Author: frankisemptiness

November 22nd, 2019

A’isha texted me saying that the kids needed help with their homework.

I texted her back to say that I would come over to their house.

It was dark and cold and windy when I parked in front of their home. I rang the door bell. I heard a loud noise from inside the house. Ibrahim answered the door.

“Hi Frank!”

I came in, and I took off my shoes. Yusif came to the door and looked at me mischievously. The other kids did not get up to meet me. Some of them absently said “hi” as they looked at their screens. They were all engrossed in their tablets. Every child was gazing into his or her magic mirror. There are eleven kids in the house. I guess that a screen for every child keeps each of them busy, but it also keeps them distant and remote.

It’s a brave new world.

Despite the joys of the Internet, there was still the yelling and confusion that come from a big family. I am familiar with that. I had six younger brothers. We were always just one step from utter chaos. I could feel that in this house too. It’s not a bad thing. It just is.

Muhammad had homework. He is young and intelligent and cocky. These are all good things. He always comes to me with his math homework. He really doesn’t need my help. He understands the math. I just play along. Sometimes he gets a bit too self-sure. He decided to solve a word problem by multiplying everything.

I told him quietly, “You need to divide.”

The little boy looked intensely at his work, and said, “Yeah, right.”

As Muhammad was working on his math, A’isha, the mother, brought he me hot, sweet tea, as she always does. It’s a Syrian thing. I said to her, “Shukran”, in thanks. A’isha asked me to look at some mail that she had received. It was an advertisement for a credit card. I explained to her that they just wanted to sell her something. I advised her to throw it away. She did.

It took only ten minutes to help Muhammad with his homework. Then Yusif came up to me with two little books to read.

He smiled, “I have these books.”

“Good. Read them to me.”

He did. He stumbled over a couple words.

He said, “Then Jack came.”

I told him, “No. That says, ‘Jake’, not ‘Jack’ “.

Yusif looked at me in an unsure way.

I nodded. “It’s ‘Jake’ “.

Then he kept reading.

The books were short. Nobody else seemed to need help, so I slowly pulled on my jean jacket, and made ready to leave.

Nizar looked at me and asked, “Are you going now?”

I replied, “Well, yeah, I think I’m done here.”

Nizar shouted, “No, Hussein needs help too. I go get him!”

Nizar shouted up the stairs to Hussein. Why do all kids shout? It was like that when I was young. Nobody walks up the stairs to talk to somebody. People just yell at the top of their lungs. This seems to be a universal characteristic of families.

Hussein came down. Hussein is the oldest son. Hussein is a high school senior, and he is taking some college courses in order to get ahead of the game. He had some American government/politics class from Parkside that he was taking, and it was a bit confusing to him.

He needed a computer to do his work, so he tried to commandeer a Gold Chrome from one of his siblings. They balked at this request. He quickly pulled rank as a surrogate parent (which he is), and grabbed Nizar’s tablet. Hussein gave orders to his younger family members, and they followed those instructions grudgingly and with resentment. I was in his position forty or fifty years ago, and I understand the family dynamics involved. Hussein is trying to do a job for which he is not equipped. It just sucks.

Hussein and I finally found a tablet that allowed him to access his homework. He was supposed to analyze three political cartoons. Hussein was totally unprepared to do this. Political cartoons make sense to people from a particular culture, and a particular time in history. To anyone else, these drawings mean less than nothing.

Hussein noticed that I was edgy.

“You keep looking at your phone. Do you have to go? I can do this.”

I told him, “I got time. I need to visit a girl that I love in prison, but not right now.”

He said, “Okay, if you are sure.”

We looked at the cartoons. They were not current. Some were very old, which meant that they would mean less and less to people of Hussein’s age. One cartoon was a parody of a song from John Lennon, “Imagine”.

I asked Hussein, “Do you know what this song is about?”

He shrugged and said, “No”.

“Look it up online. Now. There’s a video.”

Hussein did that. He looked and listened.

“Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.”

Hussein understands English well. He listened to the lyrics of the song. He did not understand the importance of it, if there is any.

