Neighbors and Strangers

I'd like to say that I've never met a stranger. And many days, I can honestly say that this is the case. I walk by people just like me and whether or not I know their name, I can identify with their experience. I can see the looks on their faces and I know that I've honestly felt the same way they feel at some point in my own life. I see a look of happiness and I'm happy for them. I see sadness or worry and my heart goes out to them. I see people and I can tell they're lonely and my heart aches for them. I believe this the way we were meant to feel even though we live in a world that tells us otherwise. We live in a world that tells us that strangers are of little consequence to us unless they get in our way or we can get something from them. And I don't always feel this way, but sometimes I can look at a person and know how enormously valuable that person is; that there is an amazing story in that person just like my own life is an amazing story. They live with past hurts, present hopes, and future dreams. That there are people in their life, who I also don't know, who they love very much and who love them very much.

And, for just a second, I stop rushing about my day and I notice the people around me. The cardboard cutouts rushing by become actual people and I feel a strange sense of care for people that I couldn't know the first thing about. This is what I think Jesus meant when he told us who our "neighbor" should be. Why he told the stories he told. And why he personally did the things he did. Jesus never ever met a stranger. Not only because he's God and knows everyone (that a given :-) but because he simply never treated anybody like a stranger. What an amazing example to follow! In a world that makes such kindness seem impractical I hope we can be a counterculture of love to a world that needs to know that it is loved.