Don’t get married. Just live together. (Part 5 of Five Modest Proposals for Post-Covid Churches)

This is the last of a five-part series of suggestions for churches after the Coronavirus pandemic.

  

Modest Proposal #5. Don’t get married. Just live together.

Pipe down, No-Sex-Before-Marriage and Family-Values crowd, this isn’t what you think. And besides, evangelicals crawling into bed (metaphorically!) with Donald Trump have pulled the rug out from under your bully pulpit. But that’s a different story.

This proposal is for churches, not couples or throuples or any other human configurations.

Proposal Number #5 is that churches should give up their individual buildings and share spaces.*

The church I serve has a fantastic building, situated on a lovely plot of ground. We could use more parking, but the building is pretty, spacious, and well-located. We are fortunate. It’s also expensive and time-consuming. We spend more on our church building, lawn, maintenance, repair, and cleaning than we do on any other thing. And honestly, we only use a very tiny portion of the space when you map out the time and rooms that we use each week.

.

Less than a half mile down the street from us are two similar congregations—an Episcopal church that has ample parking and spacious building and a Lutheran church with an intriguing, welcoming mid-century modern building. All three buildings were built in the mid-1900s. None of our congregations fill the buildings to capacity. All three churches spend a lot of time working with tenants and outside groups to fill the building and to pay for upkeep.

What if we shared space? We don’t have to merge into one congregation. We could just co-exist in one building. Why do we have three large, lovely rooms (our sanctuaries) that are used by our congregations for a combined total of about three hours per week, not to mention all the other rooms?

And beyond shared worship space, what if we shared copiers, wireless providers, electric bills, trash removal services? Do three churches need three dish washers, three HVAC units, three pipe organs?

“But what about…?” “And when would we…?” “And do you mean sell…?”

Yep, change. That’s what I’m proposing. It’s not easy.

This pandemic is inviting us to see the world in new ways, to seriously question our old ways, to eagerly explore new ways.

How will change when this pandemic is over? I don't know. But if we go back to normal, we’ve failed.

*An excellent example of shared religious space is the Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha, Nebraska, where Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities are co-habitating on a plot of land.

Stop begging for Sunday School teachers. Start training farmers. (Part 4 of Five Modest Proposals for Post-Covid Churches)

This is part four of a five-part series of suggestions for churches after the Coronavirus pandemic.

Modest Proposal #4. Stop begging for Sunday School teachers. Start training farmers.

The pandemic has exposed huge food insecurities in this country. People are afraid to go to the grocery store. Supply chains are cracking. Piles of eggs and vegetables are going to waste and not getting to tables. As the economy wobbles, some people can’t afford groceries. The meat industry is blubbering.

Churches have land, green space, yards.

What if every church in America turned their available green space into a farm?* (And this proposal is a great place for mosques, temples, and synagogues to join in.) Green space doesn’t need to be an expansive yard. It can be a courtyard, window sill, or a container garden.

The church I serve pays thousands of dollars a year for a landscaping company to tend and mow our yard. It’s nice. Green grass, azaleas, boxwood hedges, some indigenous plants. It feels pretty English garden-y.  

What if we plowed under the grass and grew corn, beans, potatoes, strawberries? Beets and kale and spinach and watermelons? Arugala, lettuce, okra and peas?

What if we grew food all over our church property and gave the produce away to local food pantries?

What if we quit teaching Sunday School to children and had adults farm with kids instead every week? Sure they could sing songs while they dug in the dirt. “For the Beauty of the Earth” would be great. And they could talk about Bible stories—how the scriptures say God created a beautiful garden where everything was good, what a Promised Land feels like between your fingers, how wheat and grapes come from the ground and make their way to Jesus’ table.

Sure, it would be a mess. Sure, it would be dirty. Sure, some kids would be terrible at it. Sure, some adults would be awful farmers. Sure, it would take more than an hour on Sundays. (Church time is not limited to that, btw.) Sure, some Sundays it would rain or snow. (And those are still good days to go outside. Or to sit inside and mend tools or plan for the next season. That’s all part of farming.)

