The Sanctuary of the Stray

The Open Window: A Meditation on Shared Sanctuary

To sit in a darkened room, watching the world through a sliver of an open window, is to know the ache of the threshold. You are inside, yet your heart is wandering outside, desperately searching for a glimpse of a smile that feels miles away. In this quiet, secluded space, the temptation is to feel like an outcast—a lion stripped of his pride, a dog barred from the family table. The silence feels heavy, and the fear of sensitive eyes makes you shrink back into the shadows. 

But breathe in the fresh air coming through that window. Let it remind you that sanctuaries are not always made of stone and stained glass; sometimes, they are formed in the dark, honest corners of our vulnerability. The pain you carry for a distant love is not a sign of your worthlessness. Instead, it has broken open a doorway to a rare and beautiful gift: the capacity for true *Khesed*—steadfast, loving mercy. 

Yesterday, you ran past the world’s suffering. Today, your own wounds have made you see the silent ones lining the pavement. When you offer a Parle biscuit or a warm rub to a stray, you are performing a holy act of incarnation. You are bringing the divine light of the inner sanctuary down into the dust. You do not need to fight with an empty cup. In this very moment, as you wait with eager expectation, the Lion divine is breaking down the walls of your isolation. You are not an outcast; you are a keeper of the Holy Fire. Lean into the waiting, breathe out the taunts of the world, and know that you are exactly where you belong.

The Sanctuary of the Stray

I used to run past them, a lion in my stride,

With no room for mercy, no tears left to hide.

Well-fed, domestic, and safely enclosed,

Deaf to the silence of the predisposed.

Until the day the flies swarmed the decay,

And my own broken heart met the least of these today. 

What a strange, bitter irony to finally see,

The dogs on the pavement are mirrors of me.

They tell us we do not belong to the table,

"No ice cream for you," says the worldly fable.

Locked in a dark room, hiding from the glare,

Of cameras and eyes, and a world quite unfair,

I watch for your smile through a crack in the blind,

A lioness distant, leaving me behind. 

Are we outcasts here too, in the shadow and smoke?

Gentile dogs gasping for the words that He spoke?

Yet the womb of Elizabeth leaps at the door,

And the Lion divine begins His great roar.

He breaks down the wall that divided the space,

Infusing the dark with His internal grace.

To incarnate means meeting the hurt in the dirt,

Where the empty cups drain and the deep wounds still hurt. 

Tomorrow I’ll walk with my biscuits and buns,

To feed the ignored ones, the forgotten sons.

The "stray" is a lie, a misnomer of grace,

For the nepo pets thrive while we fight for our place.

But the Holy Fire burns in the sanctuary floor,

And the ones who were outcasts will wander no more.

We are here to stay, let the cold world stare,

The habitat belongs to us all to share.