Monthly Archives: November 2018

Berta

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We stood in the church sanctuary, surrounded by piles of bright tissue-paper flowers, festive streamers, and banners of the paper cut-outs known in Mexico as papeles picados—all joyfully fashioned the week before by those of us who meet every Thursday as Mujeres Unidas en Fe (Women United in Faith). We went to work decorating, bringing to life a colorful ofrenda (altar) for our November 2 Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration.Berta ofrenda 2

When we were finished, Berta added a plate of fruit, explaining that she loved the shiny color of the tangerines and the sweet aroma of the guavas. She seemed especially tired that day. But we had no idea that she would hold the place of honor at the heart of our ofrenda. Nothing could have prepared us for that shock. Only 38 years old, the mother of a 12-year-old daughter, Berta passed away three days later.

When we gathered again, Carmen and Rosalinda knelt in front of the ofrenda, clutching their rosaries, leading the rest of us in prayer. Berta grinned out at us, surrounded by flowers, candles, and her favorite foods, offered in the Mexican tradition of honoring the dead. Heaped on plates and in bowls were tamales, snap peas, pink wafer cookies, and chicharrones—wheels of fried pork rinds—doused with the blazing hot sauce valentina. Continue reading →

Prey Without Ceasing

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On the eve of Election Day, as the migrant caravan continues its dangerous journey north, I think of the words of the prophet Ezekiel to the ancient rulers: “You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick…but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered…and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals…[They] have become prey. (Ezekiel 34:4-5, 8)

Focused on migrants as prey and compassionate responses to the immigration crisis, my second reflection from the Arizona-Mexico border was just published by The Christian Century:

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Crosses mark the sites of migrant deaths. Photo by No More Deaths

Sometimes they find people wandering in the south Arizona desert—usually hungry, often lost, almost always dehydrated and desperate. Sometimes they find bodies—if they get there before the vultures and the coyotes. And sometimes they find bones, scattered and bleached by the sun. For the 300 volunteers who call themselves the Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans, Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones is one that tragically resonates—as does the familiar Psalm 23, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”

Every week these Samaritans conduct compassionate searches around the Arizona-Mexico border, giving aid to migrants who need it. They gather up cherished possessions left behind in the sand: family pictures, icons of saints, a rosary, a child’s backpack, a well-loved doll. They collect signs of dashed dreams—a woman’s high heels and makeup kit, a man’s wide brush for painting houses, cloths used for wrapping tortillas, delicately embroidered with flowers and edged in bright crochet work—found strewn across this unforgiving land.

The Samaritans regularly place 55-gallon drums of drinking water throughout this arid wilderness. With an administration in Washington that is fanning flames of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, increasingly U.S. Border Patrol agents and members of militia and hate groups slash the drums or shoot them full of holes. One Border Patrol agent admitted that destroying water stations was part of his training.

Continue reading at https://www.christiancentury.org/article/first-person/us-mexico-border-where-migrants-are-hunted