Global Summit on Immigration Reform: The second 24 hours

Dinner Monday night I sit again with the NC contingent.  Originally the keynote speaker that evening was Cecelia Muñoz, Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, but she was unavailable due to the shutdown.  The last minute guest speaker instead was Rev. Dr. William Barber, the President of the NC chapter of the NAACP.  I suspect he was in town for the rally the next day.  (I also don't think NC realizes how much we are in the national spotlight.  I was asked multiple times over the two days "What's going on in North Carolina?!"  People had heard about Moral Mondays and I was repeatedly asked to defend my lack of participation in them.  I think a lot of people in NC keep their politics close to the vest out of fear of offending.  I had never been asked before about my not attending.  The Moral Mondays were supported by the NC Conference of the UMC and many of my colleagues participated, including our Bishop, who explicitly invited all of us to come to the final one in Raleigh.  My problem was being overwhelmed by childcare logistics for my daughter who was less than a year old, ate dinner at 5 p.m., the start time, and was in bed by 7 p.m., the average end time.  Anyway, there is a reason NC outnumbered other states and Methodists outnumbered other denominations at this summit - national attention is on us.)  

Dr. Barber first invites a singer to lead us in a Moral Mondays' song - "Hold on... I know one thing we did wrong, we stayed in the darkness a little too long.  I know one thing we did right, we started to fight for immigrant rights.  Hold on..."   One of the first things Dr. Barber mentions is the Doonesbury comic strip from the Sunday newspaper the day before, which is titled "Spotlight on North Carolina" (http://doonesbury.slate.com/strip/archive/2013/10/06).  I also learn that Dr. Barber and I had the same preaching professor at Duke Divinity School, Dr. William Turner, although a couple decades apart.  Here are the other things I jot down:
"Even if the original writers [of the Declaration of Independence] were all male, even if they didn't mean it, they shouldn't have put it on paper... all men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights..."
"It is just mean to not let people share in what they help build."
"Why did we allow 'welfare' to become a dirty word?"
"Texts and emails aren't going to get this done.  We must follow Jesus to the cross."
"The time is now to stand, not as Democrat or Republican, but as prophets who say: 'Remember!'"
Citing Romans where Paul talks about showing love for the alien (which is the King James translation of 'stranger'), treat them as brother and sister, treat everyone right in the law and in Christ.
"However they got here, show them God's love."

Afterward, the NC group is gathered for a picture with Dr. Barber.  I end up right next to him in the picture and that is when I decide my District Superintendent needs to know what I'm up to.  In case this picture circulates (although I haven't seen a copy of it yet), my supervisor ought to know what's going on.  So later that night I friend her on Facebook :)  That night is also the first time I get an inkling that Tuesday's rally won't just be a rally but will involve something more.   There is a reason that I comment on Facebook that I feel like a rebel.  I am flippant about it for my friends who disapprove while also wanting to continue to post about my trip.

Anyway, I walk back to the hostel with the Ferrum College crowd, who then go on to a restaurant to debrief and invite me along, but I am too exhausted and so I go to bed and sleep well that night.

In the morning I join a group leaving the hostel and we take the Metro together to Union Station, where we split up for breakfast.  I find Coke Zero and Auntie Anne's pretzel bites, the breakfast of champions, I know, but at least I'll be awake and not hungry.  As we reunite, one member of the group finds herself at the same table as a reporter from The Washington Post.  They start by talking about what one of them is reading and then the reporter learns we're all there for the rally on immigration reform that day.  One member of our group is a DREAMer and the reporter interviews her before we walk over to Capitol Hill.  (I've looked but never been able to find this interview online.) 

Tuesday is much more chaotic, largely due to the government shutdown.  The original plan was to attend meetings with our corresponding Representatives, meetings which were already arranged, and attend a rally on the Mall afterward.  However, due to the shutdown, some Representatives cancel their meetings.   On Monday we were supposed to meet with our small group to prepare for these meetings.  In my assigned group of four to meet with a representative of Congressman Price, there are one person I never met (she probably didn't attend the summit at all), one person I met once (she was part of the Church World Service group from Greensboro) but I never find her again, and the fourth person is the husband of my colleague Edith.