I told him, “For some people, this song was very important. It meant a lot. Lennon was murdered by a crazy fan in front of his house in New York City back in 1980.”

Hussein asked me, “How old was he?’

“Forty.”

He shook his head and said, “That’s too young.”

I said despondently, “Yeah.”

He shrugged. The song went on.

“Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one”

I said to him, my voice shaking, “I remember exactly where I was when Lennon died.”

Hussein looked at me, “So, where were you?”

“I was in Arizona, in the Army. I was with some friends. We heard on the news that Lennon was dead.”

I put on my coat, and headed toward the door. Hussein followed me.

He said, “Thank you for coming. When do you come again?”

“I don’t know. I text your mom before I come here.”

Hussein asked, “And do you go to the prison now?”

“Yes.”

“Is the girl, is she better?”

I paused. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

He shook my hand.

I left.

November 16th, 2019

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”
― Jack Kerouac, author of “On the Road” and “The Dharma Bums”

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”

“So, you made a road trip with a nun?”

This has been an often-asked question since I came back from El Paso.

The answer is: “Yes, I made a road trip with a nun. It was quite enjoyable, thank you.”

I drove to El Paso and back with Sister Ann Catherine. Sister A.C. is, technically speaking, not a nun. My understanding is that nuns are cloistered religious sisters, women who keep themselves separate from the world’s chaos and mayhem. Sister Ann Catherine is certainly a member of a Catholic religious order, but she is definitely not cloistered. Sister A.C. is very active in the world, probably more so than most lay people, including myself. She is seventy-five years old, and she hasn’t wasted a minute of her life. She’s done things.

I first met the Sister at the VA hospital in Milwaukee several years ago. We often go there to visit with the vets in the psych ward. The psych ward has a transient population. People very seldom stay there for more than a week. Even so, Sister is good at establishing a relationship with the patients. She always tells them, “Thank you for your service”, and she says that in a heartfelt, authentic sort of way. They know that she is being sincere. Sister worked for years as a nurse, and she sees things through the lens of her experience. Her history allows her to connect easily with the folks in the psych ward.

Sister Ann Catherine served as a nurse in Cambodia back in 1980. I’m not sure if Pol Pot was still running the show in that country at that time, but the effects of his genocidal reign were still evident. Sister’s experience in the refugee camps affected her deeply. It changed her life.

I picked up Sister Ann Catherine at 4:00 AM on October 16th. She didn’t have much for luggage. We both like to travel light. Except for the fact that we nearly got hit by a garbage truck before we even left the Milwaukee (that was my fault), our departure went well. We drove on I-43 southwest to Beloit, and from there on I-39 toward Rockford, Illinois. We drove through northern Illinois in utter darkness. It’s best that way.

I think that sunrise found us driving through Bloomington, which is kind of like being in the Twilight Zone. We were a long way from St. Louis, and it hurt. For those who don’t know, there is literally nothing to see on the stretch between Bloomington to St. Louis. I-55 is a highway that begs a driver to speed. A view of endless, flat cornfields makes a person edgy and impatient. The typical driver may think, “Well, maybe if I just go eighty, then this hideous landscape will all go away.” It doesn’t, not for hours and hours. The rolling prairie in the Land of Lincoln just keeps giving and giving all the way to the Mississippi River. Pure torture.

On the plus side, Sister and I kept up a spirited conversation throughout this seemingly endless journey. We both wake up well before dawn each day, so the morning hours are when we are the most lucid. Sister is clear and incisive when she speaks. She doesn’t parrot other people’s opinions. She thinks for herself, and I admire that. She also listens quite well. I appreciate that too.

We got a little bit lost going through St. Louis. The GPS only works if you pay attention to it. We didn’t. Sister and I were in the middle of an interesting discussion, and then I noticed that we had missed our exit. It did not take us long to get on to the right interstate. Then we took I-44 forever.

I-44 goes through hills and forests and farmland all the way through the state of Missouri. It’s a beautiful ride, and a long one. Sister and I eventually ran out of topics to discuss. Then we resorted to listening to music. Fortunately, I was prepared for that. My tastes are eclectic. So are Sister’s. We played songs from The Klezmatics (the album “Rhythm and Jews”), Indigo Girls, Santana, and Dylan. The music got weirder as time went on.