So that’s Modest Proposal #4 for post-Covid churches. Stop begging for Sunday School teachers and start training farmers.

*If you’re interested in a community of faith that’s doing this take a look at Farm Church in Durham, North Carolina. 

Burn the Pews for Firewood. (Part 3 of Five Modest Proposals for Post-Covid Churches)

This is part three of a five-part series of suggestions for churches after the Coronavirus pandemic.

Modest Proposal #3. Burn the pews for firewood.

I don’t really mean this. You don’t really have to burn the pews. You could sell them at a rummage sale. Or give them away. Or, maybe you could just turn them to face each other. (But if  you want to burn them, okay, I guess.)

Here's what I mean by proposal number three...

For the past several weeks our congregation has been meeting via Zoom. A large part of our communal time is people sharing joys and concerns. People are talking. And we can see each other. Face to face. We can hear each other. It’s intimate, it’s personal. It’s up close. Sure, we’re spread out, but we connect better this way.

The church I serve meets in a lovely edifice. Beautiful. Georgian architecture, built in 1948, copied after a quaint New England building of the 1700s. The sanctuary is grand and firm and dignified, with crisp lines and wide windows and sturdy wooden pews. The acoustics are great for a choir, so-so for preaching, and not-go-good for other things.

We sit on the hard slabs of wood and stare at the back of each other’s heads. When church attendees share joys and concerns, probably one-third of what people say is lost. It can be awkward. Honestly, it’s been fine. Until Zoom.

Now we know what it’s like to see each other’s faces, hear each other’s voices, connect in closer and new ways.

Going back to pews in lines, with muffled sound and blocked vision, may not seem so intimate, so communal.

So, that’s Proposal #3. Burn the pews. Or take them out and replace them with chairs. Or turn the pews so that they face each other across the center aisle. While we’re at it, what if we invited the choir down from the loft so they could be closer to the rest of the congregation, moved the organ to a place where the organist feels connected? What if the preacher climbed down out of a pulpit that’s six feet above contradiction and simply talked with people on a human level?

Believe me, I know the push back that will come from this suggestion. The church I previously served voted unanimously to be open to and affirming of LGBTQ persons. That was a fairly hot button social/theological issue. And we hung together. That same church group had a tie vote—a legit 50/50 split—on whether or not to replace the pews with chairs. Getting rids of pews was divisive. 

Change is hard right?

* Here's a time lapse video of National Cathedral removing the chairs. It gives you an idea of how space may be used differently.

Quit preaching crap. Start preaching real shit. (Part 2 of Five Modest Proposals for Post-Covid Churches)

This is proposal number 2 for how churches may change after the Coronavirus pandemic.

Quit preaching crap. Start preaching real shit.

In Modest Proposal #1, I suggested, “Quit preaching. Start praying.” I don’t really expect that to happen. Preachers will keep preaching. If that’s the case, here’s the second proposal: Quit preaching crap and start preaching real shit.

Yeah, yeah, “language.” I know I said shit.

Here’s what I mean by crap and shit. During this pandemic stay-home time, I’ve listened to a few other preachers around the country. I’ve heard some very fine sermons. And I’ve heard some crappy sermons.

The crappy one seems to fall into two camps. The first are the unimaginative, “Things are bad. The virus is awful. I know you’re sad. I’m sad too.” Those points are legit. Just unimaginative. We all know that. And adding, “But I have hope and we will make it through,” to the end doesn’t redeem the crap.  Sermons stuck in the present sadness are boring crap.

A second camp of crappy sermons are the ones that plunge ahead as if the Coronavirus wasn’t happening. Trips down the Emaus Road, walking through doors with doubting Thomas, and other biblical and theological ponderings with no nod toward real life. Sermons that avoid life are nonsensical crap.

Both kinds of crappy sermons fall short.

What the world needs are sermons that deal with real shit—insecurities, pain, loss, ideas for re-imagining the world, grace for how we’ve fallen short, vulnerability, and vision.

According the prophet Malachi, God had a harsh word for some of the priests: “I will reject your children and spread shit on your face, the shot you bring to worship. I will send you away from me.”*

That's what Malachi says God said, “I will wipe shit on your face.”

