Besotted with Strangers?

by Elouise

Wandering from our roots
We forget the manner of our lives
Those who took us in
When we were strangers
To ourselves and others

We drown in a wilderness
Of our calculated making
Locking doors and barring windows
Buying and carrying weapons
Determined to remain standing

Waves of anger and cries for mercy
Go unheeded in this dry land
Now inundated with people
Desperate for affirmation
A threat to our ways of life

I wonder. Is it time to become besotted with Strangers?

Perhaps we could begin with the Strangers we’ve become to ourselves and others. We might even use Strangerhood as the defining description of our ‘neighborhoods’ including towns, governing bodies, reservations, prisons, churches, schools, businesses, families and cities.

A childhood Christmas carol came to mind this morning. It celebrates a dear little stranger born in a manger. The Christ child. Helpless, unknown, without rank or title, an at-risk baby, poor in wealth and status.

At every turn he welcomed and received strangers into his life. Including religious leaders who often sought to entrap him, officials and citizens who criminalized him, and his motley crew of fearful disciples who abandoned him at the end.

We aren’t the Christ child. We can, however, ask for grace and courage to reflect the truth of his life. Not for our own health and wealth, but because it offers a way to become neighbors to ourselves and others. Especially those we now see as strangers in ‘our’ land, or strangers to ‘our’ way of life or beliefs or political alignments.

Every human disaster is a reminder that we need each other. Especially those others who threaten or disrupt our tidy ways of seeing ourselves and them.

Your thoughts and comments are most welcome. Thanks for listening!
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 30 August 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Enamored