After twelve hours of driving (I drove and Sister kept me alert), we arrived at our first destination, the Monastery of St. Scholastica. St. Scholastica is a home for Benedictine sisters in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The sisters there welcomed us with open arms, and unlimited goodwill. My wife, Karin, and I are in the habit of staying at monasteries and Catholic retreat houses. However, I had never been to this place before in my life. Sister Ann Catherine simply trusted me to find us a good place to stay for the night. That was a gutsy move on her part. I guess her faith paid off.

The sisters at St. Scholastica have a guest house, which is wonderful. They gave us the keys to the place, without hesitation. They also refused our offer of money for our stay with them. The sisters were emphatic that they wanted to provide for our ministry with the migrants at the southern border. Our money was no good to them.

The second day…

Sister and I drove through eastern Oklahoma and Texas for about eight hours.

We were on our way to Bryan/College Station, Texas. Let it be said at this point, that I have made the trip from Milwaukee to College Station numerous times over the course of the last thirty years. I know every single path between those two points. The scenery was new to Sister Ann Catherine, but not to me.

Upon arrival in Bryan, we first stopped to visit with my eldest son, Hans, and his family. Hans is married to Gabby, a local girl, and they are the loving parents of Weston, a one-year-old redneck. Sister immediately spent time with Gabby and her little boy. I talked with Hans. Hans is a Iraqi War veteran, and he was wearing a t-shirt that said, “Heavy Metal: Army Style”, showing a picture of an Abrams tank. That’s my boy. I told Hans about our trip to El Paso/Mexico. He shook his head and told me, “Well, y’all don’t call me if you get in trouble down there.”

Thanks Hans. Screw you too. Actually, he was just messing with me. I do the same with him. It’s a family thing.

Sister and I spent the night with a friend of my sister-in-law, Shawn. We stayed at the house of Anne and Kim. Sister and I did not know anything about these people. Nothing. They were total strangers.

I am used to this sort of thing. I have participated in a number of peace walks and other weird trips that required me to stay with complete strangers. I have grown accustomed to sleeping in places with people I don’t know, and who I may never meet again.  Over the years, Karin and I have invited other travelers to stay at our house. We offered hospitality to people who we did not know and that we never met again. It’s cool. It just works like that.

The next morning (pre-dawn) Sister and I picked up my sister-in-law, Shawn. She was coming with us to El Paso. She hadn’t slept at all. She told me laughingly, “I knew y’all would come for me early! That’s what you folks do!”

Indeed.

The people at the Annunciation House in El Paso wanted us to be there at 1:30 PM. That meant we had ten straight hours of windshield time to get to their shelter. We drove through the darkness from Bryan. The rising sun caught us on I-10 somewhere west of Fredericksburg, Texas.

I-10 is brutal. If you drive to the west, the landscape becomes increasingly more desolate. You start with live oaks. Then you go to junipers and mesquite. Then you go to sage brush and creosote bushes. Then you go to dirt. Nothing but dirt.

We got to El Paso, with is sort of an oasis.

I insisted on listening to Nirvana on the final stretch to El Paso. I cranked up “Smells Like Teen Spirit”:

“Hello, hello, hello
Load up on guns and bring your friends
It’s fun to lose and to pretend
She’s over-bored and self-assured
Oh no, I know a dirty word

With the lights out, it’s less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us

An albino
A mosquito

Hello, hello, hello, how low
Hello, hello, hello, how low”

Sister Ann Catherine made no comment at all.

November 14th, 2019

“The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: “You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted.”
― Saint Oscar A. Romero,  from “The Violence of Love”

All right, so what is “conversion”? What does it mean to be “converted”. Father José spoke about that topic at our meeting in the cathedral in Tuesday evening. He said that our five-day trip to the Mexican border has to be a conversion experience for us. He has been there twice, and it has definitely been a conversion experience for him. So, what does that really mean to anyone else?

