Your Distressing Disguise

He rolled around the Sprouts parking lot in his wheelchair, one leg extended, the other absent underneath the loosely hanging grey pant leg. I noticed him first, and moved to the next aisle, heading for my car. But he was quick, obviously adept at getting himself around on the streets. As soon as he asked for cash, I looked away, offering instead a knee-jerk “not today.” But as I walked off with a bag filled with unnecessary groceries, I relented. It’s true, these were items I had bought on sale, but most of them were indulgences, really, like the jar of Silly Cow hot chocolate and the organic lotion bar, the tin of Gingerbread tea and the navel oranges to add to the half dozen already waiting for me at home. 

“You can give the guy a buck, for God’s sake, Pauline.”

And so begins my piece recently published in NCR – a vulnerable and perfect example of my false self, or lower nature, at work.  A piece that reveals the self-awareness and humble willingness it takes to meet the not-so-nice places within myself. A willingness to observe myself honestly. And not be afraid of what I see.

Thankfully, that’s what happened when I witnessed my reaction to this homeless man asking for money. A man who had placed himself a little too close for comfort. And then reacted in a most ungrateful manner that set me off.

In publishing the piece on this sensitive subject of homelessness, the NCR editor was careful to remove some words that might offend. Words like “distressing” and “pissed.” But, in my limited sight at the time, distressing is how I initially saw this man. And pissed is what I clearly felt when he asked for an unreasonable amount of money upon my return.

Honestly, I believe most of us have these negative reactions to people who make us feel uncomfortable. People who don’t meet our expectations.

The gift is being able to pause and observe yourself in the midst of it. The gift of grace helped me do that.

(You can read the article in its entirety here: https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/soul-seeing/learning-see-different-eyes)

I returned to my car and retrieved one of the single dollar bills I’d learned to keep in the pocket of my door so I’d be prepared at the corner stoplight where the growing number of homeless stationed themselves. I was accustomed to seeing people asking for money, but usually not this close. And the man in the wheelchair was not someone I recognized from the usual community. He had ventured far beyond the perimeters of the traffic light corner, wheeling himself closer and closer to the Sprouts entrance and exit doors, certain to catch the attention of shoppers before they got into their cars and approached the light.

“Here,” I said, as I handed him the dollar. And then, as if trying to explain my return, “I had this in my car.”

He looked at the bill, his face a fist of wrinkled displeasure. He not only didn’t smile or thank me, but scorned the offering.

“C’mon,” he scowled. “Give me $100.”

I must have blinked, maybe even jolted in place. “I don’t have $100,” I said, feeling a little riled at his rudeness.

“Well, how about $25 then?”

“How about you just take the dollar?” And I walked off, regretting my attempt to give anything at all and feeling simultaneously prideful and gullible as my negative inner talk got the best of me.

Until I paused to unlock my car door.

Wait. Who was I doing this for anyway? For myself? To receive an expectant “thank you” and a smile of appreciation? To feel good about my little act of charity? Or was it truly an act of kindness for a person in need in front of me. A man who may not know how to be thankful or kind. A man whose life I knew nothing about.

Suddenly, my imagination took over. It was as if Jesus were talking to me through this stranger’s face. 

Can you still love me when I look like this? When I act like this? When I don’t meet your expectations?

As Jesus’ sweet voice came through the face of this man, I realized what was being asked of me. To see with different eyes. To love with the heart of God.

My heart softened, even though the man’s scowling countenance did not. He appeared before my imagination just as disheveled and distasteful as before. But the Christ within him now shone in a way that my judging self would not have been able to see. There was a warm spark buried within him that layers of pain and woundedness concealed.

True, I had to put my prideful ego aside. But wasn’t this my intention? To discover You in all your many disguises? And You poked me right here in the supermarket parking lot. In the dark shadow of a one-legged man slumped in a wheelchair on an ugly blacktop with engines idling all around, car fumes emitting into my lungs and, instead of angelic choirs, the clanking sound of shopping carts crashing into a queue.

Not at all what I expected.

“You want to love me better?” You ask. “I’m right here.”

[A note of of thanks to Pixabay photographers reidy68, stevepb, and anwar Ramadhan]

On the Camino Todo es Regalo

_{The old pilgrim}

On the Camino, everything was a gift. Once I slowed my step enough to see and pay attention with the eyes of the heart.

It’s true that, in the scheme of things, I walked a short distance. Some may say it doesn’t count. Yet my experience on El Camino de Santiago in Spain clearly revealed insights and gifts of the Holy One that tell me otherwise.

For now, I simply want to saborear los regalos. Savor the gifts.

Right from the get-go, I had to remind myself of my intention to put down my expectations and preferences. Amidst the messiness of 13 people traveling together, many opportunities arose to practice such an intention. True, it was challenging. But, as I kept pausing and paying attention, I began to notice the gifts.

On the first morning, our group left early in a frenzy of chatter and anticipation, only to arrive at our preordained destination before noon. That was my sign that I needed to do this differently. I began to hang back, start out a little later, a little slower, and alone. The contemplative in me needed that space for quiet reflection and the opportunity to be more present.

Not only did I better notice and appreciate the abundance of beauty arising around me, I was becoming more aware of what was arising within me. And it wasn’t always pretty.

