Stranger Danger

My first-class seat on the flight home was inviting, where I could relax with my cheese-and-fruit plate. A young man smiled at me while he sat in his window seat, and I thought, Oh, is he going to want to talk. He has bushy long hair, the length and width of his waist, and a humongous, long beard.” Thankfully, he went right to sleep, and I opened my book, A Teachable Spirit, by A.J. Swoboda, to the chapter Learning from Strangers. A.J. writes, “What if every conversation with a stranger could become a classroom, which can become accidental learning?”

Really? Now?

A.J. continues to explain from the time we are little kids, we are told not to talk to strangers—you know, Stranger Danger. Now, as adults, we still have the thought stuck in our heads. We also have preconceived ideas about the stranger and “we project our feelings or attitudes toward them.”

Yeah. I am guilty of sizing someone up, especially a long-haired, bushy-bearded man.

Jesus spoke to strangers all the time, even to the mega-sinner strangers.

·      Zacchaeus, the tax collector.

·      The Samaritan woman at the well: She had multiple husbands.

·      Matthew (Levi): A tax collector.

·      The Leper: A man who was an outcast.

·      The Paralytic: Jesus healed him and said his sins are forgiven.

Just some examples.

Jesus sized up strangers with love. His deep passion for the lost, sinful person, overshadowed any feelings of “he doesn’t fit in my thinking.”

I was convicted to learn from the stranger next to me. He woke from his nap and asked, “Have I been sleeping long?”

I could not escape his chitchat. It was obvious he wanted to talk.

My mind pivoted, and I asked him questions. Where do you live? What do you do for work? He shared about growing up in New Jersey, moving to Florida, and joining the military, serving in the Army. Then he shared that he was in combat in Afghanistan.

This is what I learned from the stranger. He said, “It’s hard to leave the military because he missed the brotherhood. Fighting together for an objective beyond yourself as a unit that all believed in. Deep in our souls, everyone wants to belong to a tribe. It is in our nature.” My marine son expressed the joy of belonging to a tribe of like-minded people, fighting for a cause beyond yourself.

My stranger suggested a book, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger. I will read it.

We ended up talking for most of the flight. I changed my perception of him. He told me he started growing his hair and beard when he was housebound during COVID. I became comfortable as we chatted and realized I could learn from a long-haired, bushy-bearded man.