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.

Manna in the Desert

Sunset over my desert home

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a metaphor. Or a Bible story.

There’s a desert. Grumbling. (That would be me.) Perceived lack of food and water.

And, always, brown dust. The promise of a strong sun.

Sun rising over Las Cruces mountain range

 

And more.

The sufferings of those around me. Those who make their way through the desert. Remembered Bible stories fuel their hope. Stories of manna in the desert. From a God who never abandons them. A God who provides unusual food. Water from an unlikely source.

Sometimes that source is people I know. People at a shelter that waits for them to arrive. Empty cots longing to caress them into sleep. Give them dreams beyond imaginations held in their homelands. Dreams that only come when a rock transforms into a pillow.

This God source has provided in other ways as well.

With provisions for times when it feels as though the desert takes too much. Too great a toll of flesh demanded for the promised freedom. Too great a toll on desperate travelers forced into a more desperate Juarez. Too great a toll on exhausted, hungry children arriving with abuelas, tίas and tίos. They are taken from the only family they know. Pulled away and placed in shelters far from the desert, in rural American countrysides, hidden from view.

The toll seems unforgivable. Unimaginable to us who remain in the desert, watching, bearing witness to the inhumanity.

“Where is God in this?” we ask.

Where is God in the long aridity? When it feels like provisions are lacking?

In asking the question, the answers come.

I begin to notice provisions for the journey. The gifts in the sand.

The tireless female attorneys, mothers themselves, crossing the port of entry daily. Checking on clients. Seeking those with hearings in unsympathetic El Paso courtrooms. Holding up in the heat, the long lines at the bridge. No matter how few asylum cases they will win. Unfaltering despite the odds.

Manna in the form of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. El Paso volunteers now prepare these sandwiches for migrants waiting in Mexico to be processed. The people are hungry.

And Mexican federal immigration officials do not have the provisions to feed so many before releasing these families to shelters. Or worse – the streets of Juarez. The migrants – and the Mexican agents – welcome PB&J manna with smiles.

Provisions of friendship. The gift of camaraderie – of soul friends committed to the refugee, to the hurting, to those fleeing enslavement, a life of extortion.

We come together, share food and drink. Sing songs of a world we know is possible. The gift of laughter lightens the burdens. Our common prayer rises to the “column of cloud” guiding our journey.

Provisions of expression, of expelling the grief. Lisa offers the gift of her therapist skills, a free-will offering to those of us “living on the cusp,” living in the midst of the atrocious effects of the pharaoh’s dictates. She desires to help us. Her provisions fall like manna from the sky, alighting on our souls so in need of nourishment.

This heart I’ve been given – this too is a gift, a “talent” I’ve been asked to magnify on the journey. Even though it sometimes feels like a curse. A weakness. A vulnerability that needs alteration.

Then Brother Lalo gifts me with the words of St. Paul: “It is when I am weak that I am strong.” He tells me this is what comes to him when he thinks of me.

His supportive words, another provision in this desert. A reminder of another Bible story. The weak will befuddle the strong.

Yes, I call these “provisions for the journey.” And I hear God ask, can you trust that you’ll be given what you need? Just for today? Can you trust that I’ll be with you again tomorrow? Even when night descends?

 

 

 

Freedom and Solidarity

Sea lions lounge together on rocks in Kenai Peninsula

Alaska.  What a spectacular, breathtaking vacation!

But I wasn’t two days into it when I realized something.

Just how much I needed this break.

How much I needed to relax.  Have fun. Do whatever the heck I wanted. And, most particularly, I needed to get away from the border.

Yes, I did say that.

It had become more of a weight than I realized. This daily barrage of disheartening news, of mistreatment of other human beings, of lack of due process and other human rights abuses.

I needed a break from the weight of our border reality.

And I didn’t know just how much until I had left it all behind.

My phone went silent. No more daily text messages about how many families were being sent to which shelters. How many volunteers were needed where.

No more disturbing news about what was happening — unless I chose to look at it on my phone.

And every day I got to choose.

Choose how I was going to spend the day. Where I was going to go. How long I’d stay. What and when I was going to eat. Whether or not I wanted to splurge on some unanticipated treat.