We all gather at the Methodist Building at 9 a.m.  The Methodist Building is the only non-government building on Capitol Hill and it's been there since the 1920's when the United Methodist Women bought the land and put up the building.  We drop off our luggage in a big room and pick up updates for those whose meetings have changed (there is nothing on mine).  I check in on Facebook, because it's pretty cool to be there.   We are sorted by the color dots on our name tags, except mine and a few others have no dots.  We're told to go with any group we want.  I join Edith.  We're getting ready for the prayer service when I hear my name called out and I turn and see an old friend I haven't seen in ten years.  Jo Ann works at the Methodist Building and saw my Facebook post.  She takes me out of the crowd and up to her office and we chat and catch up for quite a while.  When she needs to get back to work, I go back downstairs and walk around the Capitol til I find the press conference, which was to follow the prayer service.  I try to find a good spot to be able to hear, but I can't.  I do find Edith and her family.  

Next, a large group of us from the press conference walk over to Speaker Boehner's office.  We're led around to a side entrance and go through security.  The organizers direct us down the hallway to the elevators.  As we get off the elevators an organizer from the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society is next to direct us - only since he knows me, he asks me to take his spot directing people until everyone finishes coming up and I find myself now giving directions in a building I only just entered for the first time ten minutes ago.  Since I wait for the stragglers, I am at the back of the crowd outside Speaker Boehner's office and I can't hear anything, except Bishop Carcaño's prayer, it's quiet then.  Apparently what happened was that Edith shared her story with a representative from the Speaker's office and Edith told me afterward that he looked like he really didn't care.  (Here's an article from Church World Service about it: http://www.cwsglobal.org/newsroom/news-releases/faith-leaders-kick-off-day-of-action.html)  I find Edith and her family as we go back down the hallway and elevator, retracing our steps.  We eat lunch together back at Union Station.  

I'm then ready to go meet with the representative of my Representative and prepared to go alone, but Edith insists they delay their drive home to NC and her husband comes with me.  He and I arrive ten minutes early at Congressman Price's office and after a wait we're informed that members of our group already met with Justin, the representative, because he couldn't keep the original appointment time and could only meet earlier.  I am really frustrated and confused and wonder why I'd bothered and why I hadn't been contacted.  Edith and her family leave to go home.  I wander down the Mall to the rally wondering if the cost of this whole trip has been worth it.  The airplane snafu, being gone the longest so far from my one year old, making the rest of my week hectic to make up for being gone these two days.  Why was I there?  I certainly didn't feel needed.

As I wander down the Mall I run into one of the organizers, the one who invited me to come, actually.  She turns around and we walk together to the rally.  She shares that the logistics for this summit had been an absolute nightmare because they had tried to get key people here from key states, and then combined with the shutdown, which couldn't have been predicted, made for the disorganization of Tuesday.  We pick up a poster for me just as one of the bands starts to play, meaning I'd missed all the speakers, including Congresswoman Pelosi.  Mostly the rally is just families hanging out and groups in matching t-shirts who'd organized to attend.  As we walk back to the Methodist Building we run into a couple ladies who want to know if we know anything about the "CD" (civil disobedience) and I wonder what world I've stumbled into.  There's speculation about what the CD will entail and a comment about a friend who's napping because he expects to be spending the night picking people up from jail when they're released after being arrested for CD.  (Turned out about 200 people were arrested for civil disobedience, including 8 lawmakers, which simply consisted of refusing to leave the middle of the street.  Here's the news article: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/10/08/3265366/lawmakers-arrested-as-thousands.html)

Back at the Methodist Building in the big room I share with the organizers hanging out there about the mix-up with my meeting.  One of the organizers tells me that she'd tried to call me about the changed time and that she had gone to it herself.  What?  My cell phone registered one missed call  at noon from an unknown number with no voicemail.  That turned out to be her, but noon was when the meeting was!  And she wasn't from NC - why'd she go to my meeting?

I check in one more time with Jo Ann, take her up on her offer of coffee, and then head for the airport.  I buy a fiction novel because I need something else to read.  The real world has gotten real enough, this trip was more than I bargained for, both in terms of the cost and the content.  Sharing immigration stories and networking I'm familiar with; hearing folks share their story didn't really impact me, since I know a dozen similar stories.  The disorganization of Tuesday, things not going according to schedule, the looser structure, the lack of a final get-together at the end to wrap it all up, and talking with folks so familiar with "CD" that it has its own lingo were outside my comfort zone.  

Overall, I'm glad I went.  It's good to be pushed outside your comfort zone every now and then.  I love Washington, D.C.  It was great to see Jo Ann!   And the General Board of Church and Society is working with Edith, myself, and others to plan a follow-up event here in North Carolina next year.  We are a key state in the immigration battle, whether we like it or not.  