Sometimes a feeling of irritability or judgment would show up, and I’d recognize myself in someone else. Rather than go down the path of defensiveness, pride, or shame, I would observe it and remember my mantra: “not my will but yours be done.” To me, that simply means that I accept what is in front of me, what I cannot control, what is not in my hands.

On the Camino I carried Mirabai Starr’s pocket-sized book on St. Teresa of Avila, “Passionate Mystic.” I’d planned my journey to end with a short train ride from Madrid to Avila where I would visit the birthplace and sacred sites of this visionary nun, a religious reformer of the 16th century. Intelligent, independent, sensible, and very human, Teresa offers wise guidance for contemplation and action in daily life. She stresses that self-inquiry and self-knowledge are key on the spiritual path.

Following her guidance over the years, I’ve discovered that the greatest gift is to honestly meet myself on the road and accept all the parts of my precious human existence, knowing that I don’t need to be perfect.

It’s humbling. But so freeing.

Because it reminds me of my need for God. My need to put all my failings, shortcomings, and missteps into the hands of the Source of Love.

As the days passed, I discovered a lightness in my step. I learned to accept all my “missteps,” like the day I took an unnecessary 2 ½ hour uphill climb to the wrong albergue, dragging an unknowing friend along with me. But when we discovered my mistake, my friend not only wasn’t upset with me, we both appreciated the gift we’d been given in getting to know each other through our intimate conversation along the way. A conversation we would never have had if the walk had been short.

Daily, I noticed such gifts as I practiced putting down my preferences and picking up my mantra. These are just a taste:

• The young Italian couple that invited me to join them for dinner one evening and the wonderful conversation that ensued.
• A vivid dream and reminder from David that I’m not alone.
• The fantastic caldo (homemade soup) I stumbled upon when I stopped for lunch after mistakenly walking beyond my stopping point. And the pilgrim who donated her copy of a guide to the Camino when I told her I’d like to return. I never asked her for it; she simply offered it.
• Getting to know my companion Bonnie as we accompanied one another on our way to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
• Making it to the cathedral in time for the pilgrim’s mass and witnessing the moving surprise ritual of the Botafumeiro swinging with incense up the aisle where we were standing.
• In Avila, I’d spent all my euros and a shopkeeper couldn’t accept my credit card to purchase a couple of items dedicated to St. Teresa. I left disappointed, but once on the street, a young woman came running after me with two special cards of St. Teresa’s famous prayer, a gift from the shopkeeper.
• At the last minute, I had discovered and procured a room at an albergue located on the site of Teresa’s birthplace. The roses in the garden produced an exceptional aroma, a sweetness I’d never experienced and could imagine came directly from heaven.

• Being given a copy of “The Beatitudes of the Pilgrim,” which rang true as I reflected on them. These three are my favorite:

Blessed are you, pilgrim, when you lack words to express your gratitude for all that surprises you at every turn of the road.

Blessed are you, pilgrim, if on the way you meet yourself and give yourself time without haste so as not to neglect your heart.

Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you discover that the road has much to do with silence, and silence with prayer, and prayer with the encounter with the God of Love who awaits you.

My gifts from the Avila shopkeeper

Yes, the Beloved did await me. Ever present. Never changing. Simply waiting for me to pay attention.

_{“Keep walking, keep singing, keep praying, keep trusting, keep on letting go into Love.”}

A Pre-Camino Practice

I’ve caved. I have agreed to walk a small portion of el Camino de Santiago – the Portuguese route – with some of my local hiking friends this month.

Many people who walk el Camino de Santiago, a 500-mi pilgrimage from France through Portugal to Spain, write about their experience after the journey. They share how they were transformed, what struck them as they slowed down and turned inward, and how the unexpected proved to be their greatest teacher.

I’m a little unusual. I’m writing about the Camino before I begin. Because, for me, the spiritual practice of walking the Camino has already begun.

Even though it’s not been on my bucket list, I always thought that if I did do this pilgrimage, it would be a spiritual practice with the intention of letting the journey unfold before me, each day unplanned. And I’d want to walk the entire 500 miles.

But this will not be quite like that.

And I suspected that from the beginning, which is why I just listened as these friends planned the trip. A much shortened version, planned through a tour company that organizes your accommodations every night. And delivers your backpack to these places for you!

But being the adventurer that I am, and in hearing my friend ask me once again if I would consider going, I finally said yes. Then the internal questions began.

As I listened to pre-Camino conversations and concerns among these friends, I knew for certain that their focus was very different. But we live, after all, in a privileged culture. And I was quietly advocating for something countercultural.

So, I wondered, did I make the right decision? Would I be able to stay grounded within my being and carry my intentions? Would I feel like an impostor as I encountered other pilgrims who were walking much farther and under very different circumstances?

I think of my El Paso friend, Heidi, a lay missioner with a lifelong commitment to social justice and accompanying the poor and marginalized. She’s walking the Camino as I write this. Her plan is to complete the entire 500 miles. She and her companions don’t have reservations along the way, they are carrying everything they need on their backs, and they’re enduring some intense weather. Consequently, they are traveling simply and lightly. With the intention to accept whatever comes. And recognize it as gift.

