Lent Without Borders

Many privileged American Christians like me are revving up our metaphors of going to the desert with Jesus for 40 days. We’re “fasting” from Facebook, sugar, or alcohol, and taking on a new spiritual practice. But it feels like more of a scandal of disparity this year: Curling up in my cozy home with Lenten meditations on the wilderness while people try to survive crossing literal deserts; not having that glass of wine at dinner while people die of dehydration.

As of September, our nation detained as many as 12,800 migrant children in “facilities” of fenced pens with concrete floors, where they’ve faced rampant sexual abuse. I shudder listening to the news in my comfy Subaru. But I can change the station, or wallow in moral outrage without inconveniencing myself to engage in liberation work. I can afford to retreat into a metaphorical desert where I give up a bad habit for 40 days without challenging myself to go into the streets.

“Just as a smoker might use Lent to imagine and experiment in life without Nicotine,” says community organizer and theology student Greg Williams, “we who live at the center of American Empire are taking this time to imagine life beyond border imperialism.” Williams and other Christian activists launched a “ Lent Without Borders” campaign in 2013. This call to action has been on my mind lately.

We need a Lent Without Borders more than ever these days of travel bans and asylum restrictions. The divisions between us run deeper than the border wall or the rhetoric that demonizes migrants fleeing violence and poverty. It’s the Subaru windows and the color lines that exist within our communities. It’s the slap on the wrist you get for the same minor traffic violation that could upend the life of an undocumented person.

We need to resist our own sins of omission. “[W]e must be willing to sacrifice something of our own peace and happiness in order that others might have peace, and that others may be happy,” Thomas Merton writes in The Monastic Journey. I believe this wholeheartedly, but I’m afraid to sacrifice. I’m afraid to give up some of my comfort so that others can have safety.

This Lent, I’m trying to shed my white liberal complacency. Sure, I sign the online petitions. I put the “No person is illegal” bumper sticker on my car and the “No Ban, No Wall. America for All” sign in my yard. I even work with refugees who came to the U.S. with legal status. But that is not enough when undocumented moms and dads in my own city are having to make emergency plans for their kids.

We don’t have to go to Tijuana or El Paso to practice Lent Without Borders. People who are terrorized by dividing walls live close to our homes. We can all try to make our states and cities and towns safer for all of our neighbors.

The New Sanctuary Movement mobilizes individuals to take collective action to protect those fearing deportation. Faith coalitions throughout the country are organizing teams of citizens to accompany undocumented people to immigration court, and activating rapid-response networks to protect immigrants from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids. Accompanying people who face potential deportation at their mandatory ICE check-ins and court hearings is one way of holding ICE officers, government attorneys, and judges accountable for serving due process.

In Lent: The Daily Readings, theologian Megan McKenna retells a Zen story in which a teacher says to his monks, “if you raise a speck of dust the nation flourishes.” McKenna says that Lent is about working to ensure that all people flourish. “To raise a speck of dust is to stir up goodness, to struggle for justice,” she writes, “to speak up for those who stutter, or do not speak the language of power, to band together to stand resolutely and nonviolently before evil and refuge to be absorbed into or intimidated by it.” Accompanying immigrants is one opportunity to raise specks of dust for the building up of beloved community.

I confess, I have not yet practiced what I’m preaching. I have not yet accompanied an undocumented immigrant to court, or an ICE check-in, or to a deportation proceeding. Why? I tell myself I don’t have time. Work is insanely busy and I need to travel far to visit family. My house is a mess and I hardly get a chance to do laundry. I’m overextended. This is true. But I’ve made an idol of my to-do lists. I’ve gotten stingy with my energy.

This Lent, I will clear out some busy work so I can take on some Kingdom work. I will try to become a better steward of time. I will decline the invitation to that dinner party I don’t want to go to. I will let that overbearing church lady be mad at me for not getting back to her about the Spring daffodil committee. I will let all those unnecessary messages sit in my inbox and quit late-night liking-sprees on Facebook. I will stop reacting to pings so I can respond to deep needs. I will say no, so I can say yes to what God is calling me to do.

Raising specks of dust for justice is exhausting work. This Lent, I need to repent of my fear of becoming depleted. I need to turn away from the ways we treat time and energy like commodities. They are limited resources for us, but not for God. I need to keep remembering how God astonishes me. Stirring up goodness is generative. God replenishes our energy and our hope when we think we have nothing left to give.