The Hebrew word for shit is peresh. It’s only used six times in the Bible. We mostly translate it dung in English, and that’s fine. But it really means shit.

God is pissed at the Hebrew priests because they’re being silly in the face of catastrophe, so She says She’s gonna wipe shit on their faces.

Here’s why I’m using the word shit. First, to get your attention. Second because that’s what the Hebrew word peresh meant. Third, because that’s how the Hebrew words peresh was used—the Hebrews were in a mess fighting over their future. It was no time for niceties. Shit was getting real.

That’s how life is now. Churches don’t need to spend time dilly-dallying over what kind of bread to use for communion and who can hold whatever bread we decide on. We need to worry about how to feed starving people. Preachers don’t need to diddle with how Jesus walked through a door to say hey to Thomas. We need to help folks be brave enough to reach out in love to their own neighbors who are trapped in fear.

So, preachers, quit preaching crap. Start preaching real shit.

*If you want to read a bit more about shit in the Bible, about the prophet Malachi, or about a theology of swearing, go to this website, A Game for Good Christians, which include this stellar passage:

"In the midst of this we find Malachi's words, wherein God says that He is sick of the two-faced worship and hypocrisy from the spiritual leaders. That He will reach into the sacrificial animal, remove its lower intestine, sigmoid colon, rectum, and anus, to drain them of feculence. Upon which The Almighty Himself will take said excreta into His divine hands— not trusting this ordure duty to an angel— (heh heh, duty), and then smear the egesta, the guano, the discharge, the excrement, the flux onto the astonished priestly faces."

Quit Preaching. Start Praying. (Part 1 of Five Modest Proposals for Post-Covid Churches)

This is part 1 of a five-part set of proposals for how churches could change after the Coronavirus pandemic.

Quit Preaching. Start Praying.

I’m a preacher. And a dang good one. (Or at least I think so, as do most preachers.)*

Preaching is not what the world needs—at least not now, and at least not from in-person church gatherings.

We have enough preaching—right-wing televangelists, left-leaning TED talks, college lectures, archives of recorded sermons (my own included), oodles of books with sermons from the past. We can watch and listen to and read those sermons forever I suppose. If you want preaching, have at it.

What people crave from church is connection, is sharing life.

During this “safer-at-home” time of the Covid-19 pandemic, our church is gathering via Zoom.

We listen to good some music, either live or recorded. We read scripture and maybe some poetry. My colleague or I preach (because old habits die hard). And then people are invited to share their joys and concerns. And they share and they talk and they chat and they nod and they smile. And they write sad news and share happy thoughts in the chat box. And sometimes they go on too long. And sometimes they mix announcements or politics in with their joys and concerns. And it’s beautiful and vibrant and human. And vital.

People need connection, not lectures. Not even well-crafted, theologically-adept, rhetorically-soaring lectures called sermons. (And certainly not crappy lectures called sermons. More on that in Modest Proposal #2.)

People need connection. I entitled this proposal, Stop preaching. Start praying. And I’ve talked about the intimate act of sharing joys and concerns, highs and lows, roses and thorns—whatever you want to call it. To me, that is prayer.

By prayer, I don’t mean words tossed out to beg God for something. I don’t mean supposedly holy words designed to please some Other-Worldly Being.

To me, when people talk about their pains, their fears, or their worries, they are opening themselves to—and identifying with—the swirling chaos of the universe. That is prayer. And when they share birthday wishes, good news, or a small thrill, they are adding to the beauty and wonder of creation. And that is prayer.

That’s what the world needs—more vulnerability and more beauty.

So that’s my fist modest proposal: When we’re able to go to church in person—less preaching, more praying.

*I’m joking about being a dang good preacher. Or am I? Most preachers are weird about their preaching, blending arrogance and humility. Forgive us.

Five Modest Proposals for Post-Covid Churches - Introduction

This is the introduction to a five-part blog series.

Five Modest Proposals for Post-Covid Churches

Some day this pandemic will end. Some day we will go back to "normal." And if we do go back to "normal," then we’ve failed. We don’t need "normal." We need new. New social safety nets, new healthcare systems, new political structures, new communal leaders, new respect for science, new relationships with each other, new economic realities, and more.