Almost all religious traditions talk about conversion. In Judaism it is “t’shuvah” (תשובה), which roughly translates to “repentance” or “turning back”. In my ten year experience as an unofficial member of an Orthodox Jewish congregation, t’shuvah seems to mean much more than that. It means self-transformation. T’shuvah is about radical change. It means becoming a new person.

I also have experience with Zen Buddhism. In that group, there is very seldom any talk about conversion in a religious sense, probably because Zen isn’t really a religion. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s not a religion. In any case, in Zen there is the idea of change and enlightenment. A person can change, through meditation, and see the world more clearly. The Buddha was, by definition, a person who became awake. Zen has no gods. Zen only talks about recovering our inherent Buddha nature, which just means waking up and becoming who we really are.

Conversion, in its roughest form, just means “getting your shit together”.

This is hard.

We do not have many good models for conversion. In Christianity, the most obvious example of conversion is that of Paul on his way to Damascus. That example is almost useless. Conversion seldom happens that way. It is unlikely that any individual will be struck down in the road by a brilliant light, and then have God speak directly to them.

Conversion happens in slow and subtle ways. A Buddhist once told me that I would never recognize a change in myself, but other people would. I found this to be true. Conversion is not often apparent to the person being changed. However, other people notice.

Sometimes, in Christianity, people are eager to tell about their conversion experiences. This can be less than useful. I have heard, from at least one person, a story of how he found Jesus, and it was clear to me that his new-found connection with Jesus did not affect his lifestyle in any way at all. He was still an asshole. Conversion means more than just kneeling at the foot of the cross. It means a fundamental change. 

Conversion is not something that can be forced. People cannot be truly converted by the sword or by the threat of torture. Conversion has to come from within the person, and even that cannot be forced. I cannot say to myself, “Today, I will change my life.” Conversion does not happen through the force of will. It is more of a letting go of things.

In the Heart Sutra of the Buddhists, it says, “No attainment and nothing to attain”. We do not strive for conversion. We collapse, and we sit down in ashes and sackcloth, and we accept conversion.  We just let it happen. It comes to us.

Have I been converted by our trip to El Paso/Ciudad Juarez? I have no idea. Maybe. I guess I will find out later.

November 10th, 2019

“People are like stained – glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are”

from “Wake Me Up When September Ends” – Green Day

November 7th, 2019

“Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.”
― Ruth Reichl

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
― John Donne

During the trip to El Paso/Ciudad Juarez, several people told our group to work at building community. I remember, in particular, Father Bill mentioning that. It sounds like a good idea. The problem is: what does it really mean? How do you build community? What exactly is a community, and why do we want to build it?

One definition of the word “community” is:

“A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common”.

That definition doesn’t help very much. It could mean almost anything, and maybe it should.

During one of our evening reflections at Casa Vides, a member of our group remarked that we had already done much to build community among ourselves. Really? How and when did that happen? In the last few weeks, since we returned from El Paso, I have heard from five people who were in our company. That would be five out of fourteen. So, does that make us a community? Perhaps not.

Building community, whatever that actually means, is a long and arduous process. Spending five days together with strangers does not make a community. During the five days, I spent hours talking with some people, and I spent at most five minutes interacting with others. I suspect that this sort of thing is normal. I connected quickly and easily with some folks, but I felt a distinct barrier in my dealings with others.

Building community takes time. A person does not become part of a community overnight. Sometimes, the process requires enormous patience. I am part of a shul, an Orthodox Jewish community. I am not Jewish. I would estimate that it took probably five years before I was accepted into that community. It took that long for mutual trust to develop. This might be an extreme example, but I mention it to emphasize that building community is not as simple as friending somebody on Facebook.

Building community requires listening. To truly connect with somebody, a person has to shut up and listen to other people. In our culture we are not good at that. Often when I talk with someone, my mind has already gone some place else. I find it difficult to be with another person 100%. However, that total commitment is necessary to establish a bond with the other individual.

Building community cannot be forced. Connections between humans happen in a haphazard sort of way. There are environments that are conducive to community-building; for instance, meals taken together. However, communities, like friendships, develop at their own pace. Community building is not always an active process. Sometimes, it requires that people abandon their agenda and just let things flow. Our culture is not good at that either.

