Good teachers take us from where we are, to a place we couldn’t even quite imagine before we began the journey of learning. Sometimes the choice to be a learner, to be a student, isn’t something we consciously make. Imagine a young baby swimming in the sea of noise and human language from which meaning […]
Joshua
Defiant hope
The U.S. government called it a felony, a felony to transport and harbor illegal aliens. But Southside Presbyterian called it sanctuary. When federal agents told the church to stop or else face prosecution, Southside offered a response, a letter they read at press conference, with church members gathered on the steps leading into the sanctuary, a wall of saints protecting the people inside: “We will not cease to extend the sanctuary of the church to undocumented people from Central America,” they declared. “Obedience to God requires this of us.”
Beyond the river, beyond the border
There’s a cemetery in the desert, in a clearing next to the border wall, on the U.S. side, in Douglas, Arizona. Among the gravestones, when one section ends and other begins, in between the orderly rows, there are clusters of cement blocks lodged in the sand, all of them the same, with the same word […]
Holy betrayal
Rahab betrays her people. She betrays the security of her nation. She helps two foreigners cross the walls into Jericho. She welcomes two immigrants, even though her people call them enemies, even though her country considers them as threats to society. She extends hospitality to strangers who sneak through the night, who climb a wall […]