My biggest treat – the view from this 4-seater plane

Adventure was my companion. Spontaneity became my best friend.

I felt special, spoiled, so grateful, and so free.

As I reflected at the end of each day, I saw how privileged I was to have such freedom. I also noticed how easy it is to to get lost in a bubble – that kind of enclosed space in which only what affects me, and those I care about, is all that matters.

It’s true I had to put El Paso aside for awhile. To not think about the border. Yet, despite the need for self-care, I found I could not take the people out of my heart. I know this because I readily and easily talked about the border situation whenever anyone asked me where I was from or what I did.

One stranger who sat down next to me at the Seattle airport in between connections genuinely thanked me afterwards for informing her about this side of the immigration story.

Being a voice of truth in solidarity with those who are hurting is a responsibility that I believe comes with this unbelievable freedom.

Tomorrow is the International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its abolition. This is another area in which I am coming to better understand my privileged freedom. And the need for solidarity.

Recently I heard from a presenter at our gathering in Albuquerque that as a result of our Living School experience, we are more aware of the pain in the world. Certainly the Living School has brought more awareness to the plight of people of color and of the marginalized.

I think that what is also true is that as a result of my experiences at the border and my exposure to the driving factors of migration, I am more aware of the pain in the world.

And in my awareness of this pain lies my awareness of my responsibility to be in solidarity with a hurting world.

No matter where I find myself. Whether doling out donations to migrants or gliding over gorgeous glaciers in Denali.

 

The Humanity Before Us

The young mother was still breastfeeding when they took her from her baby. She was only 16, giving Immigration the right to put her in a detention facility for minors.

It didn’t seem to matter – what that meant, removing her from her husband and 5-month-old daughter with whom she was traveling. She was considered an “illegal.” She had no rights. The action taken didn’t have to make sense.

But I’m afraid this post isn’t about recounting a story from last summer, when ICE was separating parents from their children. Nope. It happened just four days ago.

Santiago, her 21-year-old husband, showed up at our shelter, carrying their fussing baby and a heaviness we couldn’t help him shake.

The volunteer doing intake held her emotions intact as he sputtered the details of his story. But the child, free to express herself, howled and squirmed in her father’s arms.

Santiago attempted to keep his voice level. But he could barely hold it together. How was he going to feed this child, he wanted to know? What would she eat without her mother’s milk and nourishment? Would she survive?

He peppered questions at Sr. Lil, my friend who was shift coordinator at Nazareth that day.

As his sad tale spread, the other mothers crowded around him. The women took turns holding the little girl close to their chest, snuggling against her neck, cooing sweetly in Spanish. A few offered to coax the little one to suckle the nipple of a plastic baby bottle we happened to have on hand. Someone filled it with bottled water and Nido powdered formula – a popular brand with our Central American families. Another one showed Santiago how to hold the baby as she was nursing so she’d feel secure.

Sample stock photo; not our “real” baby

But who would help him feel secure, I wondered?

Luckily, a doctor who occasionally volunteers her time at Nazareth happened to show up that day. She checked the baby and reassured Santiago that not only was his daughter in good health, but she would adjust to the formula. She would survive. No need for him to worry about that.

Yes, she would survive. Children often do. No matter what they’ve experienced. Surviving and thriving are two different things, however.

And what about the baby’s mother? I think about her in a facility with other teenagers. I wonder if her nipples are leaking. If that heaviness she’s feeling in her breasts and in her heart closes in on her at night when she longs for her child. I wonder if she attempts to hide her breasts and her despair in her aloneness. Or if she’s found a friend in whom to confide.

What it’s like for our young mother in detention

I’ve never met this mom. I didn’t meet Santiago either, or his little girl. Lil told me about them the day after it happened, her voice unable to hide the distress still lurking in her heart.

I wish I could tell you I’ve gotten used to these stories. That my heart doesn’t feel for this young family, especially the mother.

But then again, I’m glad I haven’t “gotten used to it,” that I haven’t numbed myself to what hurting people feel. That I can remember what it was like to be a mother to a little one, to hold my nursing baby in my arms, in awe of this wordless bond we’d created.