People move in and out of communities. A person may be part of a community for just a week, or maybe for their entire life. Communities are fluid. They are dynamic because they are alive. Living things move and change. Only death is static.

Is our small group from the El Paso trip a community? I don’t know. It may be in the process of becoming one. We have shared an important experience, and some of our interests are the same. However, we are, at this point, mostly just strangers to each other. We could easily drift away from each other, and that would be a shame.

I guess we’ll have to work at this.

November 7th, 2019

“I stand here at your border crossing
What a way to meet
Face in total disarray
Papers incomplete
A traveler at your mercy
My future rests on you
Will you turn me back around
Or will you stamp me through

Please forgive my awkwardness
I know I’m quite a mess
If I were a smuggler
I’d have much more finesse
Yes, if I were a smuggler
I’d breeze across this border
My clothes a bit conservative
My papers all in order

So please do check my pockets
And by all means check my bag
Make sure you search my vehicle
And check the license tag
And when you feel I’ve met
The strict demands of your employer
I hope you find it in your heart
To lose your paranoia”

“Border Crossing” from Timbuk 3

I don’t understand borders. I realize that statement does not make much sense, but it is true.

When I was in El Paso/Ciudad Juarez, the border was in my face all the time. The wall, the river, the bridges, the ports of entry: all these things made it abundantly clear to me that there is (literally) a line in the sand that some people cannot cross.

I don’t understand that. I don’t understand why these things exist.

My wife, Karin, is not a U.S. citizen. She has a green card, and she has resided in the United States for almost thirty-five years. She has chosen to remain a German.

A number of people have asked me about that. It bothers them. They usually ask things like:

“Why doesn’t she want to be an American? This is her home, isn’t it?”

Those questions only make sense if a person assumes that there is actually a difference between being a German and being an American. Karin does not see a difference. Nor do I. Karin and I, being rather Catholic (or occasionally Buddhist), really believe that there is only one human family, and therefore the divisions between peoples are all artificial.

This means that we consider borders to be things that are only man made, which means they can also be unmade. Borders exist first and foremost in our minds. Borders are just ideas, at the beginning. Later, they take on concrete form. Human borders do not exist in nature. The only physical border that can be seen from space is the the Great Wall of China, which is no longer functioning as a border. All borders are ephemeral, and in a sense unreal. Yes, walls of steel and cement are tangible, but they are not natural. History has shown that they do not last.

What else has history shown us? From my reading, history shows a continual migration of peoples across the globe. There has been an endless mixing and movement of populations, regardless of the obstacles placed in their ways. Even in my own lifetime, borders between countries have changed and shifted. The permanence of these boundaries is an illusion. We spend endless amounts of time and money to stop a relentless tide. We fight against our own future.

It was striking to me when I walked over the bridge from Mexico to the United States. I jumped through all the hoops provided by the Custom and Border Protection folks. I showed them my passport, my little magic book. After a quick glance, they waved me through. Other people, they don’t wave through. How do they decide who is worthy, and who is not? Is there an objective standard? I doubt it.

Am I any better than an asylum-seeker from Honduras? No. So, why can I come into the U.S., but that person cannot? Why can I have a home here, and the other person has to sleep in a tent on the other side of the border? In this world, in this age, what does it mean to be a citizen of a certain country? In a time when the free flow of goods, and information, and especially money is paramount, what does it mean to be a citizen of a particular country? When multinational corporations spread their tentacles across the planet, what does it mean to be a citizen of one country?

Who are we?

Are we not one?

November 3rd, 2019

I never slept well at Casa Vides in El Paso. It wasn’t the fault of anyone there. It’s just how I am. I wake up pre-dawn, and then my mind races for a while. While I was staying at Casa Vides, I would get up and sometimes go outside. I would stand on the upper landing in the cool breeze, and stare at the lights of El Paso. It was usually quiet, except for the sound of the helicopters.

There was always a helicopter in the sky in El Paso. Day or night, there was always somebody flying along the border. That was 24/7; constant, endless surveillance.