Global Summit on Immigration Reform, The First 24 Hours

Two weeks later and I'm still feeling conflicted while reading over my notes from my trip to Washington, D.C. for the Global Summit on Immigration Reform.  Should I have gone?  I guess so.  Am I glad I went?  I think so.  But it was so weird - as in different.  It was a brand new experience for me, and I don't have many of those - at least not many that put me this far out of my comfort zone.  And yet, why was it so uncomfortable?

For starters, the first 12 hours were crazy, especially for someone who likes to be organized and orderly.  I missed my flight!  Worse, I didn't even know I missed it til hours later!  I thought my flight out was Monday morning at 8:05 a.m.; it was Sunday morning at 8:05 a.m.!  I never would've agreed to a Sunday morning flight!  So the lady on the phone tells me at 6:07 p.m. that I can fly standby on the last flight out Sunday night, at 8:50 p.m.  I finish packing, my sister arrives to take care of the baby, we head to the airport, and my husband drops me off.  The lady at the ticket counter says it's been too long since my original flight to fly standby, I have to pay the ticket exchange fees.  Fine.  What else was I going to do?  Only other option would be to not go at all and I do have lodging reservations for both Sunday and Monday nights.  Arrive at DCA early and catch the Metro at 10:16 p.m., take the bus the last two stops because the Red Line is closed for work, ask which way to P Street, and arrive at the hostel at 10:55 p.m.  Find an empty bunk (on top, as all the bottom ones are taken), go to the bathroom, return, and lights are out.  Grope in the dark to find my stuff and bunk.  Forgot my phone charger, so rather than set an alarm, I figure someone else probably has and when I hear something it'll mean it's morning and time to get up.  1:40 a.m. someone else arrives at the hostel, into the ladies' bunk bed room, and my brain thinks it's morning.  Did I mention I had a hard time sleeping?  Someone's alarm does go off at 5:30 a.m., and I'm up with the early risers.  Typical hostel accommodations (i.e., not great).  7:00 a.m. leave with some ladies I've just met to walk the mile to National City Christian Church.

The first thing is breakfast with your denomination, and I finally get to meet Bishop Minerva Carcaño.  Her name comes up a lot when you talk about immigration or Hispanic/Latino Methodists.  I also find the only people I knew before this trip - my colleague, Edith, and her family.  I do all right with breakfast and I love meeting other Methodists, but then we move into the sanctuary.  Between the horrible sound system, such that I can hardly understand anything, and being sleep-deprived (the coffee was not good), I find out from the registration desk where a Radio Shack and a CVS are (I had blisters from the mile walk).  CVS is just around Thomas Circle from the church so I go there first - diet Dr. Pepper, band-aids, and... they sell phone chargers!  One-stop shopping!  With band-aids on my feet, more caffeine coursing through my system, and no longer worried about my phone dying, I can return to the sanctuary and pay attention.  Here's what I heard:

"We are not a fear-based society."  As in how God created us to be, not how we actually act, especially lately.

"Nothing is more powerful than the human story."  This is one of the tidbits that makes it on Facebook.

"When we find a migrant, we find Jesus."  So, what do you do with Jesus?  Feed him?  Or call border control?  This was a saying shared by a pastor from Arizona whose church is 35 miles from the border.  His church finds lots of migrants, because they show up on the doorsteps of the church and members' homes.  So, their saying is, "When you find a migrant, you find Jesus," and the question is, what do you do with Jesus?  Clothe him and feed him, like Matthew 25?  Or call the authorities on him and hand him over, like Matthew 26?

Then followed a workshop on "Building teams for long-term, in-depth organizing."  I take a page and a half of notes, and a lot of it just comes down to relationship-building - take seriously our biblical call to build relationships, create space for it to happen, the most powerful medium for transformation is relationship.

At lunch I join my fellow North Carolinians, of which there were a bunch because Church World Service in Greensboro had brought a ton of youth.  I talk most with an intern who had an unusual reaction when finding out I'm a UMC pastor: (pause) Cool!  Apparently I'm the first female Methodist pastor he'd ever met, and he sings at various UMC churches in the western part of the state.

After lunch, Miguel De La Torre, a social ethics professor at Iliff School of Theology, speaks, and while I still can't hear much, here's what I did hear:

"When one country builds roads into another country to take their resources, why shouldn't the people of that country follow their sugar, rum, and tobacco into the first country?"
"The job of anyone called to ministry is to raise consciousness."
"Do you fight for justice because you think you will win or do you fight because there is no other choice?"