I don’t apologize for citing the preciousness of such a bond. Nor for calling out the cruelty of separating a mother and her breastfeeding baby.

I wonder, if God loves as a mother, how can we ignore the divinity in the human love of a mother for her child? And be the one to cause such suffering?

Yes, I hear about the numbers coming. I know it’s challenging for us. We’re doing the best we can here in El Paso. And that’s the question I ask of myself, and of all of us – Are we doing the best we can to address the humanity before us? To consider that maybe there are more positive solutions to what we’re calling a “humanitarian crisis”? And to ensure we do not have a hand in causing the suffering.

And in the End

Recognize this familiar lyric from the Beatles’ Abbey Road album?

I’ve been silently singing that one line for the past week. It showed up around the time Pres. Trump called our situation at the border “a humanitarian crisis.” I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.

I didn’t listen to his speech. I knew it would be filled with inaccuracies, exaggerations, and worse. So I stayed away. But I understand he used the word “crisis” at least six times. I also know that he called the situation at our border a crisis of our nation’s “heart and soul.”

Crisis – the word means “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.” Its synonym is “disaster” – one of Trump’s favorite words.

I’d have to agree with him on this one – our nation’s heart and soul are in danger. But not for the reasons he implied.

We are in danger of losing our ability to recognize ourselves in one another. And, more troubling, we are in danger of losing our ability to trust love over fear.

Living at the border, I have a clearer picture of what that means.

I also have a better understanding of what living in “crisis” really means. Every day I have opportunities to witness how the migrant families we accompany live with intense difficulties, trouble, or danger, and, most of the time, with all three.

Every day I have opportunities to witness how these people, along with our volunteers, choose to trust love over fear.

Our families writing prayers to God

It’s a beautiful opportunity, to watch the power of love unfold, as we care for those in crisis and listen to their troubling stories.

In the process, my life and the lives of my fellow volunteers have been changed.

Here are some examples of what, to me, define crisis.

A Honduran minister came to us with his 10-year-old son. He was worried about being sent back because, in Honduras, he had started a successful clinic for drug addicts and, as a result, his son’s life had been threatened. The gangs felt he was taking business away from them by rehabilitating people.

An El Salvadoran woman had carried her handicapped son across Mexico while her 8-year-old son held the hand of her 4-year-old.  She fled because her husband had been killed and she was afraid that if she, too, were murdered, her children would end up on the street, and her handicapped son would be seen as useless and killed outright.

As a business owner, one mother from Guatemala constantly experienced extortion.  When it got tough for her to meet the gang’s demands, they threatened to return and take her daughter. She and her daughter left before they could fulfill that promise.

One man, headed to his sister’s in Los Angeles with his daughter, couldn’t sleep and needed help calming his nerves.  Turns out he had experienced the murder of five family members, one of whom had been shot in the face.

A 14-year-old boy from Honduras had walked for weeks with his father to arrive at the border.  When a volunteer noticed his swollen foot and ankle, she asked him to remove his shoe and sock. She was shocked to find very little skin remained on his toes and the bottom of his foot.  He had a fungal infection superimposed with a bacterial infection, yet he had not complained.

A Guatemalan mother arrived with two teenaged sons; a third, the eldest, had been killed by a gang, causing her to flee in fear of what might happen to her other two. She shared how she fears bringing them up in this new country, how they might be influenced by this culture. Does this sound like a woman who’s glad she left home and country?

She’s not alone. Many migrants tell us of the beauty of their country. Despite the violence, they miss home.

“Once there was a way to get back home…”

That’s another line from that Beatles’ tune.  It causes me to wonder, what if this is what it’s all about after all? Showing each other love to help us get back home.

In the end, isn’t it really all about how well you’ve learned to go beyond your fears? And how much love you’ve offered?

I’m here to tell you there is hope, even in the midst of this “crisis.”

Checkpoint on Pain

Last week I drove up to Albuquerque for my annual CAC Living School symposium. That means I had to pass through a Border Patrol checkpoint.

Driving regularly on southwest Texas or New Mexico highways, I’ve gotten used to it.

I know the routine.