While we were in El Paso, we had a meeting with members of the U.S. Border Patrol. They met us on the dirt road that runs parallel to the wall. Four agents got out of an SUV. Three of them were in uniform, and one was in plain clothes. They were all Latinx. I’m not sure why that was. I don’t think it just a coincidence.

The agents explained their work. The Border Patrol monitors the territory in between the official ports of entry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection folks work the ports of entry. Border Patrol are in green uniforms, and the CBP in blue. The Border Patrol officers have a big job. They usually operate alone, seeing as there aren’t enough agents for them to work as teams. They ride in SUV’s or on ATV’s. Some of them ride horses. Some fly in helicopters.

The Border Patrol has a wide selection of surveillance equipment. They have infrared cameras, seismic ground sensors, and magnetic sensors. They have all of the newest toys.

The agents spent most of their time describing the humanitarian side of their work. At least one of them was an EMT. They do search and rescue missions to help people who are lost in the desert. They catch human traffickers. They stop the “bad guys”, or try to.

I asked one of the agents, “How much of the drug traffic do you manage to stop?”

I didn’t get an answer. The agents told us that was no accurate way of measuring their success rate with regards to drug interdiction. I found that to be interesting.

If these agents are right, then we, the people of the United States, are throwing billions of dollars into a ambiguous fight against the cartels. We have no idea if what we are doing is effective. We have no way of knowing if we are winning the war on drugs. We are just blindly hoping that our efforts are making a difference. I don’t see this is being a good way to operate.

I don’t envy the Border Patrol agents. They seem to be dedicated. However, it appears that they are doing a thankless, and perhaps impossible job. They are trying to hold back a relentless tide of desperate migrants. They also are trying to stop drug cartels that are probably as well equipped as the Border Patrol is.

It’s a bad situation, and the sound of the helicopters remind me of that.

November 3rd, 2019

Casa Romero is one of the shelters run by Annunciation House in El Paso. It’s larger than Casa Vides, and it is situated in an industrial area. Casa Romero is located close to a detention facility for illegal immigrants that is run by ICE. There is more than a little irony in that. If I remember right, Casa Romero itself was once a detention facility. That is even more ironic.

Our group arrived at Casa Romero around supper time, so we ate with the guests who were staying there. There weren’t very many people staying at Casa Romero, mainly because of the latest rules imposed on migrants by the Department of Homeland Security. A month ago, this place would have been packed with people. Now it was nearly empty. It is very possible that, at any moment, the shelter could be full again. It all depends on the man in the White House, and changes could occur at the speed of a tweet.

Some volunteers served us dinner. We had spaghetti, garlic bread, and a salad. We sat at tables with the guests. I sat across from an elderly Mexican woman. I made a feeble attempt to start a conversation in my extremely limited Spanish, but that really didn’t work out. We could not understand each other, amid the noise at the dinner table.

Most of the people at Casa Romero were older women. They were from Mexico. They reminded me a lot of the ladies in my wife’s knitting group. None of them were typical migrants. None of them planned on living in the United States. Actually, their story was a lot weirder than that of the other guests at Casa Romero.

These elderly women were in El Paso in order to qualify for Social Security benefits. Their husbands, now dead, had worked legally in the United States long enough to entitled these widows to Social Security checks. Our government requires these women to take to extraordinary measures to collect the money that is rightfully theirs. If a widow lives in or near Ciudad Juarez on the border, she is required to show up at an El Paso Social Security office once a month. If the widow lives far from the border, she is required to show up at a Social Security office on a specific date once a year, and then stay in the U.S. for an entire month. Does this make any sense? Of course it doesn’t.

As far as we know, this rule only applies to Mexicans. As an example, I will qualify for Social Security in a few months. If I drop dead, my wife will get a check. My wife is a German national. If, after my demise, she would decide to move back to Germany, I am pretty sure that the Social Security Administration would send her checks to that country. This particular policy seems to be designed to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Mexican widows to get the money that is due to them. I have to admire the old ladies staying for a month at Casa Romero. They are determined to get what is owed to them.

After supper, after we cleaned up the tables and put away the chairs, Brinkley gave us a talk about the detention of illegal immigrants.

