showdown with the stranger...

I went to a little elementary school in the small community of Clyattville. Our school was first grade through twelfth in those pre-consolidation and separation days. High school students and first graders were all in the same red brick building. Intergenerational education called out the best in us most of the time. When the snack shack opened during the afternoon recess, high school kids would lift up the little ones so they could see what was offered for sale. The lunchroom ladies were the parents of some of the students. The small bamboo grove on the playground had paths worn by running feet playing "catch". The old canning plant at one side of the school yard had been pressed into service as a classroom. Tall pine trees gave shade in the hot sun and blanketed the ground with a carpet of needles. Recess came twice a day, fifteen minutes in the morning and thirty minutes in the afternoon. We had time to be children at school, time to play without rules and regulations or adult expectations. What we did was up to us. Sometimes we watched the high school girls and giggled about their walking so slow with a boy carrying their books. Sometimes we chased our favorite boy down and gave him a kick in the shins to let him know we liked him.
One of the favorite holidays for the whole school was May Day. The week before the first of May was spent constructing May baskets to be filled with flowers and hung on doorknobs as a present. A maypole, just an old telephone pole, was a year long fixture in the playground. As the first of May drew near, the raggedy old pole would be garnished with ribbon. Two elementary children were elected to lead the maypole dance every year at the May Day celebration. The whole school would turn out to watch and it was a festive occasion. I was campaigning hard to win that coveted spot the winter of my fourth grade year.
She came as a new student just after the Christmas break. Blonde, pretty, friendly... she became everybody’s best friend. Not only was she beautiful but she was sweet, a personality trait much desired and admired by teachers and students alike. She never chased boys to kick them or yelled or rumpled her crinolines. She was everything I wanted to be and wasn’t. I hated her guts on principle. All my hard campaigning to be May Queen was going down the drain as she sat on the round bench that ringed the old oak tree holding court. My response was quick and cruel, a behind the hands conversation with all my friends about not letting the new girl take over. I wanted to be May Queen really, really bad.
It didn’t work, of course. Teachers and students alike voted for her in droves and I never got to be May Queen. What I remember, though, is not the loss of the crown of flowers but the ugly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I waged my war of words against the new girl. Other than fights with my sister (not to be counted as real war), this was my first experience with the Stranger and I did not measure up to Jesus’ admonition to welcome those who were different from me. Hospitality... a Biblical virtue... a behavior commandment straight from Jesus... I was a stranger and you took me in.
Sometimes I am so focused on the stranger without, I miss the stranger within. I see the young woman in choir who is struggling to stay afloat on her own but I miss the young woman who still struggles inside me with feelings of not being good enough. I can hold out my arms in welcoming hugs for the young mother from another country who is trying hard to make a place for herself here in our town and church. But, I have a hard time hugging myself as I search for meaning as I live the decade of my sixties. Children always find welcome in our home but I have difficulty welcoming the anxious child, myself, living in my memory.
Lent is a time for searching within, the interior lands of our souls... a time to name the hurts and failures and sins... a time to offer them up to the One who has known us all the days of our lives. This Perfect Love sees what we do not take time to look for, is waiting to help us heal the broken places, holds us close as we struggle to find our way and leads us to the Love and Light that wait for us at the end of this dark Lenten walkway.
Help me know myself, Lord, as you know me. Help me see the hurt and broken places in my soul. Help me hold them up in the Light of Love so that you might lead me to a right relationship with You, O God, with myself and with others. Give me courage, clear vision and a tender heart as I begin to search for the stranger within. Peggy Hester