Like Jesus, Dormant

On the U.S. side of the park, the vehicle road that cuts through the surrounding Border Field State Park is closed due to flooding, which means that only those willing to commit to a three-mile hike can access the historic meeting place on Monument Mesa.  And in Tijuana, the angle of the winter sun on the new dense mesh of the primary fence renders most visitors entirely unaware that there is even anyone present on the other side.  (To demonstrate, consider this photo, which shows what I look like to people who are standing in Tijuana and looking at me through the fence.)

I am reminded of a certain period of Jesus' life - or, to be more precise, what we can glimpse of this period from the accounts left in the New Testament gospels.  I am referring to Jesus' upbringing - what Spanish-speakers would call his formación.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke open with spectacular renditions of the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth, but only Luke has a story from Jesus' childhood - and, to be honest, I find this story one of the most patently "preachy" in all the Bible.  According to Luke, Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem each Passover, and one year they lost track of Jesus for three days.  When finally they found him, he was "in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions."  Of course he was. Luke goes on: "Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers."  Of course they were.

Apart from this over-the-top tale, Jesus' upbringing remains entirely hidden from view.  This allows people of all persuasions to project on to the youthful Jesus reflections of themselves.   Pietists imagine Jesus to have been a spiritual child, activists a rebellious one, intellectuals a smart one, and so on. 

On the one hand it makes sense to follow the lead of the gospel authors and simply skip over the question of how Jesus came to be the remarkable person that his legacy suggests he must have been.  In liturgical Christian churches worshipers are encouraged to do exactly that at this time of year, leaping immediately from the Christmas birth narratives to the story of Jesus' baptism as an adult, where Jesus' greatness is acknowledged not just by John the Baptist, but by the very voice of God (Luke 3:22).

But we all know that in reality life doesn't work this way.  Babies don't wake up one day and leap from their cribs to go running off into their futures.  Seeds don't explode through the earth in the shape of fully formed bushes or trees.  And movements (by "movements" I mean anything that constitutes a collective human undertaking) are not born from nothing; rather they are  the result of collective longing and dreaming and working.  I am reminded of what Virginia Woolf once said of masterpieces - they are, she said, "not single and solitary births, but the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice."

My brother Brad, who lives in Colorado, came home for a visit over Thanksgiving, and one Saturday I took him out to Friendship Park.  The park was very quiet, and I practically had to shout "buenas tardes!" at people in Tijuana to get them to engage us in conversation.  As we hiked back and forth to the park I explained to Brad the history behind the Friends of Friendship Park, and my recent commitment to serve communion weekly at the park.  Somewhere along the way he asked me, "So what exactly are you trying accomplish with all this?" 

I had an answer, of course - we are standing in solidarity with people separated from their loved ones by immigration status; we are trying to preserve and protect public access to this historic meeting place; we are working to create a different narrative about the US-Mexico border, a narrative of friendship.  I am sure I said all these things, and I mean them.

But the deeper, more truthful answer to my brother's question is, "I don't know."

What will come of our weekly communion services, which we call El Faro: The Border Church? I don't know.   And what will become of the larger effort to save the park, of which our weekly observance constitutes just a small part? I don't know again.  And what will become of our nation's nightmarish border and immigration policies?  I don't know.

The question - "what will come of all this? - speaks of mystery and uncertainty ... and therefore faith.

What green blade will rise from this winter of our watching over this peculiar patch of God's creation?  Will love come again to Friendship Park? 

For now I find myself thankful for the small group of fellow-travellers who join me and Saul each Sunday -  today we welcomed Dan and Vianett and Maria-Teresa and Penny and Mike.  Before sharing communion, I invited them to sit in silence with me for a little while, reflecting on the mystery that is the US-Mexico border.  Not too long passed before our silence was interrupted by the blare of mariachis from a nearby restaurant in Playas de Tijuana.  If you take a moment of silence right now you might just hear the music, too.