I think schools will change. I think office cultures will change. I think fashion will change. I think how we use our time will change. I think a lot will change after this virus. Again, if we don’t change, we’ve failed.

I’m the pastor of a church. A good liberal, caring, smart church. And sometimes we get stuck in our ways. So I’ve been thinking about how church should change. (Again, if we don’t change we’ve failed.) I’ve got lots of ideas on how churches may change. Big ideas, small ideas. Ideas for my local congregation, Ideas for communities of faith that are like mine—regular, white-columned, red-bricked, solid, choir-in-the-loft, flowers-on-Easter, do-good-in-the-world kind of churches. I'm sharing five ideas.

These ideas may also work for evangelical mega-churches or for tiny rural churches. These changes may work for synagogues, temples, and mosques as well. You can probably stretch out these changes for PTAs, neighborhood groups, and some businesses. I’m saying these are proposals for churches, but if these changes make sense for your group, then have at it.

Each proposal is about one-page (or 450 words) long. You can click on the links below to read the five proposals. Or if your attention span is really short (like mine is) these days, here’s a one-sentence summary for each modest proposal.

ModestProposal #1. Quit preaching. Start praying. 

• Sermons as one-way lectures need to die (or shrink), and people need to have more time for really sharing life together. 

ModestProposal #2. Quit preaching crap. Start preaching real shit.

• Whiny sermons and over-smart sermons need to die and churches need to wrestle--in real language--with real problems.

ModestProposal #3. Burn the pews for firewood.

• People need to see each other's faces faces and be able to hear each other's voices, not sit on lines where they only see the backs of other people's heads.

ModestProposal #4. Stop begging for Sunday School teachers. Start training farmers.

• Churches should start using lawns, window sills, and container garden to grow vegetables. 

ModestProposal #5. Don’t get married. Just live together.

• Churches should give up their individual buildings and share space with other congregations.

Look for the Helpers, Part 2: Water (and More) in the Desert

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Those are words from Mr. Rogers that I quoted in an earlier blog.

One of the Green Valley Samaritans -- a "helper" -- placing water jugs in the desert.

I spent the past few days taking part as a learner at the 17^th Annual Santa Cruz Valley Border Fair and Common Ground on the Border in Sahuarita, Arizona.

The situation on the US/Mexico border is complicated, confusing, quickly changing, and to some people scary. And there are helpers.

Here’s a list of groups and organizations that I ran across at the border fair. They’re helpers. If you’re looking for a way to be involved with immigrant concerns, take a look at these groups. They would appreciate your time, your money, your support.

• ·         The Good Shepherd United Church of Christ, Sahuarita, AZ, is deeply involved in providing welcoming, just compassion and action for migrants.
• ·         Federazione delleChiese Evangeliche in Italia/Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy, based in Roma/Rome. Their project, Mediterranean Hope/Programma Rifugiati e Migranti is providing support from migrants from Africa and the Middle East who are seeking new lives in Italy. www.fcei.it
• ·         Border Community Alliance in Tubac, AZ, offers cross border tours, internship programs, and cultural events to promote cross cultural learning and respect. www.bordercommunityalliance.org
• ·         Green Valley Samaritans in Green Valley, AZ, work to provide food, water, blankets, healthcare, and respect to migrants in the Arizona desert.  www.gvs-samaritans.org
• ·         Hope and Healing, based in Tucson, AZ, displays the artwork of young asylum seekers from Central and South America. www.ccs-soaz.org
• ·         Cruzando Fronteras is a faith-based partnership that focuses on prayer, humanitarian advocacy, immigration reform, and church partnerships to generate relational actions on the border. revrodgerdeacon@gmail.com
• ·         Humane Borders, based in Tucson, AZ, works to support humanitarian assistance and educational experiences to create justice and compassionate public policy. www.humaneborders.org
• ·         No Mas Muertes/No More Deaths is Unitarian Universalist group, based in Tucson, that provides food, clothing, healthcare and other assistance to migrants in Mexico and the US.  www.nomoredeaths.org
• ·         The Briggs Center for Faith and Action offers a legal aid clinic for refugees in the Washington, DC, area in need immigration assistance; ESL classes in Bethesda, MD, for people from around the world; support for the Santa Cruz Border Fair; and other work. (Truth-in-Advertising: I’m the Executive Director of this group and would greatly appreciate you support.)