That talk was hard for me. Brinkley talked about the government’s policy concerning detention of people who have crossed the southern border illegally. Those who are arrested are almost always placed in detention for an indefinite period of time, without access to friends, family, or legal assistance. This applies even to those persons, or especially to those persons, who are seeking asylum in the United States. Brinkley spoke to us about the innumerable obstacles placed in the path of these detainees. It all sounded way too familiar.

There is a young woman in prison right now. My wife and I love her dearly. Some people in our group seemed shocked and disturbed by Brinkley’s comments. They just don’t know. I understood Brinkley’s words clearly, because I have lived them. Nothing that Brinkley said was new to me. I have seen all of this.

I asked Brinkley directly,

“So, what you are saying is that these detainees are screwed unless they have somebody on the outside to pay for their access to phones and mail and legal representation?”

There was an awkward pause, and then she replied, “Yes.”

It’s true. A prisoner is totally dependent on support from people on the outside who have money. That is not just for migrants. This is for anybody who is incarcerated in this country. A person without a friend on the outside is lost, utterly lost. I know this.

It breaks my heart.

The United States is a cold and cruel country sometimes.

It just is.

October 30th, 2019

Anapra has some surprises.

A quick tour of Anapra (a poor neighborhood in Juarez) can be instructive. The signs of grinding poverty are obvious. The steel grills on the windows and the razor wire on top of fences indicate that there is crime in the area. It is clear that people struggle to survive in Anapra. There are rumors of violence, although I didn’t witness any. It is a place where I would not want to be alone, especially at night.

Is there anything good in Anapra? Yes. I think the people are good, most of them anyway. We met a few who were truly remarkable.

I am talking about Bill, Betty, and Peter.

Father Bill is the pastor of Corpus Christi parish in Anapra. Our group joined with his congregation for Mass that morning, and then Father Bill took some time to speak with us. He took us to a church hall/community center near the church. The small building had one door with multiple locks on it. After Father Bill opened the place up, we all grabbed folding chairs and sat in a circle. Father Bill started talking.

Father Bill is a Columban priest, and he has been at Corpus Christi for quite a while. He has an interesting history, that includes a stint in the Navy during the Vietnam War. His life is one of change and conversion. He’s had a hard road.

He is a man of faith who is also brutally realistic. He spoke to us about the poverty in the area. He talked about the factories that have been set up by American corporations to take advantage of the cheap labor. Some of the maquiladoras only pay the workers $2.00 a day. It is pure exploitation. Father Bill made it abundantly clear that we, as Americans, bear a great deal of the blame for the terrible conditions in Mexico. It’s hard to listen to a prophetic voice, and Father Bill has one.

The problem with listening to Father Bill describe the desperation of the people in Anapra is that there seems to be no solution, at least not on an individual level. I finally asked him,

“Okay, so what do I do. When I walk out of this door, when I go back home to Wisconsin, what am I supposed to do?”

Father Bill said, “You need to do interior work first. Get connected with God. If you do that, then at least one person is thinking straight. You need to build community. We have community here. People are poor, but we have community.”

Father Bill didn’t have many specific suggestions, but then how could he? I have to find my own path. So does everyone else.

Later, we drove to Casa Tabor. It’s a Catholic Worker house in Juarez. Betty and Peter live there.

Father Peter and Sister Betty invited us into their home. It’s basically a shack. The ceiling is low with the wooden beams exposed. There is a tiny cooking area that connects to a living room of sorts. Both Betty and Peter have bedrooms. Father Peter shares his bedroom with Brother David, who is a chaplain for the El Paso detention center. Sister Betty’s room also doubles as a guest room. They have indigenous artwork in their living room, along with a crucifix on the wall. The house is simple, clean, and welcoming.

We all sat in a tight circle. Father Peter had a notepad on his knee. He wanted each of us to tell our story. So, we did. Father Peter took notes as we spoke. Peter is a bit deaf, so sometimes we had to repeat ourselves. I mentioned to him that I had once been an Army helicopter pilot. He found that to be interesting, and he wrote it down on his pad.

Sister Betty smiled at us, pointed at Father Peter, and asked,

“How old do you think he is?”

