At the Border

Wed, Jan 15 On the Job It’s the first day and we got right to work. Jack took us across the border to the Migrant Resource Center and we immediately did two accompaniments. First, we escorted one young man from the tent on the border wall to our center, and then a young man and his little girl (under two years old). The walk doesn’t take even five minutes, but the streets are dangerous for these migrants. Likely to be hanging around are men who are prone to kidnap a migrant for the sake of getting a ransom from his or her family. Of course, the danger is even greater for women who are at risk of also being raped. We hope to make migrants safer with our presence. On the walks today, I found myself being very alert, checking out the men on the streets, trying to assess how trustworthy they were. Jack says we should probably just be suspicious of everyone. It’s an uncomfortable feeling. We’re like a little team of nonviolent bodyguards on guard against a...

Shipwrecked The world is on the move On board are more shipwrecked souls than successful seafarers Thousands of desperate people die en route, before they can complete the crossing to the promised land, where even the poor are rich and everyone lives in Hollywood. The illusions of any who manage to arrive do not last long. Eduardo Galeano World Refugee Day, June 20, 2019: An unprecedented 70.8 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide, and 37,000 people are forced to flee their homes every day due to conflict or persecution. ... Or because climate change has meant that they have no food where they live. Or maybe there is no drinkable water because it's been fouled by mining companies, or just dried up. Maybe they lost their land because they've been pushed out by the voracious grab of capitalists and corrupt governments and banks who want to take down the trees or put in plantations of cash crops, or have a carbon tax credit. Or maybe, in the midst of ...

Set mostly in Douglas/Aqua Prieta, this book tells the true story of a young woman born on the Mexican side of the border and raised on the US side who continuously struggles through the injustice, fear, and violence of the immigration system there. The author is an academic who spent four years researching the story, especially getting to know Aida (a pseudonym). But his writing is like a novelist, which means this is very good storytelling. This was a good context-setter for me as I get ready to travel there next week. Not only because it has a lot of history and social information, but also because the life story of Aida reveals so much about the real lives of those living there. There is so much working against the immigrant: racism, poverty, law enforcement, drugs - and the afflicted spirit that comes from having to endure all this. But there is also an indomitable courage and resilience that keeps shining through. I was struck and smitten both. And I am reminded, once agai...

I like the quip I just read on the internet from Caitlin Johnstone: “Start over in the New Year. Also start over whenever you want, as often as you want. Time is an illusion anyway.” I’m 70 years old now. And still I hope for some re-birth. At a New Years Eve party last night, two guys my age laughed that by now they knew themselves pretty well and that it would be bad if they didn’t. I didn’t respond, but thought about that idea. I realized that I'm not really willing to say that I know myself. I’m inclined to agree with the late great Baba Ram Dass (and with Buddhist teaching), that there is in fact no “self” to know. Not that I’ve accomplished that level of enlightenment. I just have this sneaking suspicion that we can't really know our "selfs." And so, I am approaching the future with some wonderings. What will I experience up ahead? How will it shape my sense of identity and well-being? What can come through me that I can offer to others, in the ...