ACROSS THE LINES - Archive (2006-2020)

August 4, 2007 photo:  Maria Teresa Fernandez Ten years ago today, on August 4, 2007, I first served communion through the border fence at Friendship Park, the historic meeting place on the US-México border. It was a time when politicians from other parts of the country were waiving laws to build walls along the border, seeking short-term political advantage by appealing to the least noble parts of the American character. It was a time much like these. ( español a continuación) I did it because federal officials were threatening to eliminate public access to the US side of the park, despite that friends and families had gathered there peaceably for generations. Items passed through the fence, including the bread of our communion, we were told, were "contraband," violations of US customs law. Ten years later, this simple act has been transformed by the grace and power of God into a self-sustaining, bi-national community of faith that goes by the simple name of The Bo...

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' b...

I still find it distasteful that I am prohibited from serving communion through the border fence at Friendship Park.   Would our nation’s security be compromised if I were allowed to offer people gathered in Tijuana a piece of bread and a swig of juice?     I am reminded of the inherently universal demands of the Christian faith and the inherently restrictive demands of the modern nation-state.   Perhaps some Christians do not experience this tension as a part of their struggle with the life of faith, but living on the border, as I do, I find it inescapable. Among the people who distinguished himself by the seriousness with which he treated the sacrament during the months in 2009 when I was serving communion through the border fence was a man I’ll call Manuel Ybarra.  Manuel had been deported in the fall of 2008, and was separated from his wife, Laura, and their three children who were living in San Diego. Most Sundays Laura, a U.S. citizen, w...

When I was ordained as a pastor in the United Methodist Church twenty years ago, I did not imagine in my wildest dreams that it would come to this.  But there I was last Sunday, a 50 year-old man (OK, 51), running almost two miles in slacks and dress shoes so as not to miss out on a commitment I had made to serve communion.   The whole enterprise that we call El Faro - The Border Church / La Iglesia Fronteriza , is in many ways preposterous, even ridiculous. Sometimes when I am talking through the fence at Friendship Park to someone standing in Mexico, and I explain what we are doing - trying to gather as a church in two nations, through a high-security fence - I can almost hear them thinking, " Tonto gringo ." Silly gringo.  ("Silly" is a nice way of putting it.)  If ever there was a Sunday that I felt silly it was this past Sunday, as I panted my way across the two miles to Friendship Park with the communion elements in my backpack. ...

Each year at Christmastime, all across Latin America , people gather to observe a tradition called las posadas.   The word posada means “lodging” or "inn" and in the ritual people re-enact the search of Mary and Joseph for a place to stay on the night of Jesus’ birth.   One group of people sings the part of Joseph, pidiendo posada – “asking for a place to stay.”   Others sing the part of the casero or “innkeeper,” at first refusing to offer refuge.   The tune is simple and easy to sing once you learn it: JOSEPH: In the name of Heaven / I beg you for lodging / For my beloved wife / She cannot walk. JOSE: En nombre del cielo / Les pido posada / Pues no puede andar / Mi esposa amada. INNKEEPER: This is not an inn / So just keep going / I cannot open / You may be bad people CASERO: Aqui no es meson /  Sigan adelante / Yo no puedo abrir / No sea algun tunante.   In most parts of Latin America the participants in las posadas process from home...

The line to get back into  the United States was unusually long last Sunday.  I had traveled to Tijuana to serve communion at El Faro: The Border Church .   At church I made two new friends and together we grabbed a quick cab ride back to the border crossing.   I groaned when I first caught sight of the line, and I told my friends that we could be looking at two or maybe even three hours.    But our good conversation made the time go fast, and the pedestrian crossing at the U.S. Port of Entry was fully staffed for a change, so in fact our wait was just an hour and a half.   Waiting is a funny thing.  The emotions that waiting conjures are not proportional to the time - or at least not precisely.  A host of things can come into play to make the waiting excruciating, on the one hand, or relatively painless, on the other.   Over one hundrend thousand people cross the border betw...

