Inivitation

“Coffee is on me if you want to walk to Halstead this morning.”

This is my way of bribing Daughter to spend a few minutes with me at the beginning of the day at the beginning of the week. Bribery is in the foreground of a background invitation, and the invitation is the important part.

We must be good at inviting people to share life with us if we are to flourish. One half of this is for them–the spouse of a new colleague who just moved here and needs to meet people–and one half of it is for us; we need to invite people because we need people. That an invitation proceeds, partly at least, from our own need does not diminish it as an invitation.

That’s why I call my invitation to Daughter bribery: I need it. She does too, though she doesn’t know that as well as I do.

She could say no (she most often does). In order to have integrity an invitation must be unacceptable. The invited must be permitted to refuse without any fear of negative consequence.