PICTURED: CARRIE AND STEVE BANKES
IN MEMORIAM OF CARRIE Carrie Bankes, FORA's first volunteer, died in 2021, decades before we expected. We were not prepared. Carrie, meanwhile, was prepared for everything; she, more than anyone else, lived a life of prepared hospitality. Kindness is an attitude, and it can be extended with little preparation. Such is why we demand kindness from even little children. Numerous animal species can extend kindness. Hospitality, however, is a virtue limited to human beings as it takes lots of planning and practice. To extend hospitality, one must be prepared before the knock at the door or the call in the night, because the core of hospitality is to be prepared for all contingencies, to expect the unexpected. Strangers are strange to us. We do not know what to expect from them. As such, hospitality extended to the stranger must anticipate without reference. Put this way, extending hospitality seems almost impossible. Indeed, it is almost impossible. As a virtue, it requires so much more intention and attention than other virtues, demanding intelligence, focus, commitment, joyful sacrifice and eternal vigilance.
One does not have to deny oneself to be hospitable, but one clearly must be willing to delay and divert one’s own plans, over and over, again. Truly, Carrie lived a life interrupted. She was full of plans, goals and desires, but was always willing to lay them down to help others. She knew what to do, what to say and how to simply be… with others in need. She knew when to sit, silent and let others talk and when to take charge of a situation and make things right, and right now. She had extremely strong convictions but was always willing to lay those aside for a time to walk in another’s shoes or at least to walk beside the other, in fancy shoes or bare feet – kings, queens and paupers, the same. She was a friend to children, animals, plants, the elderly, noisy neighbors, a flamboyant spouse, conservatives, liberals, libertarians, fence sitters, sinners, saints, gourmets, gourmands, extroverts, introverts, omnivores, herbivores, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Unitarians, atheists, agnostics and Joe Raschke. She welcomed all the same. And that takes practice, because she, like the rest of us, had impulses, opinions, and biases. But to extend hospitality, one must go beyond oneself, to step outside of one’s own “feelings,” to welcome the other as the other wishes to be welcomed. As such, hospitality goes way beyond the Golden Rule of “treating others as you would wish to be treated, yourself.” Hospitality is treating others as they wish to be treated. And that takes a lifetime of planning and practice. Carrie was fully committed to hospitality, dedicating her life to it. She was prepared. Carrie was not a mere example to us all, held apart. She was too close to us to be reflected on while here – so close, we could hear her heart beat -- the heartbeat of the FORA movement -- but now she is gone. Remember the rhythm and carry on. -- Michael O'Connor, Managing DirectorPage 28
