My break from traveling is almost over, and in a couple days I'll go to California. It's been a good break, but I'm ready now to see and do new things.

I've been thinking, this summer, about welcoming the stranger. A basic instruction in the Rule of St. Benedict is "All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matt 25:35)." This has been on my mind because, through much of this summer, I've been the stranger.

There have been so many situations I've walked into where it was obvious I didn't belong there. Folks in Italy are good with welcoming tourists, but I can think of several times were it was obvious I didn't belong there and I didn't know what I was doing. I remember getting off the train in Cassino, Italy, far from tourist-friendly Rome, trying to figure out how to catch the bus to see Benedict's monastery at Monte Cassino, and I thought, "I don't belong here, and I don't know how to get where I need to go." There have been so many churches where I've taken a seat in a pew (hoping I wasn't stealing some regular's pew), and seeing the looks out the corner of the eyes that said, "Who is that guy, and why is he here?"

It's scary to welcome the stranger, but it's also scary being the stranger. So many times I've sat in my car in a church parking lot and thought, "You don't have to go in there. No one will know if I just skip it." I'm one who usually knows what he's doing in all kinds of worship services, but it's still scary to go into a new place knowing I'll be the stranger. Walking into a situation where I don't know anyone or I don't know what I'm doing is like getting up the nerve to finally dance at your first middle-school dance; I have know idea if the whole thing will turn into the biggest disaster of my life.

Yet, it's our job to welcome the stranger. My favorite story from the bible is the Two Disciples Going to Emmaus. Jesus shows up, but he's the stranger, and they don't get the good news that it's Jesus and he's alive until they welcome him in. The stranger may be the one, when welcomed, who will bring the blessing. Jesus may show up in your life when you welcome the stranger. Sooner or later a stranger will show up in your life. He or she might be a nervous looking person sitting uneasily in the back pew of your church; the stranger might be the refugee child among the crowds trying to cross the border into your home country. However the stranger shows up, our job is to love him or her until that person is no longer a stranger but a friend.