These are some of the groups and people that are helping people in need along the US/Mexico border and around the world.

Looking for the helpers? They’re there.And they may be you.

A World of Barbed Wire: Walls and Immigration

We live in an age of walls. More specifically, we live in an aged of barbed wire. Sharp, piercing metal thread designed to stab, gash, and separate.

Here's a picture* of barbed wire on border wall that divides Nogales, Arizona, in the United States from Nogales, Sonora, in Mexico...

And this is barbed wire on the wall that divides Palestine and Israel...

And this is a drawing of the barbed wire that holds migrants in a detention camp in Libya...

I'm taking part in the 17th Annual Santa Cruz Valley Border Issues Fair and Common Ground on the Border Music Festival in Sahuarita, Arzona. The universality of barbed wire has gabbed my attention.

The drawing of the barbed wire in Libya shows the wire, not just on the top of the fence, but working its way up the legs and arms of the migrant.

And it's not just the wire that binds and chokes us. Border security has become an international economic engine. Thousands, maybe millions of people, work in the "homeland security" industry. Their jobs depend on trapping and separating other people. Multinational companies build surveillance towers that are used in Israel and on the United States border. Technology companies are paying creative minds to build drones that can fly silently overhead to film travelers and journeyers and then -- armed with weapons -- dive bomb into groups of people. The United States government is training other countries on how to trap people in camps and prisons all around the world.**

On several occasions, presenters at this conference have commented about the various detention camps and dividing walls -- along the US border and around the Mediterranean -- are reminiscent of the Nazi concentration camps.

Here's a photo of barbed wire at the Plaszow, Poland, concentration camp...

  

Barbed wire seems to have been invented in the mid-1800s. The first US patent for the painful product was taken out in 1867. In 1874, mass production of barbed wire came about. By 1890, barbed wire fences had virtually replaced the open range in the western United States.

I'm writing this on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, thinking of his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," where he describes the dehumanization of African Americans in the Jim Crow South. Barbed wire -- invented to corral cows -- now divides the world, corrals groups, and dehumanizes people.

King wrote, "Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity." That now is still now.

* Photo credits:

• The photo of the US/Mexico border was taken by a participant in this border conference.
• The photo of barbed wire in Palestine/Israel was taken by my colleague Alec Davis.
• The drawing of barbed wire ensnaring the immigrant in the Mediterranean is by Francesco Piobbichi, an artist/activist who works with the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy. He was a speaker at this border issues fair.
• The photo of the Plaszow camp is from the US Holocaust Museum online archives.

** For more information about the global "homeland security industrial complex," see the book "Empire of Borders" by Todd Miller. Miller was one of the speakers at this conference. 

This blog is one of a series of reflections that I am writing while taking part in the Santa Cruz Valley Border Issues Fair and Common Ground on the Border. The Border Issues Fair is one the causes supported by the Briggs Center for Faith and Action, where I serve as the Executive Director.

Look for the Helpers: Depression and Immigration

Dropping off water in the desert.

I’ve spent much of the last two years crawling my way up out of a dry valley where only the thin weeds of depression and anxiety grow. And finally in the last couple of weeks I’m finding the myself again in a field where the green grass of hope grows.

Those twin marauders — anxiety and depression — came riding into my life like renegade cowboys in an Old West flick — pillaging, shooting, whipping and hollering with ferocity, haphazardly spraying of bullets any which way. Bullets named doubt and loneliness and pain and grief. 

My bout with depression and anxiety came about for many reasons — fate (some things just happen), genetics (my family has a propensity toward mental health woes), age (that mid-life crisis shit is real), illness and death (my father and my in-laws all died within a year and half of each other), and my own internal struggles (perplexity about life and my purpose in it). 

