The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these.  (Mark 12:31 NRSV)

Part of loving my neighbor is respecting him/her even if we differ in how we live our lives or how we would approach problem solving. I am currently reading about Eleanor Roosevelt’s life and work and despite the incredible amount of good she did, I am struck by what I perceive to be her paternalistic tone towards the masses of people that were not the elite class from which she came. I am left wondering, how do we bridge the gap between those of us who have the resources and money to help alleviate poverty and inequity and those of us who are stuck in poverty and experience inequity. How do we work together, learning from each other without the elite simply setting out to fix a problem of which they know little or nothing about? (Granted some of them may have rose out of poverty, but this is a very small percentage.)

I am often dismayed by the inequities I see in many aspects of our culture—economic and education disparities being especially near and dear to my heart. As an idealistic college graduate I set out to “fix” these disparities by working in fields that were primarily concerned with social justice. My biggest concern was how to figure out how to involve others, those who were the recipients of inequity, in the process of problem solving. This is one small example of how I did that.

 I created a project for a group of students from the small, privileged, private school where I taught high school math in Oakland, California. I decided to take them to a second grade class in the High Street district of Oakland, California, which has one of the highest homicide rates in the country. (I also spent a lot of time in this neighborhood where I volunteered at the Oakland Catholic Worker.) Prepping the students before we went, I gave them the demographics and briefly described the school, teacher and students. I also gave my students the assignment of working with the younger students to come up with a project that all the students could work on together. They decided to create a video of the student’s neighborhood. The older students helped the younger students come up with a list of questions each student would answer while conducting interviews in their neighborhood. The result: the younger students decided to take us to each of their homes where they would introduce us to family and pets, and talk about what it was like to live in their neighborhood. In a neighborhood where gunshots were as common as barking dogs, many of the students had never visited each other’s homes for fear of getting caught up in something that may jeopardize their safety. During this process, many types of communities were being formed: the younger students grew closer to one another after knowing more about their home lives, the older students created a close bond as they grew to take more and more responsibility for the younger students. Emily, a high school student, stayed in touch with a younger student, Alejandra, for years after the completion of the project. In the end, many profound things happened: racial lines were crossed, socio-economic lines were crossed, age differences were overcome, students became teachers and facilitator, and many students expressed themselves in ways that were new and different. Although, this may seem like fleeting community, it had lasting impacts.

I realize that no one was taken out of poverty during that project, but I do wonder how if affected all of the students and if and how they made different choice in their lives as a result of that project.

Who is Blessed?

 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessings. I will bless those that bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12: 1-3, NRSV)

Every Sunday after church, I go to the local, independent bookstore and purchase the Sunday New York Times. I get some of my news from online sources, but I love the gritty feel of the newsprint and the leisurely way that I can pick at the paper all week long until I’m satisfied that I’ve read enough.

Lately, I’ve been drawn to the stories of migrants streaming from one country to another. Mostly, I’ve been pondering how we, as the culture and media, phrase such stories as the “the migrant crisis.”  Recently, as I was reading a New York Times article about a woman named July and her three children trying to flee gang violence in Honduras, it really put a name and to the story of violence in Central and South America. I saw her face and those of her children in a photograph and read their story of leaving Honduras only to be caught in Mexico and returned to the same town where her son, while walking to the market to buy food, was killed by gang members.

When I talk about migrant migration as an issue or problem I am framing it as an anonymous paradigm for which we can create policy to “solve the problem.” I forget that each of these crises is made up of human beings that have stories, longings and hopes for a dignified life without violence. Don’t get me wrong, I believe we need to create policy to create a structure that supports the dignity of human life, but I wonder what our policy would look like if we approached decision making with human beings in mind rather than the anonymous paradigm that we so often employ.

I am currently reading about Eleanor Roosevelt and her huge leadership role in writing and advocating for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I am keenly aware, when in a time of protecting geo-political interests of large nations after WWII, Eleanor Roosevelt was protecting the rights and dignity of human beings that can become forgotten or neglected in the jockeying of the global political sphere. Article 14 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”

You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice… (Deuteronomy 24: 17a, NRSV)

When I read the story of July, and how a policy of the Mexican government forbade her to remain in Mexico, I can’t help but wonder how I can reframe my understanding of the migrant “crisis” to include the stories of human beings and how they are being affected by global politics. And also ponder what our world would look like if policy was created based on human dignity as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Or if we treated July as though she was living as a blessing and we offered her refuge as a resident alien. I wonder…

References

“Refugees at Our Door,” The New York Times, Sunday, October 11, 2015

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Adopted by UN General Assembly Resolution 217A (III) of 10 December 1948