“We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place,
Drink the drinking place,
Music in the listening place
And, with the Sacred name of the Triune God,
He blessed us and our house,
Our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song:
Often, often, often goes Christ in the stranger’s guise.”

These words found in the Iona Abbey Worship Book are an ancient reminder of welcome. I have been thinking of them in these last days as I prepare to go to the small island of Iona off the coast of Scotland where Christianity found its foothold among raging winds and green and rocky fields. That foothold continues more than 1500 years later housed in an ecumenical community whose primary work is to welcome strangers. In a few short days, I will join a group of pilgrims who will travel to this remote island to be welcomed by those who will look for Christ in us. We will arrive after a journey on planes, buses and three different ferries. We may be tired and weary and worse for wear. And yet still, these people whose job it is to welcome, will open their doors, prepare meals, offer us drink and will invite us to make music and share in their worship with them. Outside our bedroom windows where we have stashed our bags and washed our faces after the long journey, the sound of sheep and cows will add to the music.

This is a journey two years in the making. Because there are only two hotels on this three mile wide island we had to put a deposit on space for our 35 pilgrims two years ago. Then the planning began. And the excitement and commitment began to simmer under the surface. Plans were made and remade. Books were read. Prayers were said. Commitments were sealed. Muscles were strengthened through hiking trails all around our cities. And now the time is nearly here.

There are many reasons people make such a pilgrimage, as many reasons as people. For some it is the desire to walk where others have sought answers and connection to the Holy for years. For some it is the beginning of a life transition or the searching for new ways of encountering their faith. For others it is curiosity and the chance to be with like-minded faithful, those who hold one another’s questions with gentleness and compassion. For some, I would venture to say they are still discerning their own brand of ‘why?’ Theologian Richard Niebuhr put it this way: “ Pilgrims are persons in motion – passing through territories not their own – seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well, a goal to which only the spirit’s compass points the way.”

The journey will begin soon. My bags are nearly packed with things that will protect me from sun and wind and rain. I also know that what I leave unpacked is as important as what I have tucked into my backpack. Most of those items are less visible…worry, tasks left undone, my usual lists of “musts” and “shoulds”, any ideas I hold of ‘perfect’ travel. In the shedding, these must be left behind beside the bed where I have been organizing clothes and snacks and sturdy shoes. These invisible companions will not serve me well on this journey of soul.

No matter what I have packed or shed, no matter what I am gripping in terror or loosening in surrender, I am comforted to know that, miles away people are preparing for our arrival. What they will look for in us is not bedraggled or starry-eyed travelers but the Face of Christ. And that brings hope and comfort beyond all words.