Thanks Be To God

Happy Thanksgiving!

We all remember the beginnings of this festive week. One of the things that binds us together as a people is the experience of having been dressed up (while children, in most cases) as pilgrim women and men, Indians, or turkeys (those of us who were being prepared at an early time in life for social sacrificial roles).

We remember but perhaps we don't realize that the pilgrims were amongst the first foreigners to come to America (I don't know much Biblical Hebrew, but I believe that aliens are called maguwr, as in Genesis 17, 8, wherein Abraham is promised by God legal permanent residence in the Promised Land). The pilgrims were surely undocumented. Although the native Americans did not have as complicated an immigration law as we do, they did know who was whom and which tribe had rights to settle in which coast and valley. Unprotected aliens as well, these first Other Than Mexicans. They proved as resilient as most desperate refugees tend to be: they survived that first hard year and then settled in amongst the native peoples.

So to speak.

Cristina is a pilgrim who came to these shores five years ago. Two of her children are native born and so are citizens. She and her husband are undocumented, and according to radiospeak, "potential terrorists." In reality, they are simple people who are doing what they can to get through one crisis after another. They live in Brownsville, Texas, and are grateful not to have to be braving the New England winter that nearly wiped out the first pilgrims.

They had turkey this Thanksgiving, but would have happily passed on the meal in exchange for some peace of mind.

Cristina told me that she is afraid to go to the store, as the "Border Patrol are everywhere and they are arresting everyone. I don't think that I could live separated from my children."

The question on the tip of one's tongue, always, is "so why not go back to your home country?"

I wonder what a pilgrim would have answered to that question.

I confess it is hard to imagine them getting back on their boats and going back to England. I wonder what would have happened if our "Father in Faith" Abraham had returned to where he came from.

Perhaps there wouldn't have been a Jewish people, and therefore no Christian people, and certainly, then, no pilgrims. Or thanksgiving.

Perhaps we would all be reading and writing in Cherokee.

And practicing that most ancient American virtue: hospitality.

The Feast of All Saints

Each year, on the 1^st of November, the church celebrates and gives thanks for those special friends of God that we call saints. When the Scripture speaks of the “144,000” enjoying the glorious light of God, it is assuring us that there are an untold number of saints (“144,000” is a symbolic algorithm: 3 (meaning “holy”) times 4 (the four corners of the earth) times three times four over and over again—the complete guest list for the Reign of God, so I am told, the moment when God’s plan to unite all in Jesus Christ is realized. A moment that represents that final day when God’s Goodness breaks down the barriers between all of us and once and for all routs every vestige of evil and of injustice, a time of God’s peace and God’s justice.

Heaven, in other words.

So, today, we celebrate heaven—those of us who have already arrived, and those of us who are making our way, haltingly.

Is heaven a place of clouds and harps, angels and sunsets, good views and great food?

Or is it the place that is the end point toward which point babies’ smiles, gentle acts, poetry which rends the heart and sweetness that heals the wound?

Perhaps all we can do is trust the signs that God gives us, the moments that allow us to peek into the deeper mystery of goodness.

Today I remembered Lupita, a nineteen year old who finally passed after a long and wasting illness. She lived in a working class neighborhood in Matamoros, Mexico, and although I would only see her once in a great while, we had become friends. Her great gift was her sense of appreciation.

In her last year, as she lost her ability to walk, I managed to find her a wheelchair. When she saw it, she managed a heartbreaking smile.

As she lay dying, one of the hospital social workers asked Lupita if she would give her wheelchair to someone who needed it now.

Lupita told her no, that it was a gift “from Padre Miguel.”

At first I wondered how could Lupita had said such a thing. But upon reflection, I realized that Lupita could not just give away something that was given to her in love. No regifting for this young woman.

As we prayed at Mass yesterday, I thought of how God works. There will be no one to replace Lupita. She has moved on—no more hearing her laughter or enjoying her smile. She won’t be repackaged, reincarnated. No one can replace her, as well it should be, for God doesn’t regift either.

And yet some essence of her has stayed behind, etched in my heart’s memory, a space aching to be filled, a seventh note waiting to be completed. A hope, I would call it. A joyful hope that one day death’s barrier is shattered by the power of love, and the 144,000 of us will be finally gathered together, once again.

PS After Lupita passed away, the wheelchair found a new owner. I don’t think she minded at all. Regifting after death--a better name for last will and testament. . .

A Doctors' Visit

I visited friends in Matamoros, Mexico, last week, with three medical residents. The doctors were interested in discovering which were the obstacles to medical care that faced those who live on the Mexican side of the border. We met in a neighbor’s home, and listened to stories. One woman, about sixty years of age, had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2003. She complained that presently she had had to travel about an hour for her chemotherapy. She had recently been struck by a car and was suffering from the effects of the accident. A nice man, also about sixty years of age, complained of chronic bronchitis that he had contracted after years of welding work in factories. He admitted that his smoking habit was probably a contributing factor. He showed us a tube of an albuterol inhaler that the local clinic gave him.

He told us that they charged him a dollar each time they gave him one.

Ten minutes away, in Brownsville, Texas, that inhaler would cost him about twenty dollars. If the woman with colon cancer had been living in the USA, she, being very poor and without insurance, would have died long ago.

After the stories, we shared a soft drink. Our Mexican friends talk gaily away; we mostly sat in silence. I think that they were feeling better than we were.