I slow down to a crawl until I’m face to face with a Border Patrol agent.  I roll down my window. He sees my white face, asks if I’m a U.S. citizen. I say yes. He answers, “Have a nice day.” I drive off. He never asks for my I.D. Never checks my car for smuggled goods, or people for that matter.

There’s no doubt it’s racial profiling. But that’s the way it is.

Usually it’s pretty quick. Even when the cars ahead of me are not driven by Anglos. They have to show their I.D.s or documentation, of course. Often the agent looks in the car. But there’s no hesitation.

Not this time.

This time a few cars were lined up ahead of me. The agent was slowly thumbing through the pages in his hand, as the driver waited. He looked over each one carefully, then returned to the first page and started the process over again, as if he wasn’t quite satisfied.

This agent seemed to not want to accept the documents he was holding were legitimate. Or else he wanted to make the brown-skinned driver squirm.

While waiting, the woman in the car in front of me jumped out and opened her back hatch. She pulled out a suitcase and removed what looked like two passports. The woman was Hispanic.

Finally, after fingering through the pages a few more times, the agent let the first car go. Then the second car drove up. He poked his head down, asked a few questions and let the driver go.

Then it was the Hispanic woman’s turn. She handed over two passports, for herself and her passenger. One was blue like a U.S. passport, the other dark green. The color of a Mexican passport.

The agent flipped open the U.S. passport, then put it aside. When he opened the other passport, he hesitated. He looked at it, looked at her, looked at it again. Then he just held it between his fingers, waiting.

By now I could feel myself growing angry.

“C’mon, buddy! Either it’s legitimate or it’s not!” I shouted in my car with the windows still closed.

He stood there for a few moments more. Not doing anything. Not asking any questions. Just holding the passport. Then he handed them both back to the woman.

Next it was my turn.

“U.S. citizen, ma’am?” With a downturned mouth, he demanded rather than asked the question.

“Yes.”

“Anybody traveling with you?”

“No.”

“You’re free to go,” he scowled. Forget the “have a nice day.”

The negativity coming through the open window was palpable.

Clearly, this man was in pain. But it upset me, how he was projecting that pain onto others, especially people of darker complexions.

He could do a lot of damage with the power and the position he had.

The thing is, none of us escapes pain in our lives. We all have places of wounding and brokenness. Oblivious to this brokenness, we inflict our pain onto others.

Right now, in our country, it feels as though we are experiencing this at a magnified level…this projection of pain onto others.

We’re having a hard time looking within ourselves. Letting ourselves feel the extent of our sadness, our hurt, our grief, our need for healing, our failure to be responsible for one another. We don’t want to feel it.

And what we won’t acknowledge and take responsibility for, we are bound to repeat. Without self-awareness, we can numb ourselves to the atrocities committed against others.

In fact, this is something we’re trying to address at the Living School. The unacknowledged painful effects of racism and white privilege. I’d say it’s causing a reaction in us.

For me, being a writer, I naturally want to write about what I witness. I pay attention to the pain and suffering I see in those I accompany at the border. In the encounters I have with others.

It shows me how we are not separate at all. It shows me how I feel the same fears, hide out in the same ways, and want to close off my heart to those who have hurt me. Just like most of us do.

But in writing about it and letting myself feel it, maybe I can become more aware. Soften the pain. Create my own checkpoint for the ways I block off the borders of my heart. And not repeat this very human pattern of inflicting pain.

With or Without You

Don’t make me cry, David.

I’m standing in front of the fresh cherries display at Sprouts, considering how many to buy while simultaneously pondering a brave new step in my life when I suddenly recognize the tune being piped in overhead.

It’s U2’s “With or Without You.”

Without warning, a familiar feeling floods me. The band U2 was one of David’s favorites. And this particular song has a special meaning for me. So many years ago, deep in the midst of my grief, I listened to that song over and over. It both consoled and pained me.

In my mind, I felt as though I couldn’t live without David. And yet I knew I would.

That was over nine years ago now and yet instantaneously David comes into my awareness. And, as if in recognition of the decision I’m about to make, his voice, gentle and strong from somewhere inside me, says:

“I’m proud of you, honey.”

I hear and feel this as clearly as if David were standing beside me, whispering these familiar words into my ear.

