One of my best friends is Charlie.  He came into my life about 12 years ago. We had crossed paths on numerous occasions at the local YMCA, but we had never spoken. He walked with extreme difficulty, using a forearm cane. His face was grim, as though locked in a perpetual frown. He seemed like a miserable person. He usually showed up as I was leaving, and it was easy to pass him in the lobby or hallway without exchanging glances much less words. He was, you could say, a familiar stranger.  While I saw him almost every day, I had no interest in getting to know him.

Amid reality of death and rumors of resurrection, Jesus’s friends walked a dusty road to Emmaus. And “Jesus Himself drew near.” Preoccupied as they were, it took miles and the breaking of bread for the travelers to recognize Jesus as more than a stranger, though He was with them all along as a friend.

As I think of my life in terms of welcoming the stranger as a lifestyle, rather than an antidotal event, I am forced to go back many years, even decades. Back in the day, my wife and I routinely welcomed strangers into our home for a night or even a few days, sharing food and clothes with them as they might have need. We also had a regular stream of individuals who stopped by our door desiring a bite to eat, and my wife was always more than happy to serve them soup, burritos, sandwiches, whatever we had on hand.  I remember our two oldest children begging their mom to carry out the food to those who came to our door. We had wonderful, delightful times, even once when we think we actually ‘entertained an angel unaware’.

For almost a year now, my husband and I have worked for a Christian organization whose main purpose, though maybe not so explicitly, is welcoming the stranger.  We were placed in a specific apartment complex in Atlanta, Ga with the mission of making this ordinary building and group of people a community.  One of several of our responsibilities is when new residents move in, go and visit them, make sure everything went well with their move, introduce them to the area; welcome them.  We make ourselves available to them as resource people, as the first person they may have met in this new city, as friends.

Welcoming the stranger. I hear that and instantly think of inviting people over, opening the door to angels. Those are good and important things to do. However, as we come through Lent into Easter, a seven week season of rejoicing in Christ’s defeat of the most dreaded stranger ever, death, I have learned that I am a stranger to myself in so many ways.

I hope that I’ll never forget a phone call I received several years ago on a Saturday morning.

“Fil, this is Eric’s mom. Can you tell me what happened to him? He’s not the same person!”

“I’m not certain I know what you’re referring to,” I replied.

“Ever since he came home from that camp, Eric’s been a different person. He’s so happy and pleasant to be around. Whatever happened, his dad and I are utterly amazed and we want to thank you.”

It was a season rich with symbolism. A path I’d followed, clearly at God’s leading, which had stopped abruptly in a dark woods. An orbit which held me fast in its gravitational pull. A complex maze which only God could lead me out of.

My struggle revolved around a vocational conundrum. I’d endured five years of searching, wrestling, initiating and waiting without discovering a path to freedom.

As I leaned into the wall by the patio door, I was only looking for a moment to breathe between breakfast and the day. My daughter, Eden, was born with Down syndrome a year earlier. As difficult as Down syndrome had seemed in the hospital, the reality of Eden’s medical needs was more overwhelming than I had imagined. I was weary in soul and body—weary of waiting rooms and surgeries, weary of loneliness and busyness, weary of well-intentioned but insensitive words from others. And I was deeply sad.

In 1999 I underwent surgery for breast cancer and subsequent chemotherapy. It was a grueling process which ended in November of 1999. I wrote consistently about my experience both in my journal and to my friends via email—no Facebook in those days. In November, I wrote this reflection for my friends. It was for me a resurrection period in my life. I am now 12 going into 13 years out from the cancer experience!