‘In
our world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and
country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and
their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be
lived without fear and where community can be found. ... It is possible for men
and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space
where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human
beings.’
~
Henri Nouwen.
I
am struck by this quote, in relation to my city of Sunderland, full of
strangers ‘estranged from their own past, culture and country’ because the coal
pits and shipyards were closed; or because their ancestral villages are in
Bangladesh or Pakistan; or because they are recently-arrived asylum seekers,
international students, or social care workforce; or – like me – because they
have never been rooted in any place. But whatever the reason, and whatever our
history, so many of us have become strangers. New Testament ‘hospitality’ is
[the Greek] ‘philoxenia’ – literally love of the stranger. We are all searching
for a hospitable place, but we will find it together or not at all.
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