That’s why this month I’m sharing an article I wrote in response to the vicious and dangerous lies that the Texas Attorney General is spreading about the Catholic faith-based Annunciation House and its Executive Director Ruben Garcia. It’s something I’m definitely passionate about because this is personal to me.
Ruben Garcia, founder and director of Annunciation House, a network of migrants shelters in El Paso ,Texas, speaks with the media during a news conference, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Garcia is reacting to the lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that claims the Annunciation House “appears to be engaged in the business of human smuggling” and is threatening to terminate the nonprofit’s right to operate in Texas. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
But what’s happening in Texas is not unusual. Extremist politicians have infiltrated not only states, but the U.S. Congress, and are creating their own reality, and their own definitions of words like “immigrant,” “Catholic faith-based organization,” and “NGO” (nongovernmental organizations), and trying to force the rest of us to go along with them. Either through lies or laws they enact.
I used to think that practicing one’s faith or beliefs, practicing acts of kindness and mercy, were protected as one of my freedoms in the United States. Not sure I believe that anymore.
Dorothy Day, whose quote I use here, was a convert to Catholicism. She practiced her faith every day, including searching her own heart for her failings and weaknesses. She was humble and selfless. She, too, always put the other first. But she was labeled a socialist and a Communist in her day.
The abuse and twisting of language hasn’t changed. But it’s gotten bolder, more vicious, and more dangerous.
So be on alert. Because it soon migh be unlawful to be kind and compassionate towards the marginalized, the homeless, the immigrant, and the refugee. Some states, like Texas, are certainly working hard at making it so.
Every once in a while new folks come to town and remind me what I love about El Paso. Whether it’s someone volunteering for a year with the Annunciation House network or a college or church group wanting to experience a weeklong border orientation, people who visit El Paso for the first time always leave having been surprised by what they’ve discovered and changed by the experience.
This time her name was Theresa.
She came to El Paso, along with two other women, for several weeks of orientation with the Maryknoll lay missioner program before she was to leave on assignment in Kenya. Maryknoll is a Roman Catholic organization that accompanies people in foreign countries living on the margins. It promotes nonviolence, justice, compassion, and care for the earth. For years Maryknoll offered its orientation in New York. But this year they moved it to El Paso, which, for Theresa and her friends and family, was a concern.
Somehow going to Kenya didn’t seem to be as much of an issue.
When they discovered Theresa was headed for the southern border, her friends warned, “You won’t be safe there. El Paso is a mess.”
And she believed it, too.
After all, most Americans only know about El Paso through the news or social media, the sound bites that refer to “illegal invasions,” “criminal caravans,” and “drug cartels” flowing like wild, unmanageable streams through the Rio Grande into the U.S. TV images show poorly dressed, brown-skinned people cozying up on downtown streets under Red Cross blankets and makeshift homesteads. Or lining up outside Sacred Heart Church for the luncheon meal.
From what’s presented on your screen, it’s easy to think things are crazy and unsafe in El Paso.
Until you spend some time here.
Like I have. Here I am mashing potatoes as I join some of my many friends in preparing Sacred Heart’s annual Thanksgiving meal for the poor and the migrants.
It’s been nearly 10 years since I first came to El Paso to volunteer. More than 7 since I left my Virginia home and moved here. So I was anxious to hear what Theresa had to say about this community I easily came to love.
Tall and white, Theresa stands out in El Paso. She’s a minority here, as am I. She’s also older and has lived in various U.S. states, so she’s got some experience with different types of communities.
During their six weeks with us, Theresa and her little group participated in local events and ministries on both sides of the border. They visited some of the many humanitarian organizations, went to migrant shelters, listened to folks accompanying the marginalized, and participated in the everyday life of the culture.
As she was nearing the end of her stay, we gathered at a friend’s home, and I asked about her experience.
“El Paso is such a gentle place,” she offered.
The word “gentle” struck me. I’d not heard that adjective used to describe El Paso before.
She explained how she had thought her rural community back in Kentucky was the gentlest and warmest community she’d ever known.
Until she came to El Paso.
“People are even gentler and kinder here.”
She gave me one example that sounded very familiar.
Needing to buy some groceries last week, she’d gone to the local Albertsons with only $23 cash to spend. No credit card. When she got to the checkout, she realized she’d not estimated her costs well, because the total was $25 and change. She explained her situation to the cashier and asked to remove some items.
“Hold on,” the cashier said. “I’ve got my Albertson’s card. I can apply it to your bill and I bet that’ll take care of it.”
But even with the card, her new total was $23.57. Still more than she had on her.
