I watch the sun sink beyond the birch and maple, grateful for lingering light on these almost-spring days. Soon the bare branches will bud and green, crowding the sunsets over the lake. But tonight, in the cool and quiet, I keep watch.

I think of other sunsets, in other places. Of ribbons of colors over ocean waves. Of mountain shadows inching over a gentle alpenglow. I remember the people I’ve known and who have known me in those places. Of the first meetings, awkward and vulnerable. How strangers become family over time.

I remember meeting my babies. Receiving each small, warm weight from birth or foster parents. How each knit themselves into the warp and woof of my soul, creating the pattern of my existence.

I watched the sunset tonight, thankful for the family I’ve been given in each place I’ve lived, the ones whom we’ve welcomed in, and the ones who’ve welcomed us. We’re all born as strangers, and yet are designed to know and be known. Bridging that gap is the work of our lives. It is holy work, this forging and maintaining our fragile web of relationships.

We all start as mysteries to each other, really, strangers meeting in the gift of providence. We choose to make room in our hearts and our homes, adjusting to fit each other. Making something true out of pieces of ourselves yet undiscovered. Becoming formed in the crucible of belonging.

In the ancient Jewish Feast of Booths, the Israelites built shelters, temporary dwellings to commemorate their deliverance from slavery and epic journey home to the land of promise. Did they, too, watch the sunset through those leafy canopies, remembering the years that came before?

Like them, we are booth-dwellers, temporarily inhabiting our time and place along a journey to our permanent home. “Foreigners and exiles”, the Apostle Peter called us, and indeed we believers are refugees of faith in a world growing colder to it every day. But along this wilderness road, no one travels alone. We are called to keep each other close, hold each other up; bridge the awkward gaps and welcome the wanderers as we travel together to our Promised Land.

The sun dips lower over the lake, spreading its golden rays through the forest. I give thanks, as I venture ever closer, on my journey home from this fragile booth to the land of Light.