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Traveling alone can be an intimidating experience for anyone, not to mention a child arriving to a foreign land with people that speak a foreign language. It’s difficult to think about any child in such a situation and leads to an important question. What would have to take place to need this option and choose this option for the well being of a child? Hunger, thirst, fear, danger, illness, desperation?
As I contemplate, I think of the parents, the children, their friends, their families, the translators, the strangers caring or not caring for these young sojourners. In between the moments of discomfort and sadness in imagining such a perilous proposition for a child the story of the road to Emmaus kept popping into my thoughts, enough so that I decided to pay attention.
In this story the two disciples walk alongside their resurrected teacher for approximately seven miles, listening for the better part of that journey to Jesus talking. It is not until after the disciples sit down for a meal, see Jesus break bread and bless it that they recognize him. They recognized the unfamiliar, the unknown, a resurrected person, in something familiar. In the familiar they saw the hope resurrection brings.
May we find hope in the comfort of the familiar: a sweet smell, a soothing sound, a consoling taste, a gentle sight. May we find these things when we are alone, when we feel alone, when we are traveling our lives without someone we know. For it is in such things we may see the face of God.
~Tracey Lynn, MDiv student
Breath Prayer for Easter Monday:
Breathing in: the world comes alive
Breathing out: I recognize peace
Breathing in: the world comes alive
Breathing out: I recognize joy
Breathing in: the world comes alive
Breathing out: justice is near
This post introduces the 16-piece Migration & Holy Week blog series composed by the students and instructors CTS Contextual Immersions J-Term 2022 Courses on Immigration at the U.S.-Mexico Border. Because of COVID, both the planned travel seminar and the virtual seminar joined for a fully online zoom-based two-week seminar. Instructors compiled, edited the offerings into this series. We hope that this series that integrates our studies and themes of Lent will pose questions for all of us to contemplate and respond to in our life of faith.
