From Douglas, AZ and Agua Prieta, Mexico, May 2015, with Miami Shores Presbyterian Church.
May 6, 2015
Spending some days on the U.S./Mexico border, all I've determined is that I know very little. I've read things, and listened to people, and sought information, and tried to understand. But it is obvious, that there is so much the noise-makers on the topic of "borders" don't know.
Here are my greatest takeaways:
Migration is not new, borders are. We are a migrating species. You and I would not be here if we weren't. Borders change with political and cultural seasons. The only constant is the steady and persistent move of humans to find food, shelter, love. Understanding this requires us to take the long view, and the long view is always harder.
Migrants cross the border for love, and love cannot be stopped. Over and over again, in every migrants story we heard, the theme of love was first and foremost. People are not risking their lives traveling through uninhabitable desert for money, drugs, to "take our job," etc. They ones they love are far away, or the ones they love are starving to death. And when love is central to the cause, no walls or borders or fences or threats will stop a person.
Thousands die along this border. A border patrol agent we talked to spoke about how hard his job is. The difficulty is not in standoffs with the cartel as Hollywood would have us imagine. The hardest part is finding the dead and dying strewn about in the desert every single day. The numbers are hard to find on this (and it's 2015, the numbers are known, so if they're hard to find one must ask why...). But some here estimate that over 10,000 people have died trying to cross the border since 2000. If there were any other place in our nation where bodies were being found on a daily basis, would we not be seeking solutions instead of walls? This is a humanitarian crisis, that our political rhetoric has managed to muck up to the point we don't even speak of it as a humanitarian crisis.
The border is an issue of faith. They wandered in the desert, and God provided. Again and again, our faith story takes us into the desert. And after walking miles in the well-worn paths migrants have walked and died in this desert, I have come to believe that there is something inherently holy about desert places. I don't believe we can claim to be a people descended from desert wanders who know what it is to pray for water to pour from rocks, and turn away from those wandering today. Christ-following compels us to be involved here.
Sugar is helpful. The most you can hope for as a pastor having continual heart-smashing experiences in a foreign place, is that those traveling with you might be experiencing equal smashing of their hearts. If they're not, if they're just hoping to get to the air conditioning and complaining about the sun, well, that becomes dangerous, because said pastor might end up smashing them. So on this trip, I could not have had better companions. We cried and learned and hurt together. And when we could take no more, we ate as much sugar as we could find. "Eat your feelings," is not the worst thing, when your feelings are this full.
So we shall continue learning, weeping, eating, and telling all we can about what we found on the border. It is hard, and God is there. We will keep being there too.
