Back in 2015 when I was on sabbatical, Susan, Dominic, and I flew to Montreal for 10 days. It was beautiful! The people were kind, and we had a wonderful time wandering around the city.

One of the things that struck me, even though I knew it was going to happen, was that everyone spoke French. The signs were in French with English translations. I joked that even the kids in Montreal were super smart—they all spoke French. Get it?

Anyway, we were walking to get ice cream one night. Dominic was seven, so ice cream was a big deal. On our way, we walked past a park with a bunch of kids playing. Dominic said, “Can we go play?”

Susan said, “Not right now. We’re going to get ice cream.”

Dominic said, “But I want to go play.”

“More than get ice cream?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Look at how many friends I could make.”

That’s Dominic. Neither Susan nor I, shy people that we are, would have ever uttered those words about a group of strangers. Fortunately, there are outgoing people capable of such interpersonal bravado, but we are generally not among them.

I’m not certain why it is, but we like to be around those kinds of people, don’t we? We seek them out, trying to let a little bit of their light shine on us. For whatever reason, these people have a way of making us feel better about ourselves just by being in their presence. And for those for whom this is true, we invariably say, “Boy, that Dominic, he’s never met a stranger”; all of which says less about the number of people Dominic really knows than about the quality of contact he has with everyone he meets.

Or perhaps it’s enough to say that these people cross whatever boundaries are necessary to make us feel at home because they seem always to feel at home.

Wanna know something weird?

When I’m in a group of strangers, I’m afraid I’ll have to say my name.

Isn’t that odd? I don’t like to say my name out loud. I like my name well enough when I see it written or when someone else says it, but if I have to say it, I don’t like it.

“Let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves.” I hate it when that happens. Because no matter what, I know I’ll mumble my name and someone will say, “Glad to meet you Jerry, or Garrett, or Darryl, or any one of a hundred other appellations that bear faint similarity to my name. And for whatever reason, all of this makes me feel even more like a stranger. In one church where I was a youth minister, an older lady called me Dexter for two years.

But as lonely as it is to feel like a stranger among strangers, there are even more profound ways of feeling like a stranger. It’s possible, for example, to go home after punching the time clock at work, walk in the house, and sit around the supper table with a group of strangers.

It’s possible to get up, put on your Sunday best, sneak in the back at 10:59, and sit around the Lord’s table with a group of strangers.

Sad, isn’t it? As hard as it is to feel alone and alienated among people you don’t know, it is exponentially more difficult to feel like a stranger to those for whom you have professed love and commitment.