At first I felt my accomplishment would be so little in comparison. Yet, isn’t this also what is asked of me as I walk with this group of friends on the Camino? To put aside my expectations and anticipations, my judgments and preferences? And love each person I accompany, and encounter, where they are? Just as I am asked to love the migrants whom I’ve accompanied on their own camino?

Neither is easy.

_{Pots hand painted by migrants to raise money for their journey}

Whether it’s the privileged or the underprivileged we walk with, the ordinary or the extraordinary we encounter, loving what is, is a hard practice. There’s no doubt about it.

I remember when I first picked up St. Therese of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul more than 30 years ago. How simple and childlike she seemed to me. Yet I have long since learned that her “little way” is anything but simple. She put her preferences and her will aside daily. In the confines of a convent, where she lived with some challenging personalities. And offered up every little detail of her “ordinary” life, as it unfolded, for love. She accepted what was in front of her as divine will.

For the practice of the presence of God IS accepting the present moment, just as it is. And loving who and what is in front of you. That, I’ve discovered, is my spiritual practice.

To walk even the smallest part of the Camino with that intention will not be easy. So, the Camino will have much to teach me.

And the lesson is beginning before I even walk out the door.

Rescuing an Alien

Sharing a happy ending here – so far – to my last post, and I apologize for taking so long to write it.

Early in June, Sofia, the asylum seeker I had attempted to sponsor, was released from detention! Yay! Thanks to the work of Las Americas – an immigrant advocacy nonprofit in El Paso that provides pro bono and low-cost legal services to asylum seekers. I serve on the board of directors of Las Americas, which is how I initially learned about Sofia’s situation.

I hadn’t mentioned it in my last post, more for her protection than anything, but Sofia was being held at Otero County Processing Center. A privately run facility known for its hellish conditions, Otero is located off a New Mexico desert highway about 40 miles northeast of El Paso. Approaching this windowless, concrete building surrounded by high fencing with barbed wire, you’d have to wonder if you’re at a “processing center” or the county prison next door.

No doubt about it. Otero is basically immigration jail.

So it makes sense that, after her nonsensical third denial for parole, Sofia was so distraught, she asked to be deported, willing to risk the death threats she’d received back home in Colombia rather than remain imprisoned and subjected to the hostility of her detention officer. Take that in for a moment. After all she’d been through, facing the threats back home felt no worse than what she was facing in detention.

_{Photo credit: The Otero County Processing Center on Jan. 4. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)}

Fortunately, the immigration judge did not act immediately on her request, and since Sofia is a client of Las Americas’, the nonprofit filed a complaint against this officer on her behalf, which prompted ICE to release her on bond, for a lesser amount than what’s usually requested.

Knowing that applying for bond from a local nonprofit would take several days, I offered to front the money and take her home with me. I’d get reimbursed later. The critical issue was to get Sofia out of there.

But releasing asylum seekers from detention is never quick nor simple.

It took about a day and a half of dealing with crass, curt, and intimidating ICE employees before everything was approved and Sofia was released to me. This included an unnecessary return trip to Otero the second morning to replace my check that ICE had mishandled.

It didn’t matter how inconvenient or unreasonable their request was. I had to comply. To not return would jeopardize Sofia’s freedom. They had all the power. They were in control of the life I wanted to free.

This experience gave me just a tiny taste of what immigration attorneys and paralegals handling asylum cases deal with every day. The terse and offensive responses from those in authority, the steady push upstream against a forceful tide of anti-refugee, anti-asylum decision makers. This is the system social justice and human rights advocates are working against. But no matter the frustration nor the seemingly impossible odds, they do it in exchange for something invaluable – the dignified life of another human being.

Welcoming Sofia into my home was a complete gift. Proof that a special bond can exist, even between two strangers.

During the three days she spent with me before moving on to stay with a relative while awaiting her court hearing, Sofia viewed everything with a child’s exuberance. From the moon and stars in the night sky, which she hadn’t seen for months, to a cheap new pair of shoes that I bought to replace the thin, blister-causing pair that she’d been given in detention. She praised the simple meal I prepared for her first evening and insisted on preparing a Colombian-style dinner for me the next, along with cleaning my floor and acting as my secretaria, wanting to do whatever she could to assist me. I met practically her entire family via FaceTime — husband, daughter, parents, mother-in-law, cousins. Their immense gratitude felt humbling.

Sofia is one of the lucky ones.

More than 80 percent of asylum seekers do not have legal representation and must simply languish in detention until their asylum case is decided. Most likely they’ll be deported. No matter how solid their credible fear case. It’s rare to win asylum without an attorney, especially if your case is decided in a state like Texas. Most asylum seekers are totally ill-prepared to legally represent themselves and they face intimidation from the ICE agent, from the judge, and from the government attorney questioning them as they attempt to defend their case while clad in detention-assigned prison garb.

I think of all the people who flee their country with legitimate fear of violence and death threats, only to be met at our ports of entry with such incredible resistance and dehumanization. Nowadays asylum seekers must be lucky enough to land an appointment through the CBP One app if they want to even be considered. It doesn’t matter what dangers you’re fleeing or what you’re facing while waiting in Mexico.

And then I think of the hundreds who make it here only to be locked up in detention facilities. They remain in the shadows, their voices unheard, their abuses often unnoticed.