It takes all the effort I have to keep myself from crying right there in the middle of the produce aisle. And because I don’t want to look that vulnerable, my demanding voice says, ‘don’t make me cry.”

I manage to hold back the tears.

Somehow knowing he would leave this earth before I did, David tried to prepare me for his death. As if that were possible.

Mr. Serious. Mr. Practical. He even planned financially to take care of me and Davis after he’d be physically absent.

What I didn’t know was that he would take care of me emotionally in difficult, doubting moments that test my ability to fully love myself. Just by “reliving” and remembering his unconditional love for me.

He was the first person in my life to really see and accept me. The first to tell me how he appreciated my courage, my strength, my beauty, and my independence. It was such a gift. To have someone see me for who I truly am and not who they think I should be or want me to be.

It was his love and confidence in me that allowed me to declare not long after his death:

“I’m learning to let go of any attachment to what I thought my life would be and opening to limitless possibilities.”

And that desire, to live my life fully – no matter how different from what I’d planned – is what brought me to the border.

I am reminded of this as I live my life here and make choices that are countercultural. Choices that are not popular with my family and possibly further alienate me from them.

It’s not easy, to stand in my truth and keep my heart open in the face of old hurts, misguided assumptions, distorted perceptions that come at me. Whether it’s from strangers, or, most especially, from people I love.

Yet I believe God desperately wants us to keep loving and to know how unbelievably precious we are, how unconditionally loved we are, in the face of everything that comes at us. Sometimes the only way Love can do that is by sending us a message through someone who loves or has loved us that much.

For me, that person is David.

Complete vulnerability. That’s what David gave me. And that is what love asks of us.

We are meant to give ourselves away. And I know, in giving myself, I get so much more!

I am reminded of someone else who gave himself away for us. To show us the path of Love. To show us what is possible when you give it all away. And how transformational that is.

Love is the only answer in this crazy, confused, painful, joyful, fearful, beautiful, and insecure world. Love is the only power that will transform and save us.

And it waits for us to say “yes” to it.

“Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I’m waiting for you”

(Lyrics from “With or Without You”)

True Freedom

“There’s nothing I can do,” he tells me.

He’s told me this countless times before.

Always with the same calm, trusting composure. And I have come to accept the acceptance in his words, knowing that his deep faith guides him.

But tonight…tonight I feel the anger growing inside me.

Tonight I want to slam my fists on the table, pound the glass between us, yell at the guards or his deportation officer, or better yet, the anonymous person who wrote this dreadful form letter Mathias has just slipped under the thick glass that divides us.

The letter that states our government continues to work with his government to take him back, even though we both know that since he has no passport or other legal documents, it’s highly unlikely his country will ever accept him. They’ve already said they can’t take him.

The letter that states he must not interfere with the process (a statement that would be laughable if it weren’t so ridiculous).

And, finally, the worst part, the letter that states he must remain locked up until October. Three more months of not knowing. With no guarantee any decision will be made even after that time.

Mathias, the young man I visit in detention, lost his asylum case back in April. Not unusual in El Paso. Denial is happening at an even higher frequency here than elsewhere.

We know he is supposed to be deported. But he waits in this liminal space as the two countries go back and forth, indifferent to the life they are impacting.

Three more months in limbo. Or is it hell?

I know the food isn’t good. I know that whenever he is allowed outdoors – always accompanied by a guard – he must stay within the narrow areas outlined in white on the cement. He cannot venture outside these lines.

I know about the locked metal doors that seal behind you, the tall barbed-wire fences and the full barracks where the TV plays loudly throughout the day. The difficulty he has in trying to pray.

And yet, I tell him I wish I could trade places with him. Even as I say it, I know I am sincere.

He is already so thin, he cannot afford to lose any more weight. I would gladly lose it for him. I would take on the monotony of his structured day, assigned to wear a navy jump suit, allowing others to make decisions for me. In such a situation, so completely out of my control, I would be forced to turn to God while perched on this ledge in liminal space, feeling like a confined criminal when I am anything but.

This is Mathias’s situation. And he no more deserves it than I do.

This young man who followed the law, coming to a U.S. port of entry to present his case for asylum. As international law allows.

