Escape

I do not know what it is like to live in constant fear of what my own country might do to me or my family.  I do not know how it feels to live in a country whose government turns its head, blind to murder.  Or I should say, murders, some of them orchestrated by people in the highest ranks of power.  I  never got in my car to drive to the store or to work, thinking I might not make it home because there's someone out there who is looking for a chance to kill me.  I've never lived without enough food, never lay in bed at night and listened to machine guns and bombs going off all around me. My privileges are many and my experiences in life threaten to leave me with the impression that the rest of the world lives as I do. 

As Americans, we tend to think that working hard and being a Christian is all a person needs to possess abundance.  We have no reference point for real suffering or fear.  We cannot fathom the urgency to escape the lives we worked so hard to build, just to save our lives and those of our children.  Many of us possess no understanding of the world outside our own bubble of existence.  We paint the whole world with the brush of our own reality, never considering that the neighbor across the street struggles with depression or that people all around the world go to bed every night in fear of what might happen to them before dawn.  We see our privileges as "blessings," and our accomplishments as gifts from God.  Meanwhile, somewhere in the Philippines little children are digging through garbage to find their next meal.  Our obtuse view of the world hardens our hearts to the very real terror and suffering of other human beings, whether they live next door or in South America, Central America, or all the way across the world.

Information is at our fingertips, if we care to find it.  In China, Korea, Russia, people only know what their government wants them to know, and often the information they get is manufactured to look like the truth when in reality, it contains nothing but lies.  We have the freedom to Google anything we want, but how many people care to research why droves of people leave their lives behind them, their homelands, to seek asylum here. 

Imagine for a moment, that sometime during the night tonight, your home is attacked by strangers.  They burst in with guns and demand that you hand over all your money--everything in your bank accounts, your savings, whatever is in your kids' piggy banks, everything.  Imagine that these people take up residence in your life.  They move into your house and they tell you when you can come and go.  They ration the food our of your own refrigerator.  They constantly threaten your family.  You live your life in terror, knowing when you go to bed at night that there are men with machine guns in your house who might decide to start shooting at any moment.  Men have taken over your neighbor's houses too, so you can't just go there.  The police are in on the whole deal--they know that people are living this way, but they do nothing about it.  Imagine that one day you and your neighbors all get together secretly and decide to escape under the cover of night--you're going to the next state over where people live in houses where there are no machine gun wielding strangers guarding every door.  So you pack up what little belongings you can carry and make the journey, a dangerous one through forests with no well-trodden pathways, where men in uniforms with weapons lurk in the shadows.  You live in tents or sleep in the open for days because your journey is long and arduous, but you persevere because you just know that people who live in a state that values freedom and liberty will shelter you from the oppression of living in a house guarded by men who threaten your safety at every turn.  You travel, hungry, tired, dirty.  You lose a few neighbors along the way who were just not strong enough to weather the journey.  Perhaps an elderly neighbor suffered a fall and couldn't continue on, a child falls sick and the family gets separated because someone has to stay with the child.  Imagine the day you finally reach the Georgia state line!  What relief and hope fills your heart!  You are finally at the threshold of safety with the promise of a new life where fear and poverty do not define you. 

Then you find out, Georgia doesn't want you.  Georgia doesn't care that you are escaping a life of fear and oppression.  Georgia thinks you're there to overcrowd their state, to steal jobs from current residents, to bring down their property values, and mooch off their taxes.  Georgia can't be bothered with your sob stories, they are hard working Americans--Christians who go to church every Sunday.  You aren't just unwanted, you are vilified, treated with disdain.  You are corralled, separated from your children and told to wait.  Wait for what?  You don't know.  You don't know what will happen to you or when you'll see your children again.  You don't know who is caring for them or if they are upset or hungry or afraid.  Georgia thinks this is best for you.  Georgia doesn't care how you feel--this is not about feelings, it's about their tax dollars and your threat to their way of life. 

I know, my attempt to reach you is lame.  I realize I cannot create empathy in a person who lacks it merely by asking them to imagine something other than the sheltered lives they lead. 

You can dress a hypocrite up in nice clothes and call him a good man, but he'll still be a hypocrite.

I'm afraid that's where we now stand, as humans, as a country, and as the Christians many claim to be.  Perhaps compassion, empathy, kindness and love are the internal workings of the soul that cannot be taught.  I believe they must be cultivated slowly over time, starting before we even put our bare feet to the floor and take our first wobbly steps.  Is it ever too late to start  the process?  That's a question for which I have no answer.  I only know what I hear and see around me. 

You can call it politics, liberalism, bleeding heart Democrats, snowflakes whining about us not giving handouts to undeserving low-life trash; what it really is though, is sad.  I'm not talking about politics here.  I"m not talking about your religious beliefs or who you voted for in the last election.  I'm not asking  you to change your views on abortion or to make a comparison between abortion and separating families from their living, breathing children.  I'm not referring to your opinion that I, as a Democrat, would be okay with a woman murdering her baby but bothered by what's going on with these children today or how your attempt at justifying what is happening by making that assumption or comparison proves your lack of understanding or empathy for other human beings. 

I'm merely talking reality.  The reality is, what's happening to people at the hands of America is wrong.  It's wrong if you're a Democrat.  It's wrong if you're a Republican.  It's wrong if you're Baptist, or Catholic, or Agnostic or Atheist.  It's just wrong, and no amount of pointing fingers or making justifications for it will ever make it right.  So, if you're pro-life, shouldn't you care what is happening to these children?  Is it a stretch for us to ask you to care?  Should we stop caring about a child as soon as it's born? How is that Christian?  How can anyone with a soul not care?  I, as a human being care.  Can I ask you, as a fellow human being to put aside your biases and put aside your political grudges long enough to see this human suffering for what it really is? 

We are America.  We can do so much better than this.

Here, I am leaving a link for you.  It only vaguely describes what these people coming to America to escape from.  I hope you will take the time to read it, ponder what it would be like to live under the threat of gang violence, government corruption, extortion, and the threat of murder.  Imagine worrying whether your sons or daughters will be picked by some gang member to carry drugs for them, and given no choice in the matter.  Imagine worrying about whether your sons will live another day.  Imagine having a list of family members you've already lost to violence.  And while you're at it, open your heart to the possibility that these truly are human beings who need safety and need shelter from the constant threat of death.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-violent-northern-triangle