Immigration, Part 4

Immigration, Part 3

…I was a stranger and you did not welcome me…Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. Matthew 25:43,45

The current uproar over immigration is enflamed by frustration and fear. There is frustration over the current processes and resources available to deal with the large numbers of people seeking to immigrate into the United States in an efficient, humane, and compassionate manner. And there is fear over the unknown impact of allowing tens of millions of seekers-after-a-better-life into our country. Both frustration and fear are reactions to times of significant change, individually and collectively, but neither is productive or helpful in addressing a crisis in a reasonable way. Frustration and fear are symptoms, not pathways forward, yet some confuse being fearful or posting one’s frustrated opinion on social media with actually doing something useful. There is a tremendous amount of energy consumed by our fears and frustrations that, if directed in productive ways, could help us accommodate our challenges more quickly and effectively. Much of the energy expended through fear and frustration is emotional, which often pits people who should be on the same side of an issue against each other, dividing against instead of uniting toward a common effort. We are witnessing this spectacular waste of oxygen in our political discourse, in our homes, and even in our churches. We point fingers of blame at the brothers and sisters we should be working with to meet our challenges in ways beneficial to the common good.

The Christian religion has much to say about fear and frustration. The most frequently repeated command in the Bible is “Do not fear,” or some variation of that. It warns that giving in to fear does not help us move forward into and through a crisis or change. Rather, fear tends to stop us in place or cause us to retreat, even as the crisis grows in severity or the change moves ahead without us. Courage is not so much the absence of fear as the determination to face our challenges in spite of our fear. So the culprit is not necessarily a concerned fear, which can serve as an instructive goad to action, but a paralyzing fear. Familiar manifestations of fear are worry and anxiety, both of which result from a lack of faith – faith in God, in others, and in ourselves. Jesus said, “…do not worry about your life…or about your body…”[1] He continues, “…can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”[2] He concludes, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”[3] The message should be clear: worrying and being anxious or overly fearful is neither helpful nor healthy.

Frustration grows out of impatience. Frustration may manifest because something is not happening as quickly as we feel it should, an action is occurring that we do not support, or from feelings that we are unsupported or marginalized. A common reaction to frustration is to seek someone to blame, someone or some group of someones who are too “stupid” to see what appears obvious to us. We forget that we do not do life alone – ever, not even for a moment. Our lives are the natural outgrowth of our yesterdays, and our experiences are forever shaped, molded, and transformed by the evolving energies and influences of those around us. Inherent to the human condition is the illusion that we are separate from everything and everyone else, which is also the affliction that most inhibits our ability to emerge as our most complete and true selves. Even remote islands are inseparably connected to every other land mass on earth, but we will never know it without exploring beneath the surface. The same is true of our souls. Our life-experiences are a gestalt of all life-experiences, past and present, across the street and across the globe, within which we participate, willingly or unwillingly, helpfully or destructively. Hard as we try, we do not control the flow of experiences – we only control our reactions and responses to them. Which, in the end, is the work for which we are called and that is uniquely ours to do.

Immigration and the resulting merging of races and cultures has brought us everything we celebrate about this life and land today. Some believe we can secure the status quo by denying or rejecting the plight of immigrants. But we cannot. The status quo is an illusion and is less desirable than death, because at least death leads to new life. Immigration expands our life-experience with diversity and newness. It did when my great-grandparents entered this land 150 years ago, and it does today. Mistreating immigrants dishonors our heritage and ignores the teachings of Jesus.

This is the 27^th in a series titled The New-Old Social Pandemic. The opinions expressed here are mine. To engage with me or to explore contemplative spiritual direction, contact me at ghildenbrand@sunflower.com.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s

Mass on the World

A Contemplative Audio-visual Experience

View at: https://youtu.be/m2EzRmZzCe0

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[1] Matthew 6:25

[2] Matthew 6:27

[3] Matthew 6:34