in whatever space you occupy. Host the dinner. Start the group chat. Propose the Zoom that isn't a meeting, it's just us. Power is built in community, and community is built in moments. Don't let the hostility of the world talk you out of gathering.

3. Be unreasonable.
This one hit me hardest. Guidara writes that the word "unreasonable" was used to shut down his most ambitious ideas, until his team decided to wear it as a badge of honor. Because the truth is, no one who ever changed anything did it by staying inside the lines.

This is your permission slip to stop shrinking. Be unreasonable about it.

The world doesn't need more reasonable women quietly managing their discomfort. It needs us to be unreasonably hospitable--with our communities, with our dollars, with our voices, and yes, with ourselves.

You don't have to have it all figured out. Lord knows I don't. But maybe that's exactly why Will's book landed the way it did this week. Because hospitality, at its core, is the belief that people deserve to feel cared for. And right now? That belief is its own kind of power.

Show up anyway. Even imperfectly. Especially imperfectly.

With grace and gratitude,
Raven