You Welcomed Me: Seven Days to Better Welcoming Refugees and ImmigrantsExemplo

That Could Be Me

We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. - Madeleine L’Engle

Before we can help refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers, we first need to recognize them. Instead of seeing a stranger, we can learn to see another person with a kind of three-in-one vision. In the former stranger, we can learn to see

• the person and their humanity––a fellow human in distress,
• ourselves––because that could be me,
• God––through the mystery that in the other we meet the divine.

We see the person in front of us and our common humanity. In some way (though not in the exact way), we also know what loss, loneliness, and fear feels like. We also see their courage, perseverance, and resilience and recognize that in ourselves, too. Our common humanity reminds us that we have much in common. We’re able to give the dignity and respect they deserve.

We see ourselves. We empathize, knowing that if circumstances were different, that could be me. In Leviticus, God charged the Israelites to “love the foreign born as themselves, for they were foreigners in Egypt,” (19:33-34). God reminded them not just that it could be them, but that it was them. Also, Jesus himself was a refugee, his parents fleeing with him to Egypt after Herod’s deadly decree (Matthew 2:13-23). As we see, remember, and notice all of these things, our empathy grows and the distance between us becomes smaller.

We see the image of God in each other. In each person and in some mysterious way, we meet Jesus and so meet God––the Trinity in dynamic unity and diversity. In The Rule of Saint Benedict, it says, “Let all guests be received like Christ,” touching again on the mystical exchange Jesus illustrated in Matthew 25.

All of this moves us into living into a new understanding of my neighbor. I see my neighbors through Jesus’ redefinition––beyond my own race, nation, and creed. 

Practice: Choose three steps you can take toward welcoming. Here are a few examples:

• Read a story about a refugee or immigrant and let their experience sink into your heart and mind.
• Contact a local church or organization that works with refugees and ask if there is a way you can help.
• Watch a documentary about the refugee experience to grow your understanding of the crisis at large.