The thing is, I care about Mathias. I have come to know him as a man of integrity. I have watched him deal with the stress and uncertainty of his situation with courage and tremendous trust in God.

When he tells me, “There is nothing I can do,” I hear and see in his face his ability to accept “God’s will,” as he puts it. He trusts God to care for him.

 

Yet he tells me he longs for freedom. After all, he has been confined for more than a year already.

I think of this as I drive home and discover Interstate 10 is closed. Traffic crawls as it’s diverted off the highway. I feel so tired and frustrated, knowing this will double the time it normally takes to get back to Las Cruces. I swear aloud.

Then I think of Mathias. Locked in his barracks tonight. Sleeping soundly, ever since he has learned to accept his situation.

Stressed behind my steering wheel, cursing tonight’s road construction, I suddenly wonder, who is more free?

Sometimes I have trouble accepting life on life’s terms. Despite his age, Mathias is my teacher. He reminds me of the importance of returning to my Source. My true freedom. And did I mention he is Muslim?

“He [or she] who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity to love will not have anything to give others.”    Thomas Merton

Virginia Is for Lovers

View from my friends Jennifer & Rob’s yard

I love Virginia. I was so thrilled to be back visiting my former home that I pretty much wandered around with a continuous smile.

First there was the effects of all that spring rain. Virginia’s mountains and hillsides glowed with a vibrant green carpet. Trees and vegetation along the roadsides were so full, they seemed to reach out to embrace me.

I treasured hikes and gatherings with dear friends. Enjoyed surprise encounters with old friends at a special wedding. Spent time with Davis – always a treat – and got to see the wonderful adults some of his high school friends have become.

Virginia has given me so many precious memories and such special heart connections, who wouldn’t smile?

Even crossing the state line and seeing the familiar “Virginia is for lovers” slogan got me.

But I can’t say my entire trip was filled with goodness and happy thoughts.

Back home at the border things were heating up. Even before I left El Paso, we were seeing cases of asylum seekers being jailed and their children taken from them. In the week that followed my departure, a difficult and painful situation had deteriorated from bad to worse.

Not that I was watching TV news. But between emails from friends and contacts back home, along with snippets of Internet news, I couldn’t ignore what was happening.

Soon, along with the joy of being back in Virginia, I was carrying a heaviness on my heart. It accompanied me into bed at night and awoke with me every morning.

Seeing faces in the news similar to those of the families I accompany, knowing the pain and distortion they were being subjected to, I couldn’t rest easily. After all, I’ve listened to their stories, played with their shy children, prepared and eaten plate after plate of reheated rice and beans with them.

Maybe right about now you’re asking, how does this relate to the title of your blog post?

I admit that finding words to express all I’ve been experiencing these days is challenging.

But I’ll try.

Sunday while hiking in the Gila National Forest, I met a Navy veteran who’d lived in Virginia. When he discovered Virginia had been my home for 30 years, he shared his not-so-positive opinions about the commonwealth.

Far from the “Virginia is for lovers” motto, he saw Virginians as racists still living in the pre-Civil War era, honoring the Confederacy, stuck in time. (I should note he was Caucasian.)

Clearly, his “reality” differed greatly from mine.

Not that there aren’t people who act this way, but this is not the Virginia nor the Virginians I know.

This guy’s stereotype was not indicative of the special place where we raised our son.

Davis learned about love in Virginia. He learned compassion, not judgment. Acceptance, not racial profiling. He learned to meet people where they are and be generous with what he has.

My heart connection with Virginians has created a different reality.

It’s those heart connections – both in Virginia and on the border – that prevent me from lumping people into derogatory categories. Or labeling them “racists,” “animals,” “criminals” who are “infesting” us.

I could not malign and dismiss the people of Virginia any more than I could the families of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras who come to our hospitality houses.

Why? Because living on the cusp of what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border, I’ve experienced a different “reality.” Thankfully, a reality many of my Virginia friends wanted to hear about. And I’m so grateful for their listening open, loving hearts.

“Do you know what hurts so very much? It’s love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.” 
― Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

I agree that love IS the strongest force in the world. Love can turn things – and people – around.