I’m fortunate. I have good insurance, a supportive spouse, a job that invites and affirms grappling with the internal self, kind doctors, an insightful therapist, wise friends, and a decently balanced dose of my own smarts and self-intuition. 

That circle of support, doses of prescribed pharmaceuticals and traditional medicines, a regular meditation practice, a little yoga, lots of running and biking and swimming, and time are having a healing affect on me. 

Last week I had the privilege of taking part in a really good church-focused conference. The leader of that conference led with honest and enthusiastic celebration. That’s what the world news, she said: Joy and Celebration. Sure, there’s plenty of racism and homophobia and pain. To offer joy and celebration in the midst of that is to live counterculturally. Joy and celebration—in the face of war and oppression — are acts of social justice. 

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” Fred Rogers famously told his television neighbors, “my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

In scary times , look for the helpers.

A preacher leading a conference and reminding me to offer joy and celebration—she was a helper. 

This week I’m been spending a few days on the borderlands where Arizona and Sonora meet. I had the opportunity to make a water run in the mountainous desert with a man named Ricardo and with some other pilgrims here to learn about immigration issues. Ricardo is a helper. 

He works with a group called Sahuarita Samaritans. These volunteers oversee a series of drop off stations in the desert. They place food, water, and blankets along the trails that travelers use as they make their way from Mexico to Tucson. It’s about 60 miles, a six day walk of the walkers are lucky. There are cactus, heat, cold, dirt, scorpions, snakes, fear, loneliness, grief, and pain along the way. Dozens of bodies are found each month. The water, food, and blankets that Ricardo and the Samaritans place in the wilderness saves lives. 

Our current immigration issues are a mess. A tragedy even. One speaker at the Border Issues Fair referred to the crisis as a holocaust. Certainly a scary time. A political pit, full of fear. 

“Look for the helpers.” 

People like a preacher at a conference and Ricardo dropping off food and water and blankets. 

“You will always find people who are helping.”

The situation is a mess. And the helpers give me hope. They save lives.

This blog is one of a series of reflections that I am writing while taking part in the Santa Cruz Valley Border Issues Fair and Common Ground on the Border. The Border Issues Fair is one the causes supported by the Briggs Center for Faith and Action, where I serve as the Executive Director.

Dining Alone: Loneliness and Immigration

A plaque at the San Xavier Mission on the Tohono O'odham land.

I'm in Green Valley, Arizona, for the 17th Annual Santa Cruz Border Issues Fair. I arrived in Green Valley, Arizona, a day ahead of the others who were headed to the Border Issues Fair. 

The first evening I was here I went out to eat at a local Mexican place, billed as “a family restaurant.”

It’s no big deal for me to go out to eat alone. I often do that for lunch. But I mostly do that at informal Chipotle- or Panera-style places. I can’t remember the last time I went alone to a sit-down, order-from-menu, “family restaurant.”

I took a book and my phone. The host seated me in a corner table. I looked at the tables around me. I was the only solo diner in a crowded, bustling room. Couples, family groups, and ensembles of friends chatted all around me. 

What does it mean to be alone?

I thought about that in regard to immigration. It’s tough to be alone. 

What did it mean for my great-grandmother from Ireland to be the only English-speaking woman in a small town in Mexico when she — an immigrant— buried her first-born child in a rocky graveyard? 

How lonely is Karen, the young woman from Honduras who showed up in DC, pregnant and alone? What did it feel like for her to move into the home of lovely, hospitable church members who took her in, despite language differences?

One speaker at the Border Issues Fair cried as she told talked about the bodies of a mother and ten year-old son being found in the vast dessert. Were they traveling alone? Did their group abandon them?

Another speaker at the Fair told of a young man whom she found wandering alone in the desert. He had arrived in the United States, hundreds of miles from home. He had successfully avoided weather, coyotes, drug cartels, and rough terrain. And he asked her to help him get home. Homesickness won.  

