A sudden trip to a funeral and cemetery prompted thoughts of my destination after finishing my time here. Is this where I belong, or am I just a stranger passing through on my way home?
Note. This is a picture of my favorite hymn from my childhood hymnal.
My Mysterious Mind
As a child, my favorite hymn was, “I’m but a stranger here.” This song, with its repeated chorus of “Heav’n is my home” could be found on the very last page of hymns, #660. Looking at the text through my adult eyes, I’m surprised my well-cared-for-child-self found such comfort in trouble-filled verses, with words of: “I’m but a stranger here/Earth is a desert drear; danger and sorrow stand round me on ev’ry hand;” and “what though the tempest rage/short is my pilgrimage.” These are words I understand well as an adult, having lived through seasons of difficulty, sorrow, and danger; but why did I love this song so much as a child?
At the deepest level of my being, I’ve always felt I didn’t belong here, even as a child. I grew up in a small town but always sensed I didn’t really fit. Going away to college helped for a season; as I, a stranger, got lost in a sea of strangers. I remember how comforting it was to walk across campus and not expect to belong there; it gave me an odd sense of actually belonging there.
My adult life has shifted through various places where I repeatedly was the “odd” piece. The first in my family to attend college, I was soon thereafter the first master’s level intern at a mental health center in Springfield with doctoral level interns. My first professional job as a psychotherapist gave way to me searching for belonging as an adjunct college teacher. Each classroom felt like home, but each university did not. I lived like an itinerant laborer, my teaching materials in crates in the trunk of my car.
My vagabond professional life shifted to tenure-track after I completed a doctorate in education. I was still a stranger, though, because my department was comprised of former K-12 educators, very different than me. I finally developed a sense of belonging with the statewide faculty in the program to which I was assigned. After enjoying twenty years of not feeling like a stranger, that program was dismantled and I became professionally homeless. I left the college of education, moved to psychology, then retired and started a new job at another university.
A protestant at an Assembly of God university, I am a stranger here. The familiar experience I loved singing about as a child, the treasured hymn fits like a favorite blanket. I’m just a stranger here, no matter where “here” might be here in this life. Like a stranger, I am just passing through on my way somewhere else.
What about you? Do the words “I’m but a stranger here” resonate truth within you? Does this life feel like a place through which you are passing on your way to another? For me, I’m just a stranger here, passing through on my way home.
Message of Mystery Acres
In the forest I neither feel like a stranger nor like I am where I will always belong. Though I imagine a permanent home there, complete with mailbox by the road, even that would be temporary occupancy. For now, my visits are limited to one or two days each month. No matter how great it is to be there, I am always happy to come home.
Home. My “home” is a house with lots of room and comfortable couches. I can shower without concern about how much water I am using. There is an abundance of food, not limited to the few items I packed for time in the forest. It’s easier at home.
My husband and I have some infrastructure at Mystery Acres, but it still requires a great deal of preparation and maintenance to “be” there. We have the non-motoring-motorhome, a cabin, a seasonal source of water, and an off-grid electrical system. To be there, we pack food and beverages, and whatever supplies are depleted. When returning “home,” we pack up trash and laundry. We love being there, but it isn’t easy.
Being a visitor is more work than being at home. Our visits to the forest are just that, visits. We “pass through” on our way back home. There is just something easier about being home. Anyone who has ever taken a trip can attest to that.
The message of Mystery Acres is that no matter how wonderful being away might be, it is easier to be home. After a time of travel, there is rest and relief when the trip is over. Dorothy was right, “There’s no place like home.” Just a stranger in Oz, she was passing through on her way home, as are we.
Ancient Mystery’s Voice
“Live as strangers here in reverence to God.” (see 1 Peter 1:17)
Peter, one of the first dozen followers of Jesus, wrote a couple of letters to other believers. These letters are called “First Peter” and “Second Peter.” It is customary for these first century letters to start with the name of the author and then be “addressed” to the recipients. “First Peter” began with his name, then a reference to himself as “an apostle of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:1). He then addressed his first letter to other believers, calling them by a Greek word that is translated as “strangers,” “sojourners,” “exiles, “foreigners,” and “aliens.” Some translations refer to this group of people as “temporary residents” who are “living away from home.”