Last week's gathering at Friendship Park took place under the distant cloud of unfolding war in the Middle East.  People living along the U.S.-Mexico border share a peculiar solidarity with people living in Israel and Palestine - a solidarity born from living in a part of the world where national boundaries correspond very poorly to the geographical and demographic "facts on the ground" and where the land has been marred by the construction of massive, high-tech "security infrastructure" - or if you, prefer, "walls."  Israel-Palestine US-Mexico But, as is always the case at the Border Church, we found cause for celebration even in the midst of difficult times. The day before our friends from the Bi-National Garden at Friendship Park participated in a grassroots celebration of non-violence that is taking place across the nation of Mexico. Palas por Pistolas (Shovels for Pistols) is a project to curb the trade of small weapons.  In a first...

This past Sunday, when I arrived at El Faro in Playas de Tijuana, my friend and colleague Saul Montiel was all alone on the U.S. side of the fence.  The first rains of the year have flooded the vehicle road inside Border Field, which means that people wanting to get to Friendship Park will have to undertake a 30-minute hike.  Until the road dries out next spring, only the determined will be able to join us at The Border Church / La Iglesia Fronteriza . In Tijuana, where I was accompanied by a group of friends, I wondered what we should do.  In my tradition the ritual of communion is meant to remind us that that we are receivers, not givers, of God's grace, and so it is somewhat improper for anyone to serve themselves the sacrament.  This is why we customarily receive the bread and juice from someone else, rather than "from our own hand."  I wondered what Saul would do when it came time for communion. Our gathering in Tijuana included several childr...

I am looking forward to being on the Mexican side of the fence for The Border Church this Sunday.  The Mexican side of the border is so full of life - on most Sunday afternoons people from all across Tijuana come out to Playas de Tijuana for a day at the beach .     But on the U.S. side the architects of "homeland security" have systematically stripped the borderlands of almost every sign of life.   This contrast struck me powerfully last weekend when I was on the U.S. side of the fence.  Mexicans had been celebrating El Día de los Muertos and someone had created a work of art on the southern side of the border fence.  They had embroidered their display with flowers, but on the U.S. side only the stems of the flowers were visible. The sight was a stark reminder, it seemed to me, of the lifelessness that the U.S. government has tried to impose on the borderlands: The next day my friend Maria Teresa Fernandez circu...

I will forever remember last week's celebration of communion at Friendship Park for a very simple reason- the blowing of bubbles across the border. I brought bubbles because I knew there would be children in attendance and I figured bubbles could float across the border without violating the new rules at Friendship Park which forbid the passing of material across the international boundary. Border Patrol officials tell us that drugs and other contraband have been passed through the fence at Friendship Park, and I do not doubt that this is the case.  What I can attest from my hundreds of hours at this location is that instances of this kind of illegal activity were extremely rare in the days when Friendship Park was truly open to the public and were easily controlled by routine Border Patrol supervision of the park.  Still, the new rules at Friendship Park are very clear and no material  - not sandwiches or tamales, not chicle  (chewing gum) or pulseras ...

This Sunday at 11 am I will meet with my friend and colleague, Rev. Saul Montiel, in the parking lot of an auto insurance company in San Ysidro, the southernmost city of San Diego County. There we will break a loaf of bread in half and split a bottle of grape juice into two containers. I will then take half the bread and half the juice to Tijuana and Saul will take the other half of each to Friendship Park , San Diego's historic bi-national meeting place on the U.S.-Mexico border. At 1:30 pm we will consecrate the elements and serve communion to people in both nations. We have taken to calling our gathering " El Faro: The Border Church / La Iglesia Fronteriza " because "el faro" means "the lighthouse" and Friendship Park sits in the shadow of Tijuana's lighthouse, a famous landmark overlooking the Pacific Ocean.   The reason communion must now be served on both sides of the border fence (instead of through the border fence, as used to be t...

Yesterday some twenty people shared a single celebration of communion in two nations  - seven of us in the United States and the rest in Mexico.  The setting was Friendship Park , the bi-national park at the western-most edge of the US-Mexico border, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  We are calling our gathering "El Faro: The Border Church / La Iglesia Fronteriza"  because "Faro" is a Spanish word meaning "lighthouse" and Friendship Park sits in the shadow of the famous lighthouse in Playas de Tijuana. ( "Like" EL FARO  / FACEBOOK / "Join" EL FARO ) For six months in 2008 and 2009 I served communion at Friendship Park - in part to protest the construction of a new, secondary border wall that promised to eliminate public access to this historic meeting place.  During that time I was able to offer the communion elements to people on both sides of the border fence.   In February 2009 San Diego Border Patrol Agents fo...