"God Doesn't Make Trash"

Just prior to Holy Week, a small group of people interested in children’s health issues wanted to see the worst place along the border. In the world of misery that is the US/Mexico border, the Matamoros, Mexico municipal dump wins hands down. To visit the dump is to be immersed physically and emotionally in the sins of the entire area—the waste, the greed, the corruption smolders in a stench that seems to invade a person’s very soul. The flies hover about in clouds—it takes a conscious effort not to breathe them in. There is metal and glass under foot—it is impossible to find a safe place to stand, it is a terror to walk about.

Yet, this is a garbage dump—what more could one expect? A place of refuse, of junk, of all that we no longer want or deem useful. It is where we send things to rot.

What we don’t expect, although we know that they are there, are the garbage pickers. The men, women and children who busily rip open black plastic garbage bags, poke through piles of muck, looking for anything that might be of use. There are about 150 of them out and about on this day. “Business is kind of slow today,” one of them remarks.

The garbage pickers are friendly and talkative. They gather about us, anxious to talk about the topic of the day—their children’s health. There is an animated conversation about the best way to organize care. It is not a hospital board meeting, but the seriousness of the conversation and the urgency of the group would rival any such group.

As we drive off from the dump, we run across Armando, “El Piojo”, a fellow who has been coming out here to pick through the garbage for more than 27 years. Though his clothing is worn and torn and dirty, he is nevertheless immaculately dressed—his shirt buttoned up, his pantlegs tucked neatly into his boots, his hair combed. Why do you work here, I ask him. He wrinkles up his forehead and says, thoughtfully, sometimes I can make ten or even fifteen dollars a day. That is twice what they make in the General Motors’ factory. Not bad for an old man, he says, smiling in a bright-eyed way that, for a moment, at least, erases the stench, the flies, the hopelessness. He waves good bye and gently steps off into the piles of rubbish, intently looking down, searching for tomorrow’s daily bread.

Humane Immigration Reform

Parishioners from San Felipe de Jesús wrote more than 600 letters to Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Huchison in support of a humane immigration reform. The letters were part of the 1,300 that were delivered to the local offices of the Senators last week.

Recent raids in Indiana and Massachusetts have resulted in massive arrests of working people. Mothers were separated from their infants (one baby was admitted to the local ICU for dehydration after the nursing mother was shipped to Texas).

Good people wonder how things have come to this in our country. The very idea of massive roundups of people--honest, hardworking, church-going people--taking place in the land of the free is hard to grasp. Those caught up in this sinfullness this time were busy making plastic pipe and leather purses--for our consumption and for our businesses.

On the local scene, the immigration detention centers refuse to allow priests to celebrate the Eucharist with detainees. Up the road, near Taylor, Texas, a privately owned jail has detained children and are not forthcoming about the conditions under which they are jailed. This is not worthy of Americans and we know that it will soon come to a change.

For a touching reflection on the visit of President Bush to Guatemala: http://www.drawger.com/stevebrodner/?section=comments&article_id=2935#comments

The Wall

The Berlin Wall came to represent all that offended American notions of human dignity. As a child, I remember hearing stories of the brave people who were killed trying to cross into West Berlin and the Promised Land of Freedom. I remember the villains well--the guards who manned that wall and kept those brave people out. During the 28 years of its existence, 239 people died trying to cross it. (Photo: Jay Johnson-Castro)

We are building our own wall now, well-designed to keep out those who are seeking the promised land. The wall is not a new idea--we have been building it since the 1993 Operation Hold the Line. During those 14 years--half the time of the Berlin Wall--more than 2,500 have died trying to cross it.

There is something macabre and fascinating about this wall we are building--an obviously wrongheaded idea that we Americans stubbornly cling to. Here at San Felipe we have had reporters from Radio France and German television visit us. They all ask the same question: why are you doing this? We all have the same answer: "We don't know."



Schematic for the Berlin Wall.







Schematic for the proposed border wall.

The Dream Act

Theresa (not her real name) is 22 years old. She is an “illegal alien” as people are wont to say.

Theresa’s mother brought her to the United States from Mexico when she was a seven year old. Theresa was a bright and hard-working student. She became a sensitive young girl and over time realized that she wanted to work in medicine. She finished in the top ten per cent of her high school class and began the University of Texas at Brownsville’s Nursing program.

Apart from the grueling academic program, Theresa had to scrimp and save to afford tuition. Her mother made
$100 a week working as a maid (for 60 hours a week). Theresa could not work, as she was undocumented, but through the generosity of friends and of people who believed in her, she made it through the program, graduating with honors and ready to take the state board exams. But since the exams were given in Corpus Christi, which meant that Theresa would have to pass by the Border Patrol, she couldn’t take them. While she is finishing up her course work for her Bachelors in Science, she languishes, wanting to practice her trade, but unable, unwilling to return to Mexico, as this would separate her from her mother and her sister.

Meanwhile, Valley Regional Hospital, a mile up the road from Theresa’s small home, pays up to $10,000 in signing fees from RN’s. Many of them come from as far away as the Philippines. Hospital officials grind their teeth as they await some sort of change to the immigration laws that would allow young people like Theresa a chance to serve their communities.

Such a change has been introduced time and again in Congress. It is called “The Dream Act”, a piece of legislation that has bi-partisan support and is a way for our country to include students that we have educated and whose skills we need in our work to build a great nation. The Act is only for the students themselves, excludes anyone with a criminal record, and has been praised by Republicans and Democrats.

Those who oppose the bill call it an “amnesty” (which is inaccurate and unfair, as it makes it seem like children could have chosen NOT to have come with their parents).

Please write your congressional representatives and encourage them to support the Dream Act.
(Photo by Michael Seifert)