Then the bagger stepped in. “I can take care of that,” he said. And he dished into his pocket for the needed change.
Theresa left the store with everything she’d intended to buy and genuine gratitude for the kindness of these two strangers.
“I couldn’t believe how both of them stepped in to help me,” she said. “I don’t know of anywhere else in the U.S. where this would happen.”
I heard the surprise and delight in her voice. And I was delighted with her.
Because, at a time when our country is sourly divided, when we teeter on the verge of denying “outsiders” the basic right to seek asylum, when our politicians can’t risk acting humanely for fear of losing their power and status, I find myself turning to El Paso with deep gratitude.
This is what I would like the world to look like. Generous, gentle, kind, and welcoming.
No, El Paso is not perfect, and, yes, it’s a bit messy. But it is not a mess.
Come to think of it, not unlike a stable in Bethlehem where a baby was born so many years ago.
Last week, just before the holiday season began, workers with the U.S. Border Patrol finished placing their gift to El Paso across several miles of its border wall. Razor wire.
The pesky, prickly, lethal metal contraption now glints in the desert sun atop what has become a 30-foot barrier between downtown El Paso and Juarez, Mexico. Their reason, according to a U.S. Customs and border Protection spokesperson is “to dissuade individuals from scaling the border wall and to reduce the risk of injuries sustained from falling off the barrier.”
Border Patrol admits that 18- and even 30-foot fencing is NOT an insurmountable obstacle. That’s why they’ve added the razor wire. It buys them time to get to the wall before the scalers make it over. And, they say, it will help deter “illegal entries.”
Yes, that’s their reasoning, as absurd as it may sound. They’re hoping it will “dissuade” them, but they know it will not stop the migrants from coming.
It’s important to note that since COVID began, we’ve closed our ports of entry to asylum seekers, thereby removing any legal way of entering. That means more people have resorted to riskier routes, including scaling this monstrous freakin’ metal wall. We’ve been seeing this happen more frequently over the past several months. Some get over unscathed. Others suffer broken bones or a broken back. For some, the practice has ended in death when they slip or are pushed over.
Now they’re going to maneuver through razor wire.
Because I’m sure the smugglers to whom migrants pay outrageous fees to help them across will bring wire cutters along. These smugglers are already placing camouflage ladders on the Mexico side, and at the right moment, directing their human cargo to scale the 18- to 30-ft wall.
In my book, any reasonable, intelligent, mildly compassionate human being would observe this situation and wonder why we’re continuing to waste billions of dollars – not millions but billions – on outdated barriers that don’t work. Are we not in the 21st century – a technological, digital, Drone-crazy age? An age of unprecedented advances in which we could make other, more logical, cost-effective and efficient options? An age in which enough intelligence and resources exist to devise more humane options?
What is particularly disturbing to me is how hellbent we are on keeping “these people” out. So much so that we’re willing to construct a steel structure that obstructs the natural flow of migration along the southern border, adversely affects wildlife and the environment, allows government to forcibly acquire private land through eminent domain, destroys natural habitats, and forces desperate people to make harrowing decisions. All this to build an ineffective, ugly, cruel symbol of so-called security that will never accomplish its intention.
Yes, it’s true – I have a strong opinion about this. I’ve seen its harmful effects. Its costly futility.
And I know that desperate folks do desperate things.
I ask you to consider, when you’re standing on the edge of a precipice, with a drop into the unknown before you, or a life of despair and fear over your shoulder, what choice will you make?
I’ll admit that I have taken more than a few risks in my lifetime. I’ve stood on the edges of despair and sadness. Been forced off a cliff into the unknown and the unexpected. Even dared to jump off into the abyss.
But I’ve never known the kind of desperation that these people I’ve encountered have faced. I’ve never stood on the edge of having to choose between a life of hopeless, abject poverty or the high stakes required to get me out of that hell.
Nor have I lived through the effects of back-to-back hurricanes like the category 5 storms of Eta and Iota that recently stormed through El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, eradicating entire villages, leaving millions homeless and starving, with no assistance from government. The double whammy hurricanes flooded homes and shelters, wiped out crops and other livelihoods, and followed on the heels of a pandemic that had already challenged their ability to survive.
I suspect we will see more Central Americans forced to leave home to find other means of survival. Seeing the aftermath, aid workers in these countries are already predicting the migration. According to an article in The Daily Beast, “The hurricanes come on top of a COVID-19-related economic depression, which added to some of the world’s highest levels of criminal violence, in one of the world’s regions most susceptible to the impact of climate change.”
