The other night I was having dinner at a beloved falafel place in the Marais, and my dining companion asked me if I felt at home in Paris. Immediately, I responded with a confident yes. Then I went on to say, even though I often feel like a stranger here, I still feel at home. 

What a paradox it is to simultaneously feel at home and a stranger.

Peregrinus is the Latin root for the word “pilgrim”, and it means a stranger or a wanderer. From my first steps on the Camino de Santiago and wondering what it means to be a pilgrim, to now purposely living the fullness of my life as a pilgrim, I identify with being a “stranger”. 

I am a stranger in Paris. I am not native to the culture or fluent in the language. My American Midwest upbringing occasionally prompts me to offer an unsolicited smile to an unknown person on the street. I still haven’t decided which is my favorite cheese. As well, I am a stranger in Omaha (where I live part of the year).  Utterly bored with having to drive a car to get almost anywhere, I’d rather walk or take a bus when possible. I really dislike American football. I’d be ok not having air conditioning in the summer. These examples of being a strange don’t hinder me from experiencing a sense of home in those places. 

When we offer peace and hospitality to the parts of ourselves that feel like a stranger, we free the isolated “stranger” within us and allow it to have purpose in our own lives. 

Jesus is the perfect example of what it looks like to be at peace with being a stranger. Literally walking through societies as a stranger, he chose to notice, care for, love and befriend those who the societal norms, religious leaders and political officials would avoid or suppress. Being a stranger to the religious and cultural expectations put upon him, he modeled the revelational call of new life offered to us.

How have you felt like a stranger? A stranger in an unfamiliar land or society? A stranger in your culture? A stranger in your community? A stranger to yourself?

In this lifelong journey as a pilgrim, my pilgrimage is to the heart of God. By welcoming the part of me that feels like a stranger, I am fostering my true home that is actually within me. The space where peace, refuge, beauty, creativity, guidance, discernment is found is within me. And it’s where I am restored to life in this world. It is the space where I am encountering more of the heart of God. My journey to the heart of God is my journey home. And I think that is also what Jesus was modeling to us; wherever he went he was at home with God. God was in him, and he was in God.

How do you feel being at home and being a stranger? How may there be ways for you to offer peace and hospitality to the stranger within yourself?