Somebody guessed, “Seventy.”

Sister Betty laughed, “He’s ninety-six.”

That dumbfounded me. I would never have thought the man was that old. I don’t expect to look that good at the age of ninety-six. Actually, I expect to look quite dead.

Betty is a Sister of Mercy, and Peter is a Carmelite. They worked together in Peru back in the 1960’s. They started Tabor House in Washington, D.C., in 1973. They moved to Juarez in 1995. They have held workshops for women since 1996. From 2007 to 2012 there was intense gang violence in Juarez. In their area, four people were killed each day. Betty and Peter have been busy. They serve their neighbors. They build community.

Sister Betty has a shrine behind their small home. The shrine is a memorial to the people in Juarez who have been murdered over the years. Some of them were journalists, some were lawyers, some were just ordinary folks. She has the names written on a wall, hundreds and hundreds of them. Each of us picked up piece of paper with a name written on it. We were each supposed to write the name on the wall, and then pray for this victim of violence. It is ritual that Sister Betty uses to remember the dead.

Before we left, Father Peter spoke to me. He put his hand on my shoulder.

“So, you flew helicopters in the Army?”

“Yeah.” I felt uncomfortable talking to him about it, because he was so obviously a man of peace.

“How did you like it?”

I smiled sheepishly. “Mostly, it was fun. Once in a while, it was scary as hell.”

Father Peter smiled back at me, “I was a fighter pilot in World War II. During the war, they told us to fly wild. Then after that, they started have all these rules. That’s when I got out.”

I really like Bill, Betty, and Peter.

October 29th, 2019

The visit to this section of the border was intensely Catholic. Fortunately, I have a lot of experience being Catholic, so it wasn’t that much of a culture shock.

Mount Cristo Rey straddles the U.S./Mexican border. It was one of the few places near El Paso that does not have a wall. The only reason it doesn’t have a wall is that it would require far too much effort, time, and money to construct such a thing. The mountain itself is a nearly insurmountable obstacle, so why bother?

Our group walked up the long, dusty road to the crucifix that crowns Cristo Rey. Along the way to the summit, there are the fourteen stations of the cross. Each station is marked by a bright blue cross. At every station we gathered to pray. We prayed for the migrants, whose current sufferings match those of Jesus during his passion.

The mountain is of a conical shape. The path to the peak wound around the mountain, and consisted of various curves and switchbacks. The path was wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, but there was no guardrail on the way. Often, our journey took us to the side of a cliff, and we prayed together on the edge of a precipice.

Our route took us to places where we could see for “miles and miles” (my apologies to The Who). From up high, I could see the cities of El Paso and Ciudad Jaurez, in all their glory. I could also see the Rio Grande, wandering sluggishly through farm land and urban areas. I saw the wall, as it stretched from El Paso into the distance on the border between Mexico and New Mexico. I could see it all.

I was not at peace.

I was not at peace because I felt alone. The one person that matters most was not with me. Yes, I had friends with me, but Karin not with me. Karin is my partner, my wife. She is also an immigrant. She has a green card, but she refuses to become an American. Everything that I saw, everything that I heard, everything that I felt: she would have understood.

As I walked along the trail, I sometimes felt a little dizzy or unsure of my next step. I wanted so much to hold Karin’s hand. I wanted her to steady me. I wanted her to be there.

Why wasn’t she there?

Karin was not with me out of fear. It was not just her fear. It was also mine. We were worried about her crossing the border into Mexico. She could have come with me to Cristo Rey, but she wasn’t going to go to Juarez. So, she stayed home. Karin has been in this country legally for almost thirty-five years. We have done everything right in order to keep her safe. But, under the current regime, is that good enough? Is anything good enough?

I missed Karin. I wanted to tell her my thoughts and feelings. I wanted to walk down that path, holding her hand as tightly as I could. She would have been with me. What else would have mattered?

Cristo Rey. Christ the King.

What does that really mean?

To me, it means that my wife loves me, even when she is 1400 miles away. It means that I have to care about people, even when l am far away from them.

Cristo Rey means that I have to give a damn.