This article originally appeared in the February 1986 issue of Sojourners. Read the full article in the archives.
IMAGINE the refugee woman as the figure who replaces the hero in our consciousness. She is the archetype of our vulnerability fleshed out in the hostage, the homeless, the poor, the prisoner, the victim of human-made and natural disasters. Her image calls us to acknowledge that we are all vulnerable. No one is secure. It tells us that the more we cling to our securities, the more we become playthings of illusion. ...
At the one pole, we are, most of us, citizens of a country with imperial claims and policies and weapons. We are enticed into absolutizing the state. Our nation state has created weapons (idols) that its people, in the name of loyalty and patriotism, are told to trust in (worship)—trust in the security they offer us and our way of life. ...
The other pole calls to our hearts, to our shared humanity, to our dependency on and interdependency with the earth, air, water, fire. It speaks in whispers to what is best in us, not as citizens of one country over against all that threatens us, but as people who are part of one world. At times accusingly, at times with gentle coaxing, this pole speaks of the image of the refugee woman and all that she stands for, calling us to go where it hurts, to enter those places where pain is part of life, to share her brokenness and anguish and fear. To become vulnerable.
Elizabeth McAlister, 79, was serving a three-year sentence for a nonviolent action when this article appeared. She has been in pretrial custody in Georgia since April 4, 2018, for a protest at the Kings Bay nuclear submarine base.
Elizabeth McAlister was a founding member of Jonah House, a Catholic resistance community in Baltimore. She now lives in New York City.
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