You are a person who deserves to be treated like one
From D.W.: Our country celebrates its 250th anniversary this Saturday. Is it me, or is there a suspicious lack of enthusiasm for such a significant occasion? Our 200th anniversary happened the year before I was born, but I remember seeing the after-effects of it, bicentennial t-shirts, posters, etc., well into my teens. Texas’s sesquicentennial happened when I was 9 years old and it’s all anyone in these parts could talk about. And yet now the most visible attempts at celebration are met with, at best, apathy.
It strikes me that we don’t celebrate our country’s founding on the date that the Constitution was ratified, or the date that we victoriously ended the war with England, but on the day that we adopted the Declaration of Independence. A document intended to make plain to all exactly who and what we intended to be as a unified people. A document that begins its preamble with the bold presumption that all of us were created equal. It’s a loud, brash statement for the times. And it makes me sad that it only took 250 years to forget about it.
The Supreme Court decided Mullin v. Doe on Thursday, the case that ends Temporary Protected Status for Hatian and Syrian refugees and opens the door for all protected status refugees to be removed from this country, a place where many have lived, raised families, and been productive for decades, and be deported back to places that may be dangerous, hostile, and foreign to them. And why are we doing this? You know. Yes, you know. It’s the same old reasons.
This decision, especially when viewed in the context of the Callais case decided a month ago, undoes over half a century of racial progress in this country. It erases racism as a pretext for any bad deed and assumes that any excuse, no matter how thin, is a justifiable reason to disenfranchise our non-white brothers and sisters. It’s one more step in the great project to re-segregate our nation. Because of fear. And cowardice. And good old-fashioned hatred.
When we refuse to see the humanity of those begging for refuge in the place built upon a shared humanity, what have we become? What’s there to celebrate? Our independence from oppression is meaningless if we’ve become the oppressors.
Facebook. June 25th. 2019
It's hard to sit here and do nothing, even though there are a million things to do...make donations, phone calls, posts, letters. So many things to do. But who is holding the babies? Who wipes their eyes and noses and holds them and tells them they are beautiful and brave? If no one in charge can be bothered to make sure they have toothbrushes or can go to the bathroom on their own, I can promise you that no one is singing lullabies and murmuring assurances and stories about lovely things into tiny ears. And that ought to break your heart. That ought to make it hard for you to sit still. All I want to do is gas up my car, call my people in the Valley and tell them I will be home in two days to hold as many babies as they can throw at me.
Their mamas and daddies love them so much that they have done the hardest thing--they have gone looking for freedom and a better life with their babies. And we have ripped those babies from them and put them into cages, and then deported their parents or otherwise separated them. My God, what kind of monsters do this? What kind of awful people point to laws and policy and make it ok and excusable to treat CHILDREN this way? Instead of meeting them with what we can share, or finding ways to be helpful, we have done nothing kind, nothing hospitable, nothing that says, "You are a person who deserves to be treated like one." We have made them illegal. We talk about how they need to stay in their own countries and fix things. But have you ever tried to buy items for your children to eat while dodging bullets from cartels or gangs or even your own government? Are your husband and older sons afraid to go outside because if they refuse to join a cartel or a gang, they could be shot in the street? Have your wife or daughter been beaten or raped for the crime of being women in the world? Can you even imagine how desperate these folks are? Surely you must know this is not their first choice. Who but a truly desperate person would make this choice?
If I hear one more person talk about laws or legalities or policy, I'm going to scream until I pass out. Jesus could give a crap about your dumb borders or any of the laws that govern them, but he cares desperately about little children--sick ones, hungry ones, forgotten ones. And he asks us to do the same. Why won't you? What's your excuse? Are you willing to say it to his face or to theirs?
Long Valley Lane. September 7th. 2013
The Least of These...
By latest count, UNICEF estimates that one million Syrian children have become refugees, since the start of the civil war. One million children are displaced, homeless, and surviving in camps or have been taken into homes and communities in Jordan, and elsewhere.