And something else about love.

Love is strong and fierce in defense of those it loves. Love is not cowardly. It takes risks. Lovers do not sit quietly by while those they love are maligned.

Painting of a Guatemalan mother and child by Diego Sisay that hangs above my writing desk

I don’t intend to be silent in support of people I have come to love.

I make no apologies for the pain and anger I feel in my heart when I see a video of a Guatemalan mother, reunited with her 5-year-old son at the airport, sobbing into him as she tells him in Spanish that she loves him.

The pain that we have been inflicting on these children is a violent act. It is anything but love. It goes against the grain of what love is.

It goes against who I am.

This is not a time for silence or inertia. It’s a time for lovers – lovers in the true sense of the word – to speak up.

Tearing Down My Wall

I had two encounters with a wall on Saturday night. Literally and figuratively.

One was the tall steel monstrosity that Trump has erected at the Santa Teresa, NM port of entry – the beginnings of his “big, beautiful wall.” The other is the one I discovered in me.

It wasn’t exactly what I’d expected to encounter – this growing self-awareness of ways I put up walls. But there it was. Right in front of me.

And impossible to ignore.

Not unlike the not-yet-but-soon-to-be 18-ft wall of ugliness planted at my feet in the desert.

Even at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was hot and strong, bearing down on me and a few hundred “friends” gathered at the fence line between Mexico and New Mexico.

Sponsored by the Southwest Environmental Center and other environmental and humanitarian groups, this Border Wall Protest was to draw attention to the negative repercussions of constructing this wall and to present a tangible resistance.

I’ll say right off that I’ve grown tired of protests. I want to take positive action. And I often look for ways to do that.

But I came in solidarity, and with curiosity. I wanted to see what this wall looked like. After all, $72 million (so far) of our tax dollars have been appropriated to its construction. And this is the spot where it all begins.

Let me tell you, it’s ugly. It’s invasive. Much more so than any human being.

The first installment of the new U.S.-Mexico border wall

And, for those of us who live in the Borderlands – the area from El Paso to Las Cruces – it’s right in our backyard.

We locals know this wall will not stop the flow of drugs across the border. The demand is high in the U.S., and the smugglers find ways to transport drugs through the ports of entry and through tunnels. Nor will it stop desperate people from seeking asylum at the ports of entry. But it will stop the natural flow of wildlife across borders and countries, something I learned about in Costa Rica, which is an international bridge for the flow of North American wildlife. It will also prevent animals close to home from finding necessary water and sustenance.

So, this wall will accomplish nothing positive and it will cost billions.

Costly and unnecessary.

I pondered that as I walked.

And as I gazed beyond the narrow steel columns into the expanse of desert, a sadness came over me. The sadness of so much pain in our country these days. The name calling – on both sides – the harsh pigeonholing of immigrants, the refusal to take responsibility for the negative outcome of our actions. And, most especially, the cruel SOP of separating young children from their parents at the border.

This is a hard reality. And it was hard to hold.

As Franciscan Richard Rohr says, “We hold the hardness of reality and the suffering of the world until it transforms us.”

But holding it means not being reactionary. As I thought about this, I recognized my own reactionary stance. How sometimes I erect my own costly and unnecessary walls.

When someone expresses an opinion different than mine and digs their heels in the ground refusing to even hear what I am saying, a wall goes up.

When someone dismisses what I feel most passionately about, a wall goes up.

When someone hurts others, oblivious to the pain they’re causing, or supports a policy that hurts others, a wall goes up.

I realize it’s a risk, to take down these walls. I could get hurt.

Yet I know they too are an unnecessary monstrosity that stops the natural flow of life and love.

If my purpose here truly is to learn to love better, how can I come from a different stance? Not condoning or ignoring the harm another is doing, but also not being reactionary?

What will lead me closer to the Divine heart of God? Dualistic, negative thoughts that prevent me from really connecting with others? Or an open mind and heart that seeks a new way to respond? One that lets down walls and goes beyond comfortable borders?

So, I’ve been reflecting on these questions. Maybe you’ll find considering them helpful, too.

What boundaries am I being asked to cross?   

What walls do I need to tear down?