He spoke in church today. He’s a young doctor who had just gotten back from a medical mission to Africa, and I know his wife was anxiously waiting his return. I asked if I could share his story here, and he told me warmly, Yes.
It was Sunday and he was in a city. He asked at his hotel whether there might perhaps be a Mormon church nearby?
The familiar in a strange place, the chance to worship with others where the Sacramental prayers are the same, no matter the language, all over the world.
Oh yes; just take a cab to the subway, get out at this stop, turn and go up the hill, you’ll see it, it’s right there.
He got off at that subway stop to find himself in a place where he, a white man dressed in a tie, felt suddenly very conspicuous. It was not a good end of town. And he clearly was not from there. He was Other. There was no sign of that church whatsoever, no safe haven.
In those moments, another man stepped off the subway. “He was wearing a purple shirt and carrying a Bible.” That man was on his way to church too, and when asked for directions stopped and spent twenty minutes going out of his way to walk the stranger to where he was trying so hard to get to, befriending him and, by his actions, proclaiming the love of God in the world. By living that love.
And then he headed off to his own church.
The language is universal: when we choose not to be strangers, we are, I said to him and his wife, each other’s angels.