Walking in Beauty

A fellow peace pilgrim and pastor once asked me, “Where do you find your ritual?” I had to pause and think about that. Having been raised in the Catholic Church, which is laden with altars, vestments, prayers, songs, processions, candles, incense, standings up, kneelings, and all that, I figured I didn’t have any ritual in my life these days. And his question made me wonder – is that something I’m missing out on? Should I get some of that, for the sake of my spiritual health?

Doing this accompaniment work with refugees on the border here is starting to feel like a daily ritual. Especially in the cold semi-dark of dawn. We don our vests imprinted on the back with the words “Apoyo a Migrantes.” We leave the refuge of the Migrant Resource Center, locking it as we go. We walk pretty much silently to the tent on the wall next to the port of entry and awaken our brothers and sisters and the ninos there with a greeting and invitation – “Hola! Buenos dias! Quieres ir al centro?” We wait for them to gather outside the tent. Then we have a silent procession through the busy morning Mexican streets, one of us vested accompaniests in the front and one in the back. When we arrive at the Center, we re-open the building, enter the light and warmth, and offer food, drink, bathrooms, and a place for children to play. A table for families to sit at. A moment of blessed community. We do this three times a day.

It’s a beautiful experience actually, even in the run down, dirty, barb-wired streets of this border town. I have found myself feeling calm and centered in the midst of this regular routine. Similar to the way I feel when I take part in peace walks with our Buddhist monk friends. (Come to think of it, this little procession would be markedly improved with some drumming and chanting, I think. But this is mostly a Christian affair here and adding a Buddhist element like that would muddy the implicit liturgy, I suppose). In any case, the whole thing feels a little like a walking meditation, accented of course by our vigilant outlook for possible dangers in the streets.

As I frame this experience around the idea of ritual, it strikes me that much of what we do in our lives could be seen in this way. It’s a matter of perspective – seeing the sacredness of our lives in the regular things we do every day. Why not? It really is a kind of miracle that we even exist, right?

So this is my morning prayer for today. May I see my daily chores as meditations. Or, as indigenous people say, may we walk in beauty all around us.