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Good morning. This week I paid my first visit to the cinema for a very long time and saw the Oscar winning film Nomadland, about some Americans who lost out economically, live in a mobile home, and move from one trailer camp to another picking up such part time work as they can on the way. It left me with a great sense of the otherness and mystery of the human person. There are stark economic reasons why the central character Fern, a 60 year old women, lives in her van like this. But there is also something about her which seems always wants to be on the move. While on the road she gets solace both from the wildness of nature and the kindness of others in the camps. The other strong impression the film leaves is of the sense of dignity and respect for one another that people in the most harsh conditions can still show, a respect shown in the little ceremonies they hold when one of them dies. I kept wondering why Fern was always on the move, what was going on in her head. She is clearly a mystery not only to other people but herself, and not surprisingly she finds life itself mysterious.

I want to hold on to the feeling that film aroused. For the fact is that people, whoever they are and however long you have known them, are other. They are their unique selves, a mystery never to be fully known by any other human being, to be treated with respect. They are also, like Fern in the film, on the road to somewhere, a work in progress we might say. As a phase in a letter of John in the New Testament puts it ‘It has not yet been made known what we shall be.’

My favourite poem from World War II was written in prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Imprisoned for his role in the plot to assassinate Hitler and hanged just before the end of the war he wrote ‘Who am I ?’ The poem expresses his anguished, conflicting thoughts in prison. Outwardly he seemed so calm and brave, much admired by others. Inwardly he knew himself to be sick and fearful. He wonders which is the real person, the one others see or as he feels inside. Then he reflects that perhaps he is both at once. He ends with two wonderful lines, at once agnostic and full of faith.

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.

He does not know which is the real him, but he trusts God does. And whoever he is, he knows he belongs to God.

Fern in the film did not have that assurance. Like so many of us human beings, at least at times in our lives, she was restless and longing for she knew not quite what.

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