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I imagine a child sitting alone, or perhaps alongside a sibling or cousin, being asked this question by an interpreter. I imagine, as Valeria Luiselli does, what it would be like if my child was asked the same question and the answer she gave was, “coyote.” What if my child’s travel companion was a smuggler of humans? Unfathomable is a word that comes to mind.
I wonder, are we crossing over proverbial borders all the time in our lives? Taking leaps of faith in all sorts of ways. And when we do, whom are we traveling with? Who is truly accompanying us?
Recently, my mother died. She crossed a border and so did I and the rest of my family. She is with us, and she is not at the same time. She is in our hearts, in our minds, in our memories. She is traveling with me even if she is not next to me. This is how it is with those we love, those who love us back in return, those who are supposed to love us and don’t and those we wished would love us. In our hearts they make a home.
They reside in us because God’s love is our true companion on any journey. We arrived into existence with a tremendous love coiled around us. We travel this world and arrive everywhere with and nowhere without the love of God. May we remember the immense love that moves with us as we journey through life. It is this love that has the power to transcend us so we may fathom the children of God’s kingdom. A kingdom without borders.
~Tracey Lynn, MDiv student
*The artwork above is paper collage. When I am contemplating writing assignments an image or picture often develops in my mind before the words are cultivated. For this blog I decided to create the image and include it with the words.
Breath Prayer for Easter Sunday:
Breathing in: I am human
Breathing out: I am worthy
Breathing in: You are human
Breathing out: You are worthy
Breathing in: Make me alive to myself
Breathing out: Make us alive together
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.
