The Bell Tolls for Thee

_{(see John Donne’s “Meditation XVII” in the Inspirations section)}

Praying With Our Immigrants

Like you, I am involved with humankind. For months now, when I wake in the middle of the night, I am likely to be anxious for an hour or more going through frightening scenarios for our country and my friends. I also imagine how I would respond to the national challenges we face as they inevitably come my way locally. In those early morning hours, I hear the bell tolling in the distance and feel it resonating with the nerves of my body.

It took me a while to become aware of just how local or close that bell is, how imminent those dangers and challenges are to those I love and to me. We have oh-so-good friends, a family, we have gradually come to know and love over years. We live in fear that one or all of them will be detained and deported–treated violently, hurtfully, physically and emotionally, pulled from their car or off a street by masked federal agents who won’t identify themselves, held in frightening and horrible conditions, and then deported without due process of law to some dangerous random place. And what should I prepare for? Would I try to accompany them? What would be my response if I were there when they were detained? The bell tolls for me.

Not surprisingly then, during this period my prayer has been preoccupied with the immigrants in our country being persecuted by our government. These are immigrants who have been law abiding and contributing to our country through work, taxes, and community participation. I also include immigrants who just want to be safe and contribute to the common good. Their lives, our communities and friendships are being cruelly disrupted and put at risk.

All of our prayers for people or aspects of our world are not abstract, nor from a distance. They are personal. We are intimately involved with humankind. My focus here is on our immigrants. In my experience, prayer is primarily awareness of relationship, our relationship with Love. Love is continually initiating that relationship and, simultaneously, our relationships with everyone and everything else, Love’s beloved creation.

So, when we began relationships with our friends, we were responding to Love. When I became aware of the many dangers that immigrants are facing in our country, I was responding to Love. My first prayerful response to Love’s calls to me is always awareness. It is much like a character in Star Wars becoming aware of a disturbance in the Force. However, with awareness or without, we are continually responding to Love, moving toward or away, contributing, hesitating, resisting, or undermining. We are always actively in relationship with, and responding to, Love. 

In the case of praying with our immigrants, the next step is awareness of Love’s call gradually blending with out attunement to Love loving. This includes what is commonly referred to as discernement. We become attuned to the fact that Love is calling us to be aware of, and actively participate in, Love’s loving all people, including our immigrants–who just like us are Love’s beloveds. Love and all of us are involved with humankind. The bell tolls for us all.    

So I feel our love for our friends is responsive to, and attuned with, Love’s love for them and us. I often imagine holding them with Love, talking with Love about our gratefulness for them in our lives as well as sharing all of our fears.

Love generally leads to action even if that is quietly sitting and listening to someone. Before the last national election, we thought of ways we might help our friends achieve one of their dreams, owing a safe home they could love and care for. Soon after the election, we realized that dream could not be realized anytime soon because of our friends’ immigration vulnerabilities. In the spring, we planned a special outdoor experience for their family that everyone would have enjoyed and learned from. They declined only days before due to fears about crossing state lines and “abductions” by federal agents. We became aware of how much we take for granted. I began bringing more urgency and my own fears for our friends to my prayer with Love.

What came to me one day during my prayer was that we could connect our friends with and pay for an immigration lawyer. We did that. Then just this last week, we accompanied them to a meeting with professionals whom the lawyer recommended that would hopefully help clarify their legal standing and paths that might be open if they were detained. We were apprehensive as the time of the meeting approached. Would the preparations for a legal process increase our friends’ vulnerabilities to federal agents? We were all grateful that meeting went well. For now, the process of preparing for what terror may come continues. Even as the bell tolls, we are all thankful for the love we share, the accompaniment and resources we can contribute, and Love’s positive active part in developing a more loving world.