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CircleBridge book

Welcome and presence

Create hospitality and bring attention to the person and the moment.

Explore the concept

Welcome includes being willing to receive hospitality as well as offer it. Presence includes uncertainty, limitations, and listening as well as confident speech. The authors connect these practices to how an encounter begins: people can sense when another person does not want to be there. A warm greeting cannot compensate for a conversation in which attention repeatedly moves elsewhere. A reader can make these ideas practical through time, accessibility, an attentive opening, and enough room for people to arrive as they are.

A practice to try

Pause before an encounter. Set aside one distraction, greet the person by their chosen name, and listen to the answer to your opening question.

Explore it in the book

Companion guidance by Scott Simpson and Sharla Steever. Consult the book alongside these resources; activities and summaries do not replace the complete book.