Afterward we break up by denomination again, then within Methodism by Jurisdiction, and I meet a really interesting sociology professor from Ferrum College in VA.  She's the kind of hands-on professor I would have loved to have had.  As a group we discuss the challenges to building a movement in the southeastern U.S. and resources already present to meet them.  One spokesperson from the Northeast Jurisdiction I think is Joan Maruskin, who wrote the book I brought along, "Immigration and the Bible: A Guide for Radical Welcome," but I can't find her afterward to see if it really is her.

Then everyone re-divides up by state.  Methodism was the largest denomination represented and NC had the most from one state, which was interesting.  I was among the oldest in the NC delegation, and we brainstormed our immigration goals for our state beginning with the year 2033 and moving shorter-term.  I don't remember all of what was said, but this got on Facebook: "First goal said for 2033 is a Governor from an immigrant family." 

That was the first 24 hours.

Regarding Lemonade

 

21^st Sunday after Pentecost

October 13, 2013

Regarding Lemonade

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Psalm 66:1-12

          I’d like to begin with a brief survey.  Raise your hand if you are from North Carolina, if you were raised here, if you’ve lived the majority of your life here.  Keep your hands up for a second.  How many more can say the same for the South?  Born in the South, raised in the South, lived most of your life here?  Okay.  And how many then are transplants, like myself?[1]  My family moved to North Carolina in 1993, just as I was starting my freshman year in high school.  I had lived in three other states and one other country by then, I was used to moving and I was used to getting used to living in a new place.  However, that move to North Carolina was the worst culture shock of my life.  Not only was it the first time living in the South, the town we moved to was also the smallest place I’d ever lived.  I was used to big cities, and a small town in North Carolina was very different.  Now, after two years, my family moved to the Triangle, and that was better, but by that point North Carolina had left such a bad taste in my mouth that I went to college 800 miles away with no intention of ever returning.  [pause]  God’s sense of humor is funny sometimes, huh? 

          Not as much in the Triangle, but certainly in that small town I felt a bit like I was in exile.  The local newspaper was only issued one day a week.  There were no professional sports in North Carolina at the time, the Panthers were only just approved that same year as an expansion team and the Hurricanes moved here in 1997.  There was a local mall, but to do serious shopping you drove half an hour to the closest city.  When the marching band met in the Old Belk’s parking lot, my parents were the only ones to ask where it was.  I’m not knocking small towns or the South, I’m just saying this life was very different from what I was used to and it was very hard to adjust to it.  And what does God say to those he sent into exile?  Build houses.  Settle down.  Plant gardens.  Plan to be there for a while.  Get married and have kids.[2]  Make friends.  Invest in this new place in which you now find yourself. You’re going to be there for a while, so learn to like it.  Make the best of it.  Seek the welfare of the place where I have sent you.  Figure out where the Old Belk’s parking lot is.  You may not like where you are, you may wish you were somewhere else, however, this is where God has put you.  When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

          Now, to make a good lemonade, you need exactly three ingredients.  The first one, obviously, is lemons.  I don’t know what about your life you don’t like, whether you don’t like living in the Chapel Hill area, whether you don’t like your job, whether you wish you were married, or not married, or had kids, or didn’t have kids.  There is probably some area in your life that is lemony.  You’re in a place where you don’t want to be.  Exile means being stuck where you don’t want to be. The Jews that the prophet Jeremiah wrote to were stuck in Babylon, where their conquerors forced them to live.  I don’t know whether you were literally forced to leave your home to go live in a foreign country, but there are some among us who were.  Exile means you can’t go home again.  And God says to make your place of exile your new home.  Build houses.  Or, in 2013, buy a house.  Plant a garden.  Find your local grocery store.  Make friends.  Learn the local customs.  Learn how to cook okra.  And grits.  And just about everything served at Harvest Festival yesterday.  You have to keep in mind that learning to navigate a new culture, a new place, does not mean giving up your old customs and your old identity.  I am still a city girl.  But I had to learn to appreciate a small town and appreciate the South.  Even if you don’t like where you are, whatever lemons you’ve been handed, a disease, a divorce, a breakdown in a relationship, a dead-end job, God says to seek the welfare, seek the shalom, seek the peace of the place where you are.  Notice God doesn’t say, “Throw yourself a pity party”; he says “work towards peace.” 