As I look upon the ugliness and cruelty of our border wall, I know that this is not the total picture. Nor is it the end of the story. Hundreds of thousands of folks across the country – seen and unseen – have walked in solidarity with us to accompany these migrants and refugees over the past several years.
What I have witnessed in this ever-expanding community gives me hope.
And reminds me, in this time of Advent — this season of hopeful waiting — that justice and mercy, hope and faith, kindness and righteousness will meet, and brotherly/sisterly love will prevail.
I know that something better IS POSSIBLE. And I am willing to take the risk, to walk on the edges of society, to bring it to fruition.
I am praying to be part of a miracle. As a light-hearted 6-year-old, full of joy, imagination, spontaneity, and unbridled love, I trusted in miracles.
By the time I was 7 or 8, my world of innocence was changing drastically. The abusive authority present in my life, on many levels, taught me to be cautious, protective, stifled. I began to write stories to entertain myself, to create safe spaces that I could control. When I turned 9, my world fell apart. I became more distrustful, disillusioned, disenchanted. Less inclined to believe in miracles, confining them to Bible stories.
It took me many years and lots of challenging inner work to recognize and release those internalized abusive voices and unnecessary fears. Little by little I reconnected with that creative, expressive, imaginative, life-giving spirit. As I allowed myself to be more vulnerable, I began to trust. As I opened my heart, I became more willing to feel, more willing to be present to the pain – my own and that of others.
I could envision something new rather than believe the images and illusions I’d been taught. And I began to “see” the miracles again.
Through accompanying immigrant families at our southern border, I’ve realized that it’s possible for me to be part of the miracle. By offering compassion, love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness into a situation that may appear overwhelming, I become part of a positive movement in which all things are possible. In a more open-hearted, more life-giving response, the abundance of a loving God is tangible.
It’s true! I’ve witnessed it for myself here in El Paso.
And now we face such a moment in our nation. Something new, more beautiful and unifying, more life-giving for all people is possible. Whether or not this miracle comes into being depends on our response. Mine and yours.
The other day I watched a short video that Insight Meditation Teacher Tara Brach had recommended on Van Jones’ response to racism. Mr. Jones has been entering my radar quite a bit lately, and I’m glad. He’s impressed me with his thoughtful, compassionate, well-balanced, and wise words regarding the divisions in our country and how and why it’s important we come together. This from a man who clearly has experienced and witnessed racism and, from what he’s shared, had to work through much rage during his younger years.
But it was the end of this video that really got to me. A moment when he couldn’t hold it together as he tried to express what this moment unfolding before us means to him. He called it “a great awakening” in which “much more is possible than we dared to hope for,” because something has happened that never happened before: people of all skin colors, all backgrounds, are coming together to speak out against racial injustice. To show they care. Van Jones, this professional, emotionally-mature man, cried as he said, “Somebody killed a black man, and everybody cares. It’s a miracle.”
He wept and I was deeply moved. Moved because I felt the pain of how much he’s been carrying as a black man living in this country trying to work through this maze. Yet I could only feel the fringes of this pain, because as a white woman of privilege, I have not experienced it.
Still, I am certain that my personal experiences of authorities wielding injustices and cruelties, oppressing the vulnerable and victimized, have sensitized me to the oppression of others. What strikes me about Van Jones’ story, and the reality for many others, is that the abusive authorities over black and brown lives are real. Unlike my reality, they’re not part of the past or of someone’s childhood.
They still exist.
Imagining and creating something new, more beautiful and loving, more open-hearted than what we have now requires that we be willing to “see” with new eyes rather than believe the images and myths we’ve been taught. It requires being grounded in the Love that brought us here, sustains us in everything, and exists in all of us.
It also requires letting go of the outcome. Trusting that creating a space imbued with compassion, love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, and peace will manifest into the miracle that is needed.
Italian men performing under quarantine (Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
My 85-year-old friend Sr. Bea stands in the doorway with tears in her eyes. She wants to hug me. We cannot touch. I know she loves me, and she knows I, her.
There is something both so sweet and sad about this moment. I do not know when we will be able to hug again because of this coronavirus pandemic. Or even see each other. She seems frail and vulnerable as she hesitates to say goodbye and tries to hide her tears.
This moment is so beautifully vivid in my awareness now. The preciousness of life and of our love for one another. How much I treasure life, love, deep connection with others.
I think of my son, far up in Nome. The special moments we had nearly two weeks ago. Before COVID-19 had reached Alaska. Before Nome would nearly double in population as strangers descended upon it for the end of the Iditarod, making that little town susceptible. I had thought he would be safe, unaffected by the virus. Luckily, he remains healthy.
