Our stop these last few days has been at Alterna, a bilingual community of Christ-followers devoted to faithful acts of hospitality, mercy, and justice, particularly around immigration and economic issues, in both Georgia and Guatemala. It was co-founded by my mentor and friend, Anton Flores-Maisonet, and it was true delight to share life with his family, and the families of his community.Today, Anton gave us a tour of the "two LaGranges:" the South has the highest level of poverty as well as being the highest concentration of African-Americans; and the North has the highest concentration of wealth and Anglo-Americans. In fact, Anton told us, LaGrange has one of the highest levels of income disparity in the country. Alterna is located in the South.
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| Anton gave us a tour of the "two LaGranges" |
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| In Northwest LaGrange, one neighborhood has it's very own neighborhood retreat chapel, complete with a Steinway. Hear the troubled improvisational piece that came out of me, called Cross-Over, at the bottom of this blogpost |
Our Father who art in heaven
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| Norma, Arturo, Charlotte, and Anton discuss the pains of our world, of LaGrange, or our personal lives. |
Father of every guest who comes to our door at Alterna.
Father of the asylum seeking family fleeing the violence in Mexico, the children whose father was killed for refusing to be a drug mule.
Father of the economic migrant from Central America, forced to come to the US to be able to provide for his family due to poverty in his home country.
Father of the small business owner who was being extorted by the drug cartels, who moved his business 5 times and they still found him and physically attacked him.
Father of the 5,100 US citizen children in the foster care system because of our broken immigration system that has detained and deported their parents.
Father of the hundreds of thousands of detained and deported parents of US citizen children, most of whom have committed no criminal offense.
Our father, you sent your son to be born into a refugee family and found no room at the inn. You are being denied welcome over and over again as we are inhospitable to the stranger in our midst.
Father of Jesus, our “buen coyote,” who “crosses us over into the Kingdom against the law, by grace…for if salvation were about obeying the law then all of us are damned."
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| The potential burial site of Horace King, a master bridge builder who had purchased his freedom from slavery, just outside the Confederate cemetery. |
Hallowed be your name in the women and men who work for justice, advocating for the immigrant and welcoming the sojourner as your scripture commands.
Hallowed be your name in those who go to visit you in the for-profit detention centers all over the US, as private corporations make a profit off of you, you who are not authorized to work in the US but get paid between one and three dollars per day to work behind bars.
Thy Kingdom Come
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| Charlotte and Ruby prepping for the pot-luck. |
Your kingdom that makes no distinction in nationality; your kingdom is kinship and love.
Your kingdom that values all human life as equally sacred; your kingdom is justice and freedom.
For when your kingdom comes, we will see:
An end to drug addiction that creates the demand for drugs in the US at the cost of the lives of so many in Mexico and Central America.
A path to legalization, so that nobody has to live in fear.
Thriving economies in Mexico and Central America, so that people will not be forced to migrate to find survival.
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| Reciting the Lord's Prayer before dinner. |
Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
May your will be done, and not the will of the oppressor that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. May your will be done that there may be enough for everyone, as you intended.
May your will be done, that none should be afraid because of their race.
Give us this day, our daily bread
The bread of the freedom to migrate.The bread of family reunification.
The bread of justice.
The bread of economic opportunity for all, so that people are not forced to migrate.
The bread of abundance, as in your Eucharist, where there is enough for everyone.
And forgive us our trespasses
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| The name of this game might make this blog lose it's PG rating (ha!) |
Forgive us for not seeing the innate value in every immigrant, but placing a priority on those who can serve our country more than others, those with higher education and special skills, and forgetting that every human being has value and something to offer because you love them.
Forgive us for scapegoating the immigrant.
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| But either way, Anton and I won the first match! |
As we forgive those who trespass against us
Lord, we choose to forgive those who have illegally entered our country or who have overstayed their visas, because we know if we were in their shoes, we would do the same thing. We would search for economic opportunity, safety from violence, and a better life for our children in the land where “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
And lead us not into temptation
Let us not be tempted to believe myths about the immigrant, but rather let us build relationships with our immigrant brothers and sisters that lead us to the truth.
But deliver us from evil
Deliver us from the evils of ethnocentrism, racism, and xenophobia.
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| What happens when we welcome strangers and share life? |
Deliver us from the evils of scapegoating and blame.
Deliver us from the evil of oppressing others in the name of our own comfort.
For yours is the kingdom,
Which we long to see already.
And the power,
greater than the power of any government, law, border fence, or drug.
And the glory forever.
Amen.
So powerful !
ReplyDeleteOur Father...AMEN!
Think this version of this prayer should be prayed daily !!!