(For more explicit information on the conditions in immigration detention, check out this El Paso Matters article on Otero: https://elpasomatters.org/2021/01/05/ice-detainees-at-el-paso-area-immigration-facility-face-systemic-torture-new-report-says/

That’s why being able to help release even one person, one “alien,” from immigration detention was a grace beyond description. And nonprofits like Las Americas are a true blessing.

So I’ll give Las Americas a plug here and say that the org doesn’t have nearly the funding it needs and is unable to take on more clients. No matter how desperate the person. If you’d like to support people like Sofia and the work of Las Americas, please donate at https://www.las-americas.org/donate

And remember:

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (Hebrews 13)

Nothing Is Missing

Fourteen years today since David passed. Sometimes I wonder, will I ever find such profound love again?

Is it possible for someone to love me as much as David did? But even if I never find such another love, I know that I’ve been given a gift that many never receive. A taste of my belovedness. Through the eyes and heart of another. That’s what David’s love has given me.

And still does.

Yet it’s just a taste. For I have had moments in which I’ve so powerfully experienced my belovedness that I could barely take it in. Moments that I can only describe as mystical.  Because they came out of nowhere and filled me with a “knowing.”

A knowing that, without a doubt, I am loved beyond measure by an immeasurable Presence.

Yet that knowing slips away so easily. In the day-to-day living, I keep forgetting. Or questioning. Even doubting. Like Thomas in this past Sunday’s gospel reading.

“If only you have eyes to see, you will see me everywhere.”

I do want to “see.” But sometimes I need more. Sometimes I need to touch and love the wounds – in myself and others – before I can remember who I am and whose I am. Before I can remember that I am the beloved.

And that nothing is missing anywhere.

Several years ago when I was going through a low point in my aloneness in my log home in Virginia, I reached out for spiritual help. Out of nowhere, I received these words as a reminder.

“Do you not know that your entire being is encompassed by my love?”

Since then it has become like a mantra. Words that I repeat when I need them most.

They remind me that not only I, but everyone and everything, is encompassed by this love.

Recently I took a few days silent retreat simply because I wanted to listen more deeply. I wanted to put aside what I thought I knew, and discover something more, and different, about this Mystery we call God. But I couldn’t get away from this all-encompassing, self-emptying love that made itself known to me and within me in various ways. A love that assured me – again – that nothing is missing.

At times I still feel the sadness of losing David so soon. But I don’t get lost in nostalgia, regrets, or self-pity. Rather, I feel my longing more keenly. A longing to be ever more present to this ever-abiding, interabiding love that gives itself to me every day. And longs to be known and trusted.

If only I have eyes to see.

Nothing is missing anywhere.

Venezuela Is Bleeding

Venezuela is bleeding. A deep, dark flow from her insides pouring out over the land and into neighboring countries.

Daily she bleeds. A kind of hemorrhaging of her people that no one seems able to stop. Many complain about it. Many others mourn the loss.

Sources say that, on average, 5,000 people per day are leaving Venezuela. The country has been drained of an estimated 20% of her population. Maybe more.

For years, her people have tumbled into Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru. And now the flow is streaming farther north, to the United States.

But much of the way is clogged. And so they wait, in Ciudad Juárez, a place that’s become a stopgap. But Juarez has its own share of poor who wander the lanes of traffic that inches its way to the international bridge trying to sell their wares, candies and trinkets in hand, dirty rags to wash windshields. The Venezuelans join the locals, competing for meager coins to buy meager meals.

I pass them by when I walk over the bridge into Juarez to help serve the free meals for migrants at the cathedral. I spot the Venezuelans easily. Parents hoisting their children upon their shoulders to appeal to drivers. They speak without using words.

“See, I have a family to feed.”

“Won’t you help this child I’m carrying?”

“See, we’ve come a very long way. We are hungry.” Some carry images of the Venezuelan flag.

But they have endured much more than hunger to get here.

They’ve traveled through “the world’s deadliest jungle,” Panama’s Darien Gap.  Some have stepped past dead bodies, heard the cries of others, saw images they’ll never forget along the way. Only to be halted and targeted by cartels and even police. Shaken down for the pittance they’ve earned. Or worse.

They await their fate living on the streets or in shabby shelters, migrant holding cells or hotels. The latter if they’re blessed enough to have meager funds or receive some of the limited support available for temporary shelter.

But even sturdy, hopeful people have their limits. Tensions rise. Frustration grows.

Monday night a fire broke out at one of the Mexican government-run centers for male migrants in Juarez. The cause is under investigation. Most difficult to understand, the guards did not unlock the cells for the men to flee. They left them behind. Three government migration officials and two private security guards have since been arrested.

Dozens died.

More blood flows.

_{Volunteers at the cathedral created a cross of 39 candles to honor those who died in the fire}

The wound grows deeper.

And it becomes easier to grow numb. To desensitize, not want to feel or acknowledge the pain of others. It’s overwhelming, after all.

There’s so much bleeding.

Mexico is saturated with her own blood. Years of femicides, disappearances, slaying of journalists. The list goes on.

My country, too, has spilled much blood since its inception. The blood of innocents seeped below the earth where we try to dismiss it. Or gaslight it.