No matter where we live or who we are, our lives are being affected. We find ourselves coexisting in the midst of something that is not understandable nor within our control. Yet this pandemic has the potential to teach us something invaluable: how we are inexplicably connected.
That’s why I have renamed this virus COVIDA – vida being the Spanish word for “life.” Because we truly are in this life together. We cannot separate ourselves from that fact. We live on this planet together. We breathe together.
And, as we are witnessing, in reality, no physical barriers can separate us. No 18 ft-tall steel border wall can protect us. When something like this hits, we understand that globally, we are connected. Global solidarity does matter.
From a spiritual perspective, a crisis has the potential to heal and bring us together in ways that nothing else can. It can teach us, “wake us up” to how we have been living, how we have been treating ourselves, each other, and our Mother Earth. It can teach us what we need to change. Reconnect us with our spiritual grounding, cause us to turn to our spiritual practices. Remind us of the spiritual laws of love, of brotherhood/ sisterhood, of our responsibility for one another.
Most importantly, it can remind us to turn to love rather than fear. The Love that loves us so and mysteriously “sustains us, in everything,” as my teacher Jim Finley would say.
Like most people, I have been paying attention to the news. But in small doses. What has struck and uplifted me are the positive and beautiful ways people have been finding to connect. As if they cared. As if we matter to each other.
As if we instinctively know that we don’t have to physically connect to touch someone’s heart.
Strangers are performing selfless acts of kindness: neighbors offering to get groceries for the elderly and homebound, high schools donating medical supplies and face masks to hospitals, volunteers “staffing” food banks and delivering food to low-income children who are missing their school lunches. And, most importantly of all are those selfless nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals who are working such long hours and returning, day after day, to exposure to this virus.
As Pope Francis counseled recently, “Don’t waste these difficult days….We must rediscover the concreteness of little things, small gestures of attention we can offer….We must understand that in small things lies our treasure. These gestures of tenderness, affection, compassion are minimal and tend to be lost in the anonymity of everyday life, but they are nonetheless decisive, important.”
Loving in place is possible. Even vital. In this time of COVIDA.
The Uber driver pulled up right on time, at the impossibly early hour of 4:50 a.m. I stood under the white spotlights of the overhang at the front entrance of my niece’s apartment building outside Washington, DC. A sole figure with two suitcases by her side. He could not have missed me. Only the birds announcing their predawn celebration accompanied me.
The tall, brown-skinned man introduced himself before lifting my heavy load into the trunk of his car. Already, in just the few words we had spoken, I thought I recognized Tedor’s accent. After we chatted a bit, I felt comfortable enough to ask his country of origin. He wanted me to guess and tried to give me a geography lesson, which doesn’t work well with me. But after I incorrectly guessed Kenya, and he revealed that it was a neighboring country, I knew my first inclination had been correct. He was from Ethiopia – the same country as my young friend whom I’d been visiting in detention for over a year in El Paso.
I so appreciated the connection that I began to share a bit of Abdinoor’s story. (I have been using the pseudonym Mathias in my blog posts to protect my friend, Abdinoor, and I am happy to finally be able to reveal his real name. Sweet, intelligent, upstanding young Abdinoor has entered Canada, where he is receiving refugee status and is no longer being treated like a criminal. Now he can finally go visit his mother in Kenya. Although I am thrilled for him, I feel it is our loss. And our shame.)
Then Tedor and I shared a little of our own stories. I learned he had been living in the Washington area for three years, along with his family. When I told him I’d lived in Virginia for 30 years, he expressed great surprise. “But you look so young! I thought you were only in your 30’s!”
It had been quite dark when he’d picked me up, so I figured he must not have seen my face clearly. Still, I was really liking this guy.
“You look young because you have love in your heart,” he explained, after I’d revealed my age. “That’s important. To have love in your heart.”
I agreed, of course.
Tedor said he appreciated my kindness, noting that few people he picked up spoke to him. Some don’t even say hello or good morning. They keep their eyes cast downward, gazing into their phone screens during the entire ride.
I tried to imagine that – someone not even acknowledging another human being inside that small, confined space. I remembered how, as much as I loved the diversity in the DC metro area, the congestion and stressful lifestyle could make it hard to connect.
But what a sweet connection I had made with this stranger in the shorter than 15-minute ride to the airport. Isn’t this what it’s really all about, I thought, as I left his little red car feeling much better than I’d had when I’d dragged myself out to the curb that morning? And Tedor clearly was in good spirits, too.
Isn’t it about kindness and connection? About recognizing our common humanity? About seeing how we are really more alike than anything?