But Peter didn’t address his audience as though they are “rejects.” In other parts of his letter, Peter referred to them as “God’s elect” or “chosen by God.” He described life for them in a land to which they didn’t belong. In this pagan world, Peter wrote about believers “sojourning,” passing their time in reverence to God while passing through a place to which they did not belong (1 Peter 1:17).
As a child, I felt as though “the stork had delivered me to the wrong address.” But, in light of Peter’s words, the problem isn’t the address to which I was born but the entire fallen world. Any address would have made me feel like I didn’t belong. As the hymn describes, “I’m but a stranger here, heav’n is my home.” The hymn’s author felt as I do, and, according to Peter, all believers in Jesus Christ are strangers here.
For believers, death is a time to finally go home. Much longer than even an extended vacation, mortal life in this broken place, is a sojourning in a foreign land. If this is true, perhaps I am not the only one who feels like a stranger in a strange place to which I never quite fully belong. Maybe there are many others who are just passing through on their way home.
Living in Mystery
What does it mean to live in the mystery of being just a stranger passing through on the way home? It starts with the uncomfortable recognition of one’s own mortality. No matter how long the stay in our bodies, they are not meant as our permanent homes. Able to ignore this fact in a younger, fully functional body, the aches and limitations of aging bring mortality into awareness. This body is wearing out, being used up, and cannot be simply traded in for a newer model when the mileage gets too high. When the heart finally stops and the lungs no longer draw breath, each of us will have to leave.
This unpleasant realization brings to mind two important questions. First, how ready am I to leave? How ready are you to leave?
This was an easy question to answer when I retired from Missouri State University. I had been slowly preparing for departure for three years. A nest full of too many things, I gradually sorted through my office possessions, dividing them into categories of trash, donations, possible next office, and home. Financially, I attended retirement sessions and carefully reviewed our household expenses, trimming the extraneous. I created and updated a “to do” list of tasks for leaving employment as a retiree. In the end, it was a smooth transition.
Answering the question about leaving this life is far more difficult for me. The answer doesn’t just include sorting and pitching a vast accumulation of stuff. I want to find the box, packed during a 30-years ago move, marked “to be sorted eventually” and sort it. I also want to finish incomplete projects and leave an orderly life for whoever is left behind when I am called home. Pondering the challenge to “get more ready to leave” has generated a lengthy “to do” list for me. I try to live at peace in my relationships, but how would my loved ones make sense of bills without access to my laptop and its many different passwords? I don’t want to be stressed about this, neither do I want to be cavalier, leaving a mess for others.
The second essential question emerging from the reality of just passing through is this: Where am I going from here? Where are you going after this life? This question has a settled answer for me. I believe the words of Jesus who said, “you know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14:4) and “I am going to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). I remember hearing these words at my maternal grandmother’s funeral and believed she was with Jesus and I would someday join her. As captured in the third verse of my favorite childhood hymn:
“There at my Savior’s side – Heav’n is my home; I shall be glorified – Heav’n is my home. There are the good and blest, Those I love most and best; And there, I, too, shall rest – Heav’n is my home.”
Except I don’t expect to do much resting. There are far too many conversations with people I want to have. I’m hoping for celebrations and, in general, a wonderful time there. Heaven is my home, and like coming home after a long vacation, it will be great to be home.
Meanwhile, I want to be a good guest while just a stranger passing through on my way home. As a visitor in the lives of others whose lives will extend after mine is extinguished, I want to leave my relationships and my possessions in order. I know where I am going and I know the way there, but until I go, I want to live in such a way that people are at peace with my leaving and with the way I left. After all, I’m just a stranger here, passing through on my way home.
Connecting with Mystery
Dear Lord of All Mystery, I know this is not my home; my home is with You. Though a stranger here, help me to live as a pleasant guest, leaving people and things in peaceful order. Show me where I can do better and equip me to improve. Thank You for going ahead of me and preparing a place and a way to get there. Amen.
Notes from Dr. Mac
If you want to do your own investigation of any of the scriptures I use, try Bible Gateway.
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