Just stop the flow north, we say. Then things will be better. I hear the angry voices. I see the twisted news stories. Slanted to instigate fearful and knee-jerk reactions.

Those of us who want to help say it’s too much. What can we do?

In her diaries, Dorothy Day laments how even good-hearted people regard the poor and down-and-out with bitterness and frustration. They ask what’s the use? What can I accomplish anyway?

I know I don’t have answers. I lack control over any of it.

But I try to live by what Dorothy advises, knowing that I often fail.

“If we start in by admitting that what we can do is very small—a drop in the bucket—and try to do that very well, it is a beginning and really a great deal.” (From The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day)

So, I pick up my bucket and begin once again. Mopping up the drops before me. Trusting that my small effort is making a difference. Even if I can’t make the bleeding stop.

_{Kelly Latimor Icons}

No Limit

There is no limit to the people coming. I’m told more arrive every day.

But I’m not at one of the shelters accompanying migrants in El Paso. I’ve crossed the border into Juarez to help at Nuestra Seῇora de Guadalupe Cathedral on the plaza where, under the auspices of the Missionaries of St. Columban, volunteers serve almuerzo (lunch) to some 400-600 migrants Monday through Friday. I’d heard they could use help, so I walk over the bridge on Thursdays. A sinfully simple undertaking for me, a white U.S. citizen with a passport.

Meanwhile, all U.S. ports of entry remain closed to asylum seekers as Title 42 continues to serve as a stopgap, causing a growing, seemingly endless number of migrants to make their way across Mexico and land in Juarez. When the number stuck on the streets began escalating, the Columbans and the diocese of Ciudad Juárez chose to set up tables in the parish hall and make sure they ate at least one meal a day.

_{Cathedral in Ciudad Juarez plaza}

People line up outside before the doors open. Men, women, children waiting for a free meal. No questions asked. All that’s required is that you stand for the benediction, eat quickly, and pick up after yourself so that we can seat the next round of folks. Fourteen tables, eight to a table. That’s 112 people per round. And tables will be filled several times before the day is over.

I hadn’t thought about how impractical love is until I started serving plate after plate of warmed-over spaghetti, beans, and rolls to table after table of migrants.

Here, unlike the shelters in El Paso, there’s no quantifiable outcome to my efforts. No one to call to come drive the families to the airport or bus so we can know they’ll soon be in the safe harbor of their sponsor. Instead, they eat and pool back onto the streets or their room, for those who have money to afford one.

When the spaghetti runs out – and it inevitably does – volunteers quickly improvise by opening can after can of tuna, corn, and peas, throwing in huge dollops of mayonnaise, to create a semi-satisfying alternative. That, too, may run out, depending on how many stragglers will show up before the cathedral closes its doors later this afternoon.

How do you even know if someone won’t show up in line again later? I ask one of the volunteers.

She shrugs. Her quizzical expression says, why does it matter?

I only do this one day a week, yet I notice I have attitude issues. I want assurances. Sensible rules. Measurable results.

_{Volunteers serving lunch}

When I volunteered in El Paso, we had order, a structure to the scenario of people arriving seeking asylum. We served a steady stream of migrants, but a manageable one. And many had legitimate claims for asylum. But not all. Still, there was a process. ICE would check each asylee, vet and bring them to our shelters. And we had a good system going, feed them, give them a hot shower and a change of clothes, tell their relatives to buy airline or bus tickets, and get them on to the next leg of their journey. It was a relatively smooth process. And I felt as though I was part of a humanitarian effort with a clear purpose.

Until the arrivals started to grow. And grow. Migration no longer a methodical ebb and flow, but a stubborn tide that refused to go out.

Now I wonder, and worry, where will it all end?

I grow tired rushing from table to table, balancing paper plates, Styrofoam cups with sugar-watery oatmeal. I react, interiorly, to diners who don’t acknowledge the plate of food I’ve set before them with a thank-you. I feel disgusted with the person who sneaks a second meal when so many still needing to be fed sit on folding chairs waiting outside our doors. And I’m beyond frustrated with systems of governing that create the kind of greed, exploitation, and desperation that causes so many to leave home and prevents them from simply existing. Some days I rant with better alternatives. As if I could rule the world. Or would be good at it.

Staring out at this sea of people, I’m secretly deciphering who deserves to be here. Certainly the woman who has stuffed her mop of unkempt hair into a faded black hoodie, stained with the dust of the desert. Her soiled jeans reveal bare ankles fit into sole-flapping sneakers. But not the Venezuelan couple at the next table, charging their phones while ignoring everyone around them. From his bright, obviously-dyed blond cropped hairstyle and her long curls cascading down the length of her clean black coat, I’ve deduced they’ve shuffled in from a hotel room.

I’m clearly no Mother Teresa. Nor Dorothy Day. Apparently, I can accompany people only so far.

Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa (Photo by Jim Forest/Flickr)

Aware that I need an attitude check, I turn to my fellow volunteers for encouragement. Of course, there are stalwart, selfless Catholic sisters among us. Models I don’t even want to try to emulate. But there are also many sweet, youthful faces. I haven’t yet discovered what has brought these 20-something-year-olds to volunteer at least four hours of their weekdays to serve destitute people. But I’ve come to know a few of them. Like Jaime Jesus, the Venezuelan migrant, who arrives every day to tend to other migrants like himself.

