Inner Stranger Hospitality

Neville's Inner Vision

Exodus 23:9 speaks a simple sentence with an entire inner economy: do not oppress, for you know the heart of a stranger. In Neville's language, a 'stranger' is not merely a person at the gate, but a state of consciousness you have not yet welcomed. When you look with suspicion on what you do not understand, you are oppressing a part of your own being. The heart you fear in the other is a portion of your own heart you have not yet recognized; you were also strangers in Egypt—an ancient memory of limitation, hunger, and dependence. The verse does not command external legality alone; it invites you to shift your inner climate so that mercy, hospitality, and justice arise as natural states of the I AM that you are. As you affirm that you ARE already the generous host, you dissolve the fear that creates separation. The stranger is simply a manifestation of your uninvited thoughts; welcomed, they become guides, not foes, revealing the fertile land of your true kingdom—within.