JeanVanier wrote a thoughtful book about a retreat in Kenya with people who had lived through an era of violence and boodshed. The title of the book is, “We Need Each Other.” In it he wrote:

“I am a broken man like all human beings, but I also know that Jesus loves me and that he is calling me to grow. This is the experience of being loved in my brokenness and therein lies the incredible gentleness of our God. We all have to discover the point of our brokenness because that is precisely the place where we are the beloved. Sometimes we hide behind the idea that we are better than others. We have to discover that none of us is better, that we are all children of God…

God has a desire to bring people together in love. There are two fundamental things that Jesus came to reveal to us. First, God is a lover. God loves. Second, this incredible, gentle, and tender God is in love with each one of us. Each person is precious to God and together we are to build a community where we love each other.”

America’s flavor of independence, or rugged individualism, often keeps us apart — which can lead to feelings of superiority and difference, often just the strange fruit of deep loneliness. 

Our immigration system is broken. Politicians from both parties use that word. (The same word that Vanier used to describe himself.) Our current immigration policies (based on xenophobia and mistrust and misplaced senses of superiority) are the product of fear-based loneliness more then they are rational, political, or economical.

The solutions may be found in potluck suppers, shared meals, and communion tables. 

This blog is one of a series of reflections that I am writing while taking part in the Santa Cruz Valley Border Issues Fair and Common Ground on the Border. The Border Issues Fair is one the causes supported by the Briggs Center for Faith and Action, where I serve as the Executive Director.

The picture on this blog post is of a plaque at the San Xavier Mission church. The verse from the Book of Hebrews refers back to another story in the Bible, where Sarah and Abraham welcomed strangers to their tent only to find out later the strangers were messengers from God.

Fear and Immigration

Tohono O'odham open air market outside the San Xavier Mission.

“Be afraid of immigrants.They’re out to get your job. They’ll take over.”

Maybe you’ve heard some version of that refrain from a politician, a news reporter, or a neighbor. 

What if I told you that’s a fair fear!* Read on...

This week I’m spending a few days at the Santa Cruz Valley Border FairIssues and Common Ground on the Border Music Festival in Green Valley Arizona, just north of Nogales, Mexico. On the drive from the Tucson airport to Green Valley earlier this week, I stopped by the San Xavier Mission on the Tohono Oʼodham Nation reservation. The Tohono Oʼodham people have lived, loved, laughed, died, and claimed the wonder of life in that life for as long as memory reaches back. Jesuit missionaries (immigrants?) from Europe showed up in 1692. 

The Tohono Oʼodham Nation is one of the focal points for our current immigration concerns. Migrants from South America cross the border onto Tohono Oʼodham land — land that has been divided, chopped up, claimed by other groups. 

Imaginary have been drawn on the land, with gun-wielding people saying that the invisible lines can’t be crossed. Surveillance towers have been plopped down the land. Companies claiming to own the land have dug up minerals and made giant profits. The US government has built giant fences all across the land, using part of the land to test weapons that kill people in giant numbers. All the while, Tohono Oʼodham people have been ignored, rounded up, kidnapped and sent to boarding schools, taught their culture and language and religion is inferior, prohibited from taking part in their scared rituals, lied to, “whitewashed” from history books, and largely left in poverty. 

So, yeah, on some level, it makes sense to say, “Be afraid of immigrants. They’ll take over.” When modern-day politicians and commentators say that, they are reflecting the dark side of European, mostly white immigrants who have spent the last 400 years taking over and even wiping out native and indigenous lives. Our present-day immigration matters are complicated, in humane, and in need of much wisdom and grace. To address them, requires more than policy tweaks and changes (though those are vital). To fully address our immigration views, we must address our national origins based in white supremacy, euro-centrism, and Christian domination. Our current immigration policies and practices and roots that reach down into centuries of oppression, ignorance, and militarism. 

Two stories...

When European migrants in the 1600s wandered across native lands in this part of Arizona, they met the people who lived there. “Who are you,” the Europeans asked. 

“Pimach,” the indigenous folx replied. 

“Ah, you’re Pimach people,” the Europeans said. 

And the name stuck and was shortened to “Pima.” For centuries the tribe was referred to as Pima, a county was named Pima, and a college bears the name. 

