When I look at the story of Abraham, I see how he receives strangers.

For those who do not know the story.

Abraham and Sarah are people who have been sobered by life.

They cherished big dreams and received bitter disappointments.

As a result, they have become realistic and mild, but they can still laugh.

But they become fertile in old age and Sarah gives birth to a son.

The key is their openness and hospitality for the three strangers.

The stranger is the other, that which we are not.

I need that other to heal me and to move forward, otherwise there will be stagnation.

Without the other, I remain in my own little world, my own comfort zone and settle into my own complacency.

Only another can heal me from my blindness and deafness.

The Bible is completely anchored in the above.

We are Abraham and Sarah, and we need this to step out of ourselves.

Not once, but daily.

If we do not do this, life becomes rigid and barren.

Allowing the strange or the new in yourself is not easy.

You must dare to look into the deep abyss without fear and accept all the discomforts that the strange brings with it, in order to be able to grow further.

This also applies to the strange in your own life, in cultures and art or music.

I notice this in myself too, when I am within the familiar shores of my life, it is safe.

Those cards are fixed, and the destination of the journey is known to me.

But when I come to new terrain, a sea with wild currents and countercurrents, then I shudder.

That is too unknown, I would rather not venture there anymore.

You know what you are starting and not where you will end up.

In it, the completely strange beckons, the sea that I may get to know, rather not and satisfied me with a drop of that ocean.

Every person, every culture, opens up a new, still unknown world and adds something to it.

For me, loving God is loving life with all its innovations that are still waiting for me.

Opening myself up more to the new and learning something from it, enduring the strangeness of the new in me and patiently trying to bear it and realize that in a certain area I still have to grow like a small child.

I will certainly come up against my inability to accept this strange and renewed in me.

If you can love according to what you already know, then we no longer speak of true love, but of stagnation.

But love reaches further and goes towards the strange and unknown.

Love is purified and matured, learns to embrace.

The unknown only gets a chance if we dare to erase the lines we draw.

As long as we remain on one side of that line, the essential passes us by and we still miss new talents.

It is a paradox, because it is a human reflex to draw lines, also to set limits for yourself.

We do it all the time and that is necessary, to not give in to your hunger too much.

But sometimes completely new musical chords sound behind that line.

2014

Marianneke