| Dear friend, When we travel, whether for business or leisure, we often carry a quiet assumption: our “real life” is back home. Back where the rhythms are familiar. Back where the people who know us best are waiting. Back where we imagine we are most fully seen and known. The days on the road can feel temporary, almost detached. As if we are living in parentheses until we return to the place where we belong. Recently, after a full day of speaking, I was finishing dinner alone in a hotel bar. It was late. I was tired. I was already orienting myself toward the quiet of my room upstairs. And then a man approached my table. He had attended the talk and wondered if I would be interested in joining him, his wife, and another couple for conversation. He offered his invitation with the explicit stated awareness that I might rather not, that I would rather be alone after my day of work, and that he and his friends would completely understand should I choose to demur. He and his friends had noticed me being alone and wanted to offer me the chance not to be if I so desired. There it was—that small interior crossroads. The part of me that longed for solitude. And the deeper invitation to remain open. I joined them. The following evening, nearly the same time, nearly the same setting; this time, a woman approached. Once more, a similar story line: she and her husband, along with another couple had heard the lecture earlier that day and come for dinner afterward. Would I sit with the four of them for a meal? Again, the choice. Two nights. Two invitations. Two moments that could easily have been dismissed as interruptions to the life I imagined was waiting somewhere else. |
 |
| But here is what those evenings quickly reminded me of: my “real” life is wherever I happen to be. And here is what “where I happened to be” became. On both occasions I soon was awash in joy and delight—and energized—in hearing the stories of each of the people who had so kindly and generously come to find me. It turns out that none of these eight people over the course of the two evenings wanted something from me so much as they wanted to care for me by offering me hospitality at their tables. Moreover, they put their money where their mouths were. On both evenings they picked up the tab for my dinner. What I could have imagined as an intrusion into my “down time” was instead a gift from the Spirit. A gift of community. A gift of others caring for me as we shared with each other where we each were finding ourselves in those present moments. I cannot say it too often, not least to myself—our real lives are wherever we allow ourselves to be seen by and to see others. On both occasions, what struck me was not the content of our conversations so much as the courage of their vulnerability. The willingness of couples to speak honestly. To risk being known. To say, in one way or another, this is who we are; this is our story. And in the simple act of telling the truth, community—between people who in my case an hour ago didn’t know each other at all—began to emerge. We are not meant to live in isolation, even when we are away from home. The longing to be known does not pause when we cross time zones. Nor does our call to bear witness to one another’s lives. Community is not confined to geography; it is created whenever two or three people choose presence over distraction. So often we imagine that meaning resides somewhere else—later, back home, once we return to our “real” relationships. But the kingdom of God meets us precisely where we are. It asks us to notice who is in front of us. To resist the temptation to live as if this moment doesn’t count. Because it does. Your “real” life is wherever you happen to be. And in that place—whether at your kitchen table or in a hotel bar—you are invited to see and be seen, to know and be known. This is how community forms. This is how love takes flesh. The question is not whether your real life is happening. The question is whether you are willing to enter it. Warmly, Curt |
