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?