Let me put that into perspective for you. Imagine if the entire city of Austin, Texas were made up of children, and that whole city was forced to evacuate to Houston or San Antonio, and they had to walk the whole way. Some of them would be alone, without a grown up to love and care for them, or make sure they were safe at night. Some of them would be wounded or recovering from attacks. Most of them would have seen things that no one, no matter how old they are, should ever see. Some of them would have watched their parents or siblings or relatives die in front of them. Some of them would be in shock. All of them need to be loved. Chaos…chaos and questions with no good answers, and the incredible strain on infrastructure, and no end in sight, either to the conflict or the on-coming tide of more people being forced out of their homes.
One million children who don’t have political loyalties or understand why they are being forced to leave have seen with their own eyes the horrors of sectarian violence that you and I cannot even begin to fathom. And that’s to say nothing of their parents, caretakers, surviving relatives, and remnants of their communities. These children, by and large, unless an almighty change begins and is effective, will spend months or years growing up in refugee camps. Most of them will not have access to the kind of educational opportunities, or physical and mental health care that should be the right of every child, everywhere. And we have to ask ourselves what coming of age in a refugee camp does to a person. One of my political science professors was fond of reminding us that moderates do not grow up in camps.
I don’t have any answers for what to do with or for these children, except to pray. One million children…one million little lives, just at the cusp of understanding, little people who should be out in the sunshine, and not walking a long and dangerous road into a tented camp…it’s enough to break your heart. I'm absolutely bowled over by the hospitality the people of Syria's neighboring countries have shown to those displaced by war, especially the people of Jordan.
Not to get all geo-political and preachy on you, but I wonder what we would do if over two million refugees from Mexico or Canada started pouring over our borders, seeking refuge and solace and peace. Would we take them into our homes, into our families, would we be willing to make space for them in our parks and industries and daily lives? Some days, I doubt that very much. I am so grateful to the communities in the Middle East who have taken Syria's displaced people, especially the children, into their lives with such grace and mercy. I am humbled by it, and challenged to ask hard questions about the way the US treats refugees and those seeking asylum from all sorts and kinds of violence and strife.
If you have a few extra pennies, there are a several very good and very reputable organizations that can put them to work, helping these little people and their families have better days. Some of them you can find here: http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/06/world/iyw-how-to-help-syrian-refugees/index.html. You can also visit www.episcopalrelief.org to find out how you can help, as well. As always, your thoughts and prayers, your awareness of the situation and willingness to share your information goes a long, long way to helping them, as well.
mil besos,
rmgj
Facebook. June 7th. 2020
Beloved, I can’t start another week like this. My heart is heavy and I have to lay this down, so I can pick up the ministry of reconciliation Jesus has called us to. But I cannot offer one tiny gift in my hot shaking hands until I make this right with all of you. Please hear me when I say I deeply do not want headpats. I’m sorry and ashamed it took me so long to get here and then far too long not actually putting my whole self on the line. I am here now and I am here with my whole self. Jesus, help me.
I confess before my brothers and sisters, and before the face of the Living God:
I have benefitted from white supremacy and the systematic enslavement and commodification of free African men, women, and children, and by Jim And Jane Crow, by redlining and segregation and the prison industrial complex, and the ways in which these sins are still alive in America;
the practice of genocide and dispossession and abuse that continues to be waged against the indigenous people living on this continent;
the subjugation and persecution of non-heteronormative and non-cis gendered people;
and the othering of faiths not centered on morally vague and theologically bereft expressions of Christianity that have been so complicit in the business of empire as to be rendered unrecognizable as systems of faith or spirituality beyond the almighty dollar.
I have done this in my knowing and unknowing from before my birth. I have done this in thought, word, and deed. In things done and left undone. In things imagined and scenes I cannot forget.
I confess and name these sins before God and my family, asking for mercy and forgiveness I do not deserve but deeply need. I want to do better, for the sake of Jesus and the world he loves and does not intend to leave broken.
I am so sorry. I love you. Jesus, help us.
Amen.
