Using our best energy for proximity

In the past week, our team has hosted two Border Pilgrimages. We’ve walked in Tijuana and San Diego with 30+ faith leaders from across the country.

While we were walking on the migrant trail (meeting undocumented neighbors, deportees and bi-national church leaders, praying outside of the Otay Mesa Detention center, etc), there was a major ICE raid at a beloved local restaurant a few blocks away from my (Jon's) house and growing protests in Los Angeles in response to similar actions.

As you know, the current Administration has escalated the tensions by deploying 2000 National Guard members without collaborating with California's leadership.

We are in the middle of an escalating frenzy of disappearances, desperation, militarization, and anguish: in our homes, our streets, and in the digital world. 

Last night, as we concluded another Border Pilgrimage, we asked these questions:

In heightened moments like these, how do we resist using our best energy by simply adding to the noise and digital finger-pointing?

In the face of injustice, how are we tangibly showing up as a presence of solidarity among those most vulnerable for the long haul?

If there is anything we’ve learned while living, working, and being in bi-national relationships here in the Borderlands, it’s that “showing up” is often not captured on social media.

While social media can be a tool, what are tangible ways you are contributing to a society where EVERYONE has a home?

For some, it might mean accompanying your neighbors' kids to school.

For others, it could mean meeting with your local elected officials.

For others, it could mean speaking God’s heart for immigrants from your platform or pulpit.

Or, maybe it’s all of the above.

In this moment, we need to show up!

But let’s show up as whole human beings who aren’t trying to prove our ideology and solidarity by spending countless hours behind our screens (often out of our own insecurity and fragile ego).

Instead, let’s remain proximate to the pain and walk in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors whose fears are becoming more and more justified with each passing day. 

On the Way together.