          The second ingredient in lemonade is water.  Lemons by themselves are pretty sour and there’s not much juice.  To make it go further than a swallow or two, you add water.  From a biological standpoint, water is the essence of life.  Literally, you cannot have life without water.  That is why it was such a big deal to discover water on Mars.  From a Christian standpoint, water means baptism.  It means new life.  It means washing away the old and being made clean.  And the other thing that happens in baptism is that you get a new name: beloved child of God.  In the waters of baptism Christ claims you and names you his own.  Your primary identity is no longer southern or male or wife or anything else; it is child of God.  Christian.  And that doesn’t change no matter where you go, no matter what place you find yourself, whether stuck or happy, at home or in exile.  Your circumstances never make you give up this identity.  You stay who you are, even if you have a new haircut or learn a different language, y’all, or find yourself eating different food.  In your baptism God already claimed you as his, and that never changes, although you may decide to ignore it. 

You may or may not know that I spent a semester in college studying abroad in Spain.  There were a handful of American students who had gone to college in Spain; not a semester abroad but the whole four years, or however long.  One of them sticks out in my memory, Julie, because she had “gone native.”  Julie was fluent in Castilian Spanish.  She dressed in a European style and looked down on those of us who were just visiting for a semester.  Julie had, in effect, lost her identity as an American.  Sometimes that happens when you find yourself in a new place.  My sister has a southern accent.[3]  But whenever you find yourself in a new place, make sure you don’t lose your identity as Christian.  Make sure you remember your baptism, your identity as a child of God, and be thankful that nothing can take that identity away.  That’s part of why we don’t re-baptize.  You may lose your way, you may reject God, but God doesn’t reject you.  He knows that you are still his beloved child.  In the Christian world water means baptism, and baptism means becoming part of God’s family, regardless of where you are.

          So, you have lemons and water; the last ingredient you need is sugar.  You have enough lemony water to go around, but it’s going to be awfully sour unless you add some sugar.  What makes life sweeter?  God’s grace.  God’s freely given unconditional love that loves you no matter what you do.  God’s love that chases you down when you run away, sometimes tapping you on the shoulder, sometimes hitting you over the head with a 2x4, saying, “Hey, you, I love you.  You are my beloved child.” 

As United Methodists we talk specifically about three kinds of grace.  Prevenient grace is the grace that comes before we even know God.  It’s why we baptize infants, because we recognize that God’s grace is already at work in their lives, that God already loves them.  Justifying grace is the grace that saves us.  It’s the love that made Jesus willing to die for us on the cross.  It’s being made right with God through the atoning work of Jesus Christ.  Being justified, like the words on a paper, all lined up with God.  But God isn’t done with us there.  Accepting the love of Jesus Christ already at work in you through prevenient grace isn’t the end of the story, because then there is sanctifying grace, becoming more like Jesus.  And sometimes this is done through trials, through being in exile.  Did you catch the last couple verses of the psalm?  “For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.”  Do you know how silver is purified?  It’s put in heat somewhere around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  Silver is a heavier element and the heat makes it sink to the bottom and separate itself out from the impurities.  That’s how silver is refined, and there are lots of references in the Bible to God refining us in a similar fashion.  One of those ways may be exile.  So, hold on, if you’re in a season of being purified.  You’re being made more like Christ, you’re being sanctified, by the grace of God.  And you may be thinking, like Mother Teresa, “I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much.”  But listen to how that psalm ends: “You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.”  God sweetens the deal. 

Some of you know that I returned from serving in Nicaragua earlier than I was supposed to, partly because of the rheumatoid arthritis I developed.  To say I was disappointed would be an understatement; I went through a period of grieving the loss of a dream and the loss of normal health.  However, I returned to North Carolina at the perfect time to re-meet my husband.  A year earlier, he wouldn’t have been available, and who knows what would’ve happened by two years later. 

Romans 8:28 says “We know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”  All things include exile.  It’s not fun, no.  It’s not what we would have planned for our lives.  But God says, “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.”  Make a life for yourself where you are.  Seek the peace of the city where God sent you into exile and pray to God for it.  Make lemonade.  Take the sour lemons and your baptismal identity and God’s grace, and work with God and let God make something good come out of it. 

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[1] Over three services, OUMC is split about 50-50 Southerners and transplants.  My 13 month old reportedly raised her hand for both.

[2] A Southern church member observed after the service that I have done just this.

[3] At one service, a Southern church member said “Amen!” to this statement.