On August 29-30, a group of 100 Texas faith leaders traveled from all over the state to learn about current American immigration policy and meet with migrants camped in Matamoros, Mexico, awaiting the opportunity to beg for asylum in the US. The faith leaders—most of them Christian pastors—returned from their field trip exhausted, frustrated, heartbroken.
Watch the video about their trip here
They’re also mad, and that’s good. They should be. Every American should be incensed that the Administration has managed to hijack and subvert our entire national narrative, in the processing destroying countless lives of vulnerable people from conflict zones around the globe.
And we should be furious that Congress has watched it all unraveling in real time and done nothing to stop it. Nothing. Not legislated protections for children. Not asserted budget authority. Not invited in UN human rights monitors into the meat-locker detention facilities.
During their time at the border, the pastors sang “This Little Light of Mine” a few different times. In the video, it’s pretty sad to see how optimistically they sang before they crossed the bridge, and how subdued they sound after they get back.
I suspect a lot of those pastors feel like their own little light is insufficient to illuminate the vast darkness they looked into in Matamoros. Some of them clearly feel like their particular light is struggling for oxygen. Evidence suggests a lot of members of Congress are having a hard time keeping their little lights shining, too.
It’s especially hard to keep your light shining when you insist on doing it all by yourself. A stiff breeze or a cloudburst will extinguish it, and then it’s no good to anyone.
Let’s put our lights together. Put them together on the ground, and gently add some dry leaves and twigs. Let’s make each of our lights part of a bigger flame that will be harder to extinguish–one that will cast a bright light on the shadows at the border. A light big enough to warm even the deep darkness at the heart of the Administration’s border policy.