I am grateful for people who have the gift of hospitality and I'm grateful for the opportunities to experience that gift in others. I used to think hospitality meant a perfectly clean house, sublime snacks/food, myself and my family groomed and spotless. I was making life miserable for myself and my family. Hospitality is really an extension of yourself in warmth, companionship, generosity, and most importantly availability. I'm so grateful for the people I am privileged to know who extend this gift to me. I think I have seasons of hospitality and this current season (going on a few years now) doesn't allow space for me to be available. I can be warm, extend companionship, and be generous but I am fairly unavailable these days and that is, in my opinion, one of the most important things about being hospitable. Today I had the opportunity to spend time in the company of a very hospitable woman and it was a refreshment even though we were working to make a meal for 160 people. Her extension of hospitality made it lovely.
There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.
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