I am dreaming about this next journey… the one that will let me spend another year in the place (Central America) that I can only really describe as part of my heartbeat… before heading to seminary at Duke Divinity in fall of 2025, pursuing my Masters in Divinity while participating in the Latinx Studies Fellowship program.
There are two guiding questions shared with me over this last year of life that have often been at the forefront of my mind as I’ve considered and discerned through this tension I feel between the academic study of theology at an institution and the theology that takes place through life in fellowship and solidarity with el pueblo.
So as I spent this spring discerning a pull toward seminary, while also continuing to feel so captivated and inspired by the movement of the Spirit amongst the people of God in Central America, I returned often to these two questions…
What makes you weep?
Would you regret not taking the leap?
Seminary is my big leap. I never really pictured myself going to grad school, much less seminary, and I’ve spent the last four years at least inwardly (and maybe sometimes outwardly — I’m sorry!) rolling my eyes at anyone who encouraged me to consider pastoral care in some kind of capacity.
Even though thinking about seminary still terrifies me, I know that the regret of not leaping would be equally terrifying. I would know that fear was what held me back.
I also know that the thing that keeps filling my eyes with tears right now is the migration crisis that I glimpsed when I visited our two CASP students in the community of Los Chiles twice this spring.
Those were the kind of tears that only are unleashed when your heart is broken open over an injustice in the world that is completely unfathomable. The carceral system is one of the issues that I find myself often weeping over. And ever since this fall when I read Solito — the autobiography of Javier Zamora, a man who made the journey from El Salvador to the US when he was just 8 years old — something broke open in me.
And so as I think about this next journey… leaving Spokane and stepping into the next things of life… my prayer is that God would grant me the courage to participate (with the Spirit and alongside the body of Christ) to change the things that we can change together, clinging to the truth that the Kingdom of God has already broken in... and we are invited to actively participate in Heaven coming to our earth by acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.
We are called to love God, and love our neighbor. And the two are inextricably intertwined.
There are so many of our brothers and sisters in Latin America that are being forced to flee their home countries, to look for spaces of safety and opportunity. The decisions that these brothers and sisters make are complex and nuanced. While there are many commonalities in the push factors, I think it’s also important to understand that each story is nuanced.
Many of these brothers and sisters are my age. Many are young families traveling with young children. They are our brothers and sisters from Venezuela. Colombia. Ecuador. Haiti. The Congo. China.
When I look into their faces, I see my own reflection. I don’t know why it is me that has ended up in the life circumstances that I exist in. I don’t know why it is that my brother or sister has ended up with the unjust choice to risk this journey north in search of opportunities to life. Is it really even a ‘choice’? I question this often. I’m not even sure what I mean when I write ‘opportunities to life’ either. To some who are making this treacherous journey, opportunities to life mean the basic human needs for survival. But opportunities to life should also mean opportunities to flourish — together.
What I do know is that we are all interconnected — we are all human.
And as my mom shared with me recently from some source (that maybe we will remember at some point;)… politics show up on human bodies.
Our global politics surrounding migration… they show up as the blisters and sores and swollen feet, ankles, and calves of our brothers and sisters that arrive in Los Chiles on a bus that they’ve ridden for 12 hours. Our politics show up as the psychological trauma of making the trek through the Darién Gap where there are not only natural dangers of a jungle, but gangs exploiting those who are so vulnerable. Our politics show up… on human bodies.
We are all made from the same dust. And we return to the same dust. What injustice that the in-between — the life lived between our dust-ness — can look so different from one another as human beings? This is degradation of imago dei.
If we are all made from the same dust, this means that we are connected. My liberation — my salvation — is bound up with my brother’s and sister’s. So I pray that God will continue to grant us the courage to walk toward the systems of injustice, standing side by side with our brothers and sisters, tearing down the walls that divide us.
I think perhaps why I have found myself returning to these two questions so often is that they help to guide me into the places where Christ dwells… places of brokenness and injustice (what makes us weep?), and where we arrive at the ends of ourselves (what is our ‘leap’?). Here Christ shows up, not because I think that He isn’t in all other places, but here perhaps is where true vulnerability allows me to see Him the most clearly. There are no longer masks and facades on a personal or societal level. It’s raw. I see the real me. And I see true injustice in another 23 year old woman having to make the treacherous journey through the Darién Gap in search of opportunity that my privilege has kept hidden from me for too long.
We are human. We are one. Let us go forth together, fiercely fighting to affirm one another’s dignity and humanity, until the Kingdom of God comes in full (not waiting, but participating).
Thanks for reading my wordy explanation of the journey I find myself on right now:) Maybe one day I will learn to write less words in a single blog… or maybe one day I will write a book instead, lol…
Logistics about my plans for heading back to Central America continued in next blog…
*side note: if you're interested in learning more about migration through a personal memoir, I would HIGHLY recommend Solito*
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