Except that’s all wrong. Pima or Pimach is not, was not, never had been the name of the indigenous people. “Pimach” means, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” or “I don’t understand.” 

When the European invaders asked (in Spanish), “Who are you,” the native people said (in their language), “We don’t understand you’re funny language...We don’t know what you’re asking.” And the Europeans, in their ignorance, assumed Pimach was their name. They shortened it to Pima. The name stuck for three hundred years, until Tohono Oʼodham people reclaimed their name. 

A second story...

One of the sacred rituals of the Tohono Oʼodham people is the salt run. Young men — as part of their ritual passage to adulthood — ran from their homeland to the sea, collected salt and brought it back to their people. 

This practical ritual became part of the deep cultural expression of the indigenous tribes. Along came Euro-centric, white Americans with their need for order and control to draw uncrossable lines (the Gadsden Treaty of 1854). Over the years, the invisible line became more and more visible with barbed wire, military patrols, metal walls, and jail sentences for those who cross the lines. The Tohono Oʼodham religious ritual of the salt run is now impossible. 

So, back to my original idea... Beware immigrants? Sure. They’ll take over? Yep. White, euro-centric immigrants have proved that to be true.* 

(*Please note: I’m not suggesting that we fear migrants from around the world who are seeking better, more peaceful lives in the United States. I’m writing hyperbolically to get your attention and to remind us that white, Christian-affirming, Euro-centric migrants have built a nation by invading and ignoring the people who were already here. Again: Our current immigration woes are complicated. To fully address them, we must reckon with 400 years of white supremacy and oppression that has been supported by the militarized eradication of Native people.)

This blog is one of a series of reflections that I am writing while taking part in the Santa Cruz Valley Border Issues Fair and Common Ground on the Border. The Border Issues Fair is one the causes supported by the Briggs Center for Faith and Action, where I serve as the Executive Director.

Want to know more about the Tohono O'odham people and their efforts to maintain their traditional practices? Take a look at the Anti-Borders Collective.

Hats and Immigration: A Parable

Water bottle placed in the desert for migrants .
with the words to "This Land Is Your Land"
in Spanish

On my flight to Tucson the woman seated in front of me was wearing a hijab. The college-age man next to her had on a baseball cap with a golf club logo; he looked like he hadn’t shaved or showered in several days. In front of them sat an older man wearing a cowboy hat, the typical Texas sherrif look. 

You can’t judge a book by its cover. Or a person by their headgear. But let’s make some assumptions — let’s assume the cowboy-hatted man is a traditional, hard-working, flag-waving, America-firster, maybe even a Trump supporter. Let’s make the woman in the hijab a liberal of the AOC fan base. Let’s make the dude in the baseball cap a Bernie Bro-ish libertarian sort. (All stereotypes are unfair and these may be entirely wrong, of course.)

As I looked at these three hats and mulled over the potential differences they represented, the pilot spoke over the intercom. He welcomed us on board, then said, “Just a reminder, we’re on a plane and there’s only one aisle. So we’ll need to share.” People chuckled at that bit of obvious, practical wisdom. 

I thought about those of us on that plane — a (maybe) liberal Muslim woman wearing a hijab, a (maybe) libertarian college bro, a (maybe) conservative old man, the pensive pastor (hi, that’s me) behind them. Together we were trapped in a metal tube, hurtling through the cosmos at 575 miles per hour, doing what the pilot suggested — sharing. Sharing space, sharing air, sharing life. 

Ram Dass, the spiritual guru who recently died, said about humanity, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

On that plane, we were flying home (or at least to the next stop on the journey) together. I don’t know how the man in the Cowboy hat will vote. I don’t know what the woman in the hijab thinks of cowboy hats or baseball caps. I don’t know what the unshaven college kid thinks about religion or immigration. I do know that for three hours we shared. For a moment were all headed in the same direction.

This blog is one of a series of reflections that I am writing while taking part in the Santa Cruz Valley Border Issues Fair and Common Ground on the Border. The Border Issues Fair is one the causes supported by the Briggs Center for Faith and Action, where I serve as the Executive Director.

And it turns out I wrote this on National Hat Day. Who knew that was a thing?