At 23, he’s shouldering the responsibility of caring for his ill parents and younger sister back in Venezuela. The day his mother could only feed him and his sister and tried to pretend she and his dad had already eaten, he knew he had to leave home to support them.

On a break between wiping tables and waiting for the next procession to pile in, I ask Jaime about his job. I’d heard he was working as a barista at a local café. He says he starts at 3 p.m., which is basically right after he leaves here, and works until 11. Every day. Then he goes to sleep for a few hours until the alarm wakes him so he can check the CBP One mobile app. Like thousands of other Venezuelan migrants, he’s seeking a “humanitarian exception” to Title 42 to enter the U.S. But whenever he tries to file for an appointment online, the saturated system crashes. So, he keeps rising early and trying.

He makes me wish I had control over that process. I’d quickly decide who was worthy of a chance to apply for a “humanitarian exemption.” Jaime – worthy. Couple with the stylish haircuts – not worthy.

Incredulously, I ask, with such a busy schedule, why then does he volunteer here every day?

“It fills my soul to help my friends,” he says.

I stare for a moment, knowing that if I were him, I’d probably be napping right now, catching up on all those missed hours of sleep instead of feeding fellow competitors in the endless line to enter the land of opportunity.

While Jaime is learning English from us, I’m learning humility from him.

Unbidden, the words of Jim Finley, one of my spiritual teachers, come to mind. “Love won’t let us live on our own terms.”

That’s for sure. Because, if it did, I would naturally put limits on love, conditions that must be met before I can open my heart fully. No such conditions exist with Jaime.

Nor with God. Which is why, at the end of a full day, I choose to sit like an unlearned child in the silence of the lap of God. I need to mellow out and soak up that love. Again.

I settle onto my meditation mat and open the New Testament, expecting to practice lectio divina. The marked, tattered pages of 1Corinthians fall open before me. I’ve highlighted the infamous chapter 13 all over the place. Those overused verses at weddings that caused guests’ eyes to cloud over.

But my eyes fall to this line: “There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.”

No limit!

I read it again. I think of the migrants at the cathedral. I see Jaime‘s boyish smile welcoming them.

The message seeps in.

Am I being asked to live up to that? That kind of limitless love? Can I possibly get myself out of the way and let such an impractical, extravagant love order my life?

Certainly not on my own.

I close my eyes and open my hands. Waiting in the silence.

When the gong on my meditation timer app goes off, Nicholas of Flue’s ethereal ending prayer pops up. “My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you.”

My God, my all? Yes, I know, it’s the only way.

Note: a version of this essay will appear in NCR’s Soul Seeing column this spring.

Christmas Past

Like Ebenezer Scrooge, this holiday I’ve been visited by images of Christmas past.

Reading this story was a Hovey family Christmas tradition

Christmas Eve 1993. My husband, mother, aunt/godmother, and a very pregnant version of myself climb the high stone steps of St. Anne’s Church, which towers above the city of Fall River, Massachusetts. The city of my birth and childhood. The city where my then-living family members gathered for Christmas.

It’s a windy night, and David grabs my petite 4’9” auntie’s arm to keep her from being whisked off into the sky like Mary Poppins.

I’m on my own.

But I feel so heavy, I doubt there’s any chance I’ll be lifted off anything. Inside the dimly lit church with familiar scents and statues of favorite saints, I’m reminded of my childhood. I attended Catholic high school up the block. And Mom worked at St. Anne’s Hospital across the street for years. This was my foundation. French ethnicity and strong Catholic roots. Mom’s faith meant everything to her. It carried her through a hellish ordeal and inspired me along the way.

During the service, as Mom stands on one side and David on the other singing carols in his beautiful baritone voice, I feel a wave of such love wash over me and settle in my belly. After Mass, Mom uncharacteristically pulls the priest over to bless me and the child I’m carrying. A miraculous conception. A child for whom I’d longed and prayed for years. And now, his arrival appears imminent.

I remember the priest’s outstretched hand, Mom’s eyes glistening with tears, her voice cracking with emotion, and my heart so full and warm, causing me to tear up as well. To be so graced with this gift of life inside of me, a gift I’d willingly surrendered to God, deepened my spiritual journey. And helped me toward the next threshold.

St. Anne’s Church

Christmas Eve 2008. I’m standing in another pew, in another church. This time in Charlottesville, Virginia, where I live with my little family of three. Flanked by my now 14-year-old son on one side and my husband on the other, I feel David reach for my hand as he croons Angels We Have Heard on High. My favorite Christmas carol. My heart swells with warmth, tenderness, and comfort. I know how blessed I am.

But I couldn’t have known that this would be our last Christmas together. And there’d soon be another threshold for me to cross. Another invitation to surrender what I couldn’t control.

Sometimes I think, what I wouldn’t give to hear David’s beautiful deep voice beside me again. But just like Dickens’s Scrooge, I am shaped by my past Christmases. By those whom I’ve loved and lost.

And had not grief and unexpected deaths visited me, I wouldn’t have discovered the strength of the courage and confidence, fortitude and faith that I have now. I would not be the woman I am. Nor would I live where I do.

