Anesthesia

Last Saturday started out well. I got a call late Friday telling me that my Xbox 360 was ready and waiting at my local EB Games store. A nice surprise, considering I had resigned myself to waiting at least another two weeks since I was one of the irresponsible people who did not pay for theirs until October. Without a hint of complaint I asked for an explanation. It seems that someone with better things to do with a couple hundred dollars who was on the list for the first shipment cancelled their order and my name got bumped up. So Saturday, right at 10 am, when the store opens, I was on my way to pick up hours upon hours worth of diversion. Though soon, my heart and mind, that were already numbed by the anticipated presence of the Xbox 360, would be sensitized by something bigger and upsetting happening in the world around me.

To get to my EB Games store I drive by a Home Depot. It is not uncommon to see a dozen or more Hispanic men standing in the parking lot outside this particular Home Depot waiting for someone to pick them up and give them a job for a day or two, pay them under the table, drop them back off, and then ignore them the next time when they only stop by for some masking tape or wood glue.

Saturday was different though.

As I approached, I noticed that the crowd was four or five times larger than usual and, curiously, 90% white. Then I remembered the three page flyer that had been put on the windshield of my car a few days earlier by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps calling for a protest of this day labor site. The opening paragraph of this flyer read:

Are you tired of illegal aliens taking jobs away from American citizens? Are you tired of hearing about our schools and hospitals being overrun and underfunded due to illegal aliens tying up our system? Does it make you sick to your stomach to see American companies hiring illegal aliens? Can't get to the border to stand a post but want to do something in your own community? This is your calling...

The flyer also encouraged participants to bring their own homemade signs with slogans like "Viva la Migra." I kid you not. That was an actual suggestion. And if you do not find that small and degrading then you probably should not read the rest of this post.

As I slowed the car to take in as much of the scene in as I could, I tried to figure out why I was so troubled by it all. Then I began to think about how the second greatest commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself, without question, still extends to illegal aliens, and how I could see no love in the protester's actions.

God's love is not restricted by borders or international law, even if the person or persons in question are lawbreakers. (Remember the thief on the cross?) As Christians we cannot be content to love these people only on short-term missions trips, or by shipping our old and unwanted clothing to them in boxes. When they are here it is our chance to love them face to face on our homeland. To Christians it is more of an opportunity than a threat.

I do not pretend to know how to handle this situation on the level of national policy (but here is someone, not that I agree with everything they say, who seems to at least be trying to do so in a much more tender way http://www.humanebordersblogged.blogspot.com). In fact, it is funny to me how every time I bring something like this up most of my Christian friends assume that I am evaluating things from the sphere of national politics. I am not. I am just trying to figure out what it means for us to act like Christians in every part of life. While I do not know how to fix the problem through our government, it seems to me that there must be a better way to go about this than by dumping all of the blame for our problems on the poor who are simply seeking a better life. Do we have to demonize them and set ourselves physically against them by protesting their presence to their face? I wonder how the American flags, which we are told stand for liberty and opportunity, that were being waved by the protesters looked to the immigrants standing on the other side of the lines.

Why do we think that things will be so much better for us if we keep the poor at a safe distance? One of the signs held by a gruff, grey bearded protester read, "Mr. President, they did not die for open borders," and had pictures of fallen soldiers' helmets hanging lopsided from rifle butts. Funny how we are willing to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers to liberate Iraq and create and jump-start their new economy, but not sacrifice here on our own turf for Mexican immigrants. I guess Mexico will just have to wait its turn for us to come and fix them.

I am not saying I expect the United States to open its borders. I am not even saying that I think that would be practical. I am saying that as Christians we are not called to be practical but to live as Christ lived. And if we were to do that our love and compassion would not be limited by borders or frightened by the invasion of what we perceive to be "our space." (Because we know that it all belongs to God anyway.)

Why is it so hard for us to see people whose worldly citizenship rests in another country as fellow human beings, created and loved by the same God that created and loves everyone in like measure, when they are labeled "illegals?"

Yes, it is sad if an American suffers or dies because our healthcare system is tied up by illegal aliens. But it is just as sad if the alien is turned away and suffers or dies so that an American citizen can receive treatment. I do not hold any American life to be worth more than the life of even the poorest Mexican. Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that all of these problems named by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps find their source in illegal immigrants anyway. I think it much more likely to find the source in a much more wide-spread and pernicious problem, human greed and selfishness. Perhaps if some of the school districts with Taco Bells and Pizza Huts in their cafeterias and double-decker tour buses carting around their clubs and sports teams were to share with the poorer districts that are "overrun and underfunded due to illegal aliens" we could better handle the strain, help educate them, and give them hope for a better future.


It makes me sick to my stomach to think that we would rather send these people away to live in abject poverty (do we really believe that anyone would leave a comfortable life, anywhere near comparable to our middle-class existence, to work as an illegal day laborer?), rather than to sacrifice for them. It makes me sick to think of our healthcare system (as corrupt and filthy rich as it is in some areas) sending the poor away to receive terrible care, if any at all, in Mexico. This is selfishness on a wide-spread, corporate level. A sin that undoubtedly both stems from and trickles down to invade individual hearts.

I thought all this. Then, with my windows up, I drove on to get my Xbox 360.