Minutes of Meetings with God
and with Myself

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Stranger at the Door

The dog was barking and barking, then I heard the doorbell ring and I felt like God was punishing me for trying to sleep in a little later than usual. It wasn't easy to drag myself out of bed and head for the door, my muscles and joints need some time to loosen up. Especially in the morning, I move very slowly. Under most circumstances, my wife and I would have already been up and stirring for the better part of an hour, but not on this particular morning. My wife was off work for the holiday break (she works at a university) and we had turned off the alarm clock with the idea of just sleeping a little later. Such was not to be. I slipped on my moccasins and limped and shuffled to the kitchen door. My beloved wife, from the warm safety of our bed, admonished me, "Be Careful!"

I could not imagine who would be at our door at 6:30 A.M. or what they could possibly want at such an hour. As I crossed our living room (still brightly decorated for the Christmas Season), the recent news story about a "house invasion" some miles south of us crossed my mind. An older couple had offered directions to someone who came to their door, only to have the stranger and a hidden accomplice attempt to force their way into their home. That episode ended with an exchange of gunfire and one of the intruders running away, wounded. What a thing to think about on the way to the door at 6:30 A.M.! And it was way too early and I was way too sleepy to deal with one of those "fear or faith? ... safety or compassion?" decisions life throws our way at the most inopportune moments.

When I could finally look out our large kitchen windows, I saw a young woman in the bit of light at our door hugging herself against the cold. She wore blue jeans and a jacket not near heavy enough for the outdoor temperature, her breath making clouds that drifted off into the early winter morning darkness. Suspiciously, I asked myself, "Is she really alone?" I couldn't see anyone else. "Fear or faith, Michael?" ... "Safety or compassion?" I knew I could have been wrong, but what convinced me she was alone was the mixture of worry and fear and helplessness and the "I will not cry" determination I watched sweeping across her face in the brief moment before she knew I could see her. There was as much or more uncertainty on her side of the door as there was on my side. "Fear or faith, Michael?" ... "Safety or compassion?" I opened the kitchen door into the breezeway and went to the outer door to speak to the young stranger.

As with most human stories, the story of the young stranger at our door was both simple and complex. We'll stick with the simple part. Her voice had just a touch of "why this ... why me? ... why now?" in it as she spoke. Her van had quit on her not far from head of our driveway. She was only 2 miles from work ... she asked, "Can I please use your phone to call my job, tell them it looks like I'll be late and see if anyone there can help me?" "Fear or faith, Michael?" ... "Safety or compassion?" "Yes," I replied, "you can come in and use our phone." I showed her to the great room where our phone is.

She tried to dial her work number from memory. That didn't work. She fumbled through her purse and finally found the number. She got the office answering machine, which gave her the phone number for the shop floor. So, she had to dial again. Whoever answered the phone obviously wasn't being very helpful and the young stranger was obviously not knowing what to do next. "Fear or faith, Michael?" ... "Safety or compassion?" I said, "Look, I'll drive you to work, it's not far."

I assumed once she was there, she could get someone to help her with her van, either to repair it or to tow it. She accepted the offer. I told my wife what I was about to do. Then I took the young stranger to her job and dropped her off at the shop entrance. Sometime in the afternoon, someone came and towed the van away. The good deed was done, and the dictum, "No good deed goes unpunished!" was left unconfirmed.

Not long after this happened, a friend and I were having a conversation over breakfast. The conversation turned to observations about how easy it is for us to both literally and figuratively pack too many suitcases for the trips we make in life, for vacations, or for spiritual pilgrimages, or other times when we move from here to there. The conversation got me thinking about the young stranger at our door.

It was a short trip from our bedroom to the kitchen door. It was a short trip from the kitchen door to the phone. It was a short trip from our house to the plant where the young stranger worked. But on each trip, I had carried a lot of baggage, altogether too many suitcases loaded with all sorts of unnecessary anxieties, doubts and fears, and compulsions about safety. All stuff that made each trip much harder on me than it needed to be, all stuff that was unduly heavy and weighed me down almost to the point of doing nothing, all stuff that had nothing to do with the reality of the situation in which I found myself, all stuff that got in the way of faith and compassion.

I was forced to realize, yet again, how little like Jesus I live my life. Jesus traveled light. He didn't carry much baggage, actually, he didn't even carry a suitcase. Jesus had only the clothes on his back, and he had faith and compassion. Jesus was so radical about not carrying anything unneeded, that he took only what he needed into each day. He refused to carry the weight of the past into the present and taught others to do the same. "You must be born again," Jesus said. We rarely think this way, but one of the meanings of "being born again" is our past becomes powerless to pollute our present moment, the anxieties, doubts, fears, compulsions, or bad experiences get left behind. They are as though they had never been. God gives us a whole new, totally unencumbered, start.

Jesus also lived and taught it does no good to fret about tomorrow or food or clothes or anything else. Doing that pollutes the present with the future. The anxiety is just useless baggage, another needless suitcase full of stuff. When Jesus sent out his disciples he told them:

"Take nothing for the journey except a staff -- no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic." (Mark 6:8-9)

Jesus' yoke is easy and his burden is light. It is faith and compassion; so simple and yet so hard a lesson to learn.

A new day is upon us. Powerfully, as in the New Testament, our Risen Lord says to me, says to us... "Behold, I stand at the door and knock ..." We can leave all our suitcases behind on our trip to open the door for him. "Fear or faith, Michael?" ... "Safety or compassion?"