It seems my heart had to be broken to enlarge its borders. To expand my family circle to include the larger human family.

Which brings me to Christmas past, 2022.

Two days before Christmas, I’m standing not in a church pew but in a seemingly endless snake of a line at the Seattle International Airport. My third long line since arriving here, nearly 24 hours earlier. I’ve endured two canceled flights, slept in a chair overnight in terminal C, lost track of my checked luggage complete with Christmas gifts, and am swiftly losing hope that I will even make it to my son, Davis, by Christmas Day.

But I’m not alone. There are hundreds of other travelers in this airport, just as tired, frustrated, and anxious as I am to get to their loved ones. I notice a single mom trying to keep her two boys under 7 entertained as we barely crawl forward. An elderly woman with a cane sits on the luggage scale since there’s no place else to sit except on the floor. We’ve been here since 3 p.m. and it’s now almost 9:30!

During these 6 1/2 hours, I’ve turned to my spiritual practices time and again. Leaned on my willingness to accept what is before me and out of my power to change. In the process, another image has come to my awareness.

An image of a line even more uncertain than this one. A line of thinly clad people who aren’t waiting in a warm, enclosed shelter with bathrooms and food options. A line of migrants I’d left behind in downtown El Paso, on the streets outside Sacred Heart Church. And, even more concerning, a line that has formed on the other side of concertina wire waiting for Border Patrol. They sleep on the cement along the Rio Grande and light tiny fires as they attempt to keep warm overnight, remaining hopeful they’ll be able to enter the U.S.

These people have no other options. They have no home to return to. They are poor and powerless in ways I’ve never experienced.

A line of migrants waiting to be processed

Of course I’m not denying I would have felt huge disappointment and melancholy had I spent Christmas Eve in a hotel room alone. But these disturbing images put things in perspective.

And reminded me again of a powerful Love that was born among the poor more than 2,000 years ago. The ultimate surrender into uncertainty.

At the end of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge vowed to keep the spirit of Christmas in his heart and to live it all the year ‘round. May I have the same intention. To carry the light and love of Christmas into whatever situation I find myself. And to willingly accept the next threshold.

Night Hunger

_{Night sky by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash}

This is a story about hunger. A longing for something we often can’t name, yet know we can’t live without. It didn’t occur exactly as it’s laid out here, but it did unfold, not so long ago, in a far and distant land known as El Paso. And it continues to unfold. Even now.

Hunger wakes him.

The gnawing sensation in his belly is surprising and strong. But not as strong as it had been over the past several weeks on his journey north, before he’d arrived at Casa Nazareth. Thanks to exhaustion and tranquility, Diego had slept for several hours before craving roused him. A night spent on a cot off the desert and concrete holding cell floors, covered by a blanket, in a warm room, his little hija asleep on the cot alongside his, attributed to the feeling he’d landed in a safe harbor despite the uncertainty that still loomed large.

Yesterday afternoon when the ICE agent ushered Diego and 6-year-old Gabriela, along with 42 other migrants, through the door of our shelter, his body had visibly relaxed. Now, in this half-dream state, Diego remembers where he is, rises to kneel on the bedroom floor, and utters silent prayers of gratitude and protection for family members left behind.

Gabriela stirs on her cot, scrunching deeper under the gray blanket covering her small form. She exhales, that soft breath of a child secure in her bed. Diego feels his heart will burst with love.

He’s grateful that, only hours earlier, they’d devoured a home-cooked dinner served by a local parish. When he stood at the buffet line, he’d watched Gabriela’s delight as a server heaped meat sauce over their noodles until it trickled across their plates. An abundance of food, complete with dessert and lemonade. He even returned for seconds. An option he’d never had in his life. Later he’d retired to his assigned room with Gabriela, satisfied and speechless. He’d never known such generosity. Such kindness.

Why now then is he awakened with this familiar sensation of hunger? It surprises him that he could be hungry for more.

Hours later, I, too, am surprised when I catch him in the breakfast line outside el comedor 20 minutes early. Our guests know that breakfast isn’t served until 8 a.m. Yet Diego isn’t the only early arrival. At least a dozen folks have joined him, standing two and three abreast, adults shifting their feet, children giggling and squirming against their parent’s arms attempting to enfold them. Everyone looks tidy and refreshed, yet surprisingly anxious to eat.

I venture over and ask Diego if he’s hungry.

“Si!” He smiles, seemingly embarrassed to admit this. He lowers his eyes, focusing intently on the top of his daughter’s head.

“Breakfast is almost ready,” I say in Spanish.

“Si, gracias a Dios.” As if wanting to explain, Diego says he doesn’t know why he’s hungry again so soon. We fed him well yesterday.

I wonder about Diego and the expectant others. Are they afraid there won’t be enough? Do they not believe we’ll serve breakfast at 8? That they will once again fill their bellies?

I want to reassure him, let him know he need not worry. Throughout this day and tomorrow, Diego, as long as you are with us, we will feed you. You will not go hungry again.

Diego may hear my words, but it may be a while before his body can trust. It can take time when someone’s gone for days, weeks, even longer, not able to satiate hunger pangs that have settled in like an incessant beggar.

I’ve never tasted the hunger Diego has experienced.

But there are many kinds of hunger.