Not the exact words I saw, but close enough
Later, as my jet rose above the Washington National Monument, I glanced out the window to say goodbye to my beloved Virginia when I noticed an incredible message displayed on the lawn.
Incredible, because of how it spoke to my heart.
There, beaming up at me were the words: “You are not alone. No estás solo.”
Talk about connection! Who had created this message, I wondered? For whom and what was it intended?
It didn’t matter, because in that moment, it was surely meant for me. Meant to carry my spirit forward, to face the growing challenges of our work at the border and to comfort me in the further letting go that I’d experienced on this trip to Virginia.
I had just let go of my son – again. Let go of many special things we’d put aside for when he moved into his own place in the lower 48 – something he’d decided was not going to happen anytime soon. So we’d had to let things go for a song, or even less. And I had to let go of the idea that he would live a little closer than the ridiculously long and challenging time it takes to get to Nome by plane.
I let go of the boy, but kept the story books and the rocking chair
But because that message was also in Spanish, I felt it calling me back to El Paso. To the migrants we accompany, who face far more grievous ways of letting go than I ever will. Asylum seekers, like Abdinoor, stuck in detention, far away from families and anything familiar. And mothers who are still separated from their children, toddlers, and even their babies.
Their forced “letting go” makes mine pale in comparison. My connection with them helps me keep things in perspective.
And if all that wasn’t enough, when I got down the escalator at the El Paso airport, I unexpectedly ran into someone I knew.
Not just anyone.
Sr. Fran was the woman who’d made my first volunteer experience here possible back in 2014. We greeted each other with surprised smiles and warm hugs, genuinely glad to see each other.
To have a little 4-year-old, previously a stranger to me, trust me with her knotted tresses. Trust me enough to allow me to secure her between my knees as I sat down and attempted to untangle her long, wavy locks.
Lint and other particles from her weeks-long journey from Honduras had nested in Yoselin’s curls and refused to disentangle themselves.
It felt like a nearly impossible task. Especially with only a thin comb as my tool.
She never made a sound. Never winced. Yoselin stood quietly, patiently, while her 7-year-old sister and her appreciative father watched.
I finally threw my hands up.
“It’s the best I can do. Es la mejor que puedo hacer.”
I gave a pleading look to her dad and twisted a hair band around her tresses, securing any loose ends. Even after I pulled her hair back into a ponytail, Yoselin didn’t budge. She remained perched between my legs, unmovable. I gave her a little nudge.
“I need to get up,” I gently said. Necesito levantarme.
Reluctantly she moved away and I went off to prepare lunch so she and her family could eat before they boarded the bus to Tennessee in a few hours.
It felt like such a small thing. And yet very precious.
I didn’t know the next time this child would receive such a gentle, loving touch. Her innocence and complete vulnerability and trust at my hands made me want to cry.
Sometimes it’s not just children who are innocent and vulnerable and trusting in our hands.
I’ve become familiar with so many suffering people who have come here completely vulnerable and trusting in a country known as the greatest defender of human rights and democracy.
Like my guy in detention “Mathias.” He was shocked when, after explaining to U.S. Customs and Border Protection his reason for seeking international asylum, they handcuffed and confined him in a detention facility.
I’ve been visiting Mathias for months. I’ve gotten to know him and care about him. Even took the morning off to attend his court hearing, as his main support system and concerned friend. But he lost his case. It doesn’t appear he has much chance for appeal. His health has been deteriorating since he arrived at the El Paso detention facility. Yet El Paso has one of the better facilities.
If he doesn’t appeal, he will soon be transferred to another facility as he awaits deportation. And his situation could get much worse.
My fear is he’ll be transferred to a private facility in Sierra Blanca, Texas, where African immigrants, in particular, are being abused and beaten, according to a recent report by immigrant and civil rights groups. This is not surprising, based on what we hear from other volunteers and immigration attorneys.
It deeply disturbs me – what’s happening in our country. Both behind closed doors and overtly.
I’m aware that sometimes I can’t get all the knots out, no matter how hard I try. I can’t prevent the pain someone is experiencing.
Sometimes the best I can offer is to simply walk alongside them in their anxiety. Their fear. Their suffering.
And not have any answers. Not be able to explain why a country known throughout the world for supporting and defending human rights would treat others inhumanely.
It doesn’t seem like enough. What I do.
But I know that kindness does matter. A caring heart matters. And an educated, intelligent response to abusive authority matters, too.
Your response matters.
Let’s all do the best we can do. It’s the only way positive changes can happen.
A Journey of the Heart 