I, too, have hungered during the night. Awakened with a wrenching sensation that surprises me.

A hunger for the physical presence of a loved one no longer with me. Hunger for evidence that tomorrow will bring some relief from the pain. Hunger that my longing for the Beloved will be satiated.

And, just as I long to reassure Diego that he will be fed, that he is safe and will not go hungry, God longs to reassure me. You will be given your daily bread, my dear. I am here. Why do you doubt me?

It’s a fair question.

For I’ve been fed well today, just as I have been for a zillion yesterdays. Gifted with grace upon undeserved grace, at every turn, sometimes, surprisingly, at exactly the moment that my apprehension rises to fever pitch.

In that silent darkness of my longing, a Presence makes itself known. It arrives on the breath of something inexplicable, recognized only by slowing my breathing and being still enough to take it in. A love that desires to soothe me, like Gabriela, into a restful sleep, intuitively aware of a loving parent by her side.

Yes, there is manna in the desert today.

Yet hunger can rise up during the night without warning. Without explanation. No matter how often I’ve been fed.

Why do I always seem to want more of you, God, when you are forever here, waiting to fill me?

I am like Rumi’s white cow on a small, green island that grows fat every day from the abundance God provides, and lean every night from the fear that she will not have what she needs tomorrow.  Lean with fear, fat with blessing. Back and forth she goes, every night making herself miserable over what’s to come, or not to come. Worrying if she will be fed each day. Not pausing to recognize that You have been feeding her all along.

There is a small green island

where one white cow lives alone, a meadow of an island.

The cow grazes till nightfall, full and fat,

but during the night she panics

and grows thin as a single hair.

What shall I eat tomorrow? There is nothing left.

By dawn the grass has grown up again, waist-high.

The cow starts eating and by dark

the meadow is clipped short.

She is full of strength and energy, but she panics

in the dark as before and grows abnormally thin overnight.

The cow does this over and over,

and this is all she does.

She never thinks, This meadow has never failed

to grow back. Why should I be afraid every night

that it won’t? The cow is the bodily soul.

The island field is this world that grows

lean with fear and fat with blessing, lean and fat.

White cow, don’t make yourself miserable

with what’s to come, or not to come.

Rumi

I Am Belfast-I Am You

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve returned from Ireland. In some ways, the Emerald Isle feels very far away. In others, I’m still there.

How does one explain carrying a sense of place deep within you? A place that had been foreign to you only months earlier?

Maybe an experience I had in Belfast will help.

One morning during our 8-day Northern Ireland Retreat, Gareth dropped us at an East Belfast theater for a private screening of the documentary I Am Belfast. Written and produced by Mark Cousins, it’s a touching, creative, poetically powerful film, in which a female actress embodies Belfast, as she introduces us to all aspects of herself. Her history and architecture, her multi-faceted characters and neighborhoods, her acts of senseless violence and profound kindness, and her spirit. She doesn’t hesitate to reveal herself. Never flinches from showing her many variations of shadow and light. She excludes nothing.

I listen and watch, intrigued by this strong yet gentle elder who leads us along her neighborhood streets where children play and detonated bombs once left broken homes and body parts.

I hear attitude in the voices of her residents. Notice a daring, do-as-you-please energy, the kind that’s been unleashed after being held back for so long. I notice, too, how her slow gait carries the wounds of immense suffering alongside the desire for unrestrained joy. Like a contemplative, she silently strides through a whirl of emotions.

As she guides us through her environs, she’s clearly enamored with parts of herself. Pained by others.

This place feels very familiar.

A Belfast mural of the two inner wolves

There, in Belfast’s struggle between her inner unrest and desire for unity, I find myself. In her self-righteous, take-it-into-your-own-hands rebel who wants her way, I see myself there, too.  And I relate to her quiet peacemaker willing to take risks that define courage, although I’d not consider myself courageous.

I resonate with Belfast’s pride, too. She once was the shipbuilding capital of the world, only to later fall into embarrassment with the sinking of her glory, the Titanic. As an American, I can’t help but recognize that pride, along with the turbulence brewing in my own country, as I watch Belfast’s political divisions turn violent. Yet I also feel her humility and hope in the peace she has acquired, however precarious it might be.

She’s a mix of contrasts striving to include and accept all that she is. For decades she was at war within herself.

Oh, yes, she’s very familiar.

It takes much inner reflection before I finally recognize that I am capable of experiencing and expressing everything that Belfast does. I am that rebel who bombs innocent people or builds walls around his neighborhood to keep himself safe. Just as I am that benign shopkeeper who shelters the wounded and forgives those who killed his wife and daughters in an indiscriminate bombing.

I am that nationalist, that loyalist, that terrorist, that monk, all rolled into one.

There is nothing I’ve seen in Belfast that I’m not capable of. And that my country is not capable of. No matter how much we deny what’s been percolating under the surface for years. Or would like to believe ourselves to be the one-sided, all-benevolent, greatest golden place that there ever was.

As Franciscan Richard Rohr often says, “everything belongs.” And not only does it all belong, but it all lives inside of me. Inside of us.

We cannot separate ourselves from the other, no matter how hard we try. We cannot separate the parts from the whole.

Yes, everything that lives in Belfast lives in me. Lives in us.

I am Belfast. I am you.