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...

For the past many weeks, I have posted things "privately" to my Facebook account, so that only I can see them. On occasion, I have placed security settings on other posts so that only my wife,  Jennifer , can see what I'm thinking. This helped me feel like I was getting things off my chest, without stirring up unnecessary controversy among my friends. I have been conflicted because a number of people I love and respect feel I would do better to refrain from posting anythin g "political," given that I have returned to the position of pastor at a church that people of many different political persuasions call home. Other people I love and respect - including many from that same church - have thanked me for speaking out, and have encouraged me to continue.* As I browse my private posts of these last few weeks, I see a pattern: I have refrained from commenting about matters of policy and political opinion, and have instead commented on those occasions where I ...

"So Jesus called them together and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand." - Mark 3: 23 - 25 Since I was ordained as a United Methodist pastor twenty-five years ago, the culture here in Southern California has been fundamentally transformed. While it has not been eradicated, the ancient stigma attached to homosexuality has been dramatically eroded. Discrimination against people whose gender identity is not rigidly male or female is trailing behind, but is headed in the same direction. As a consequence, people who identify as LGBTQI have experienced a growing range of freedom to live openly and honestly in more and more dimensions of their lives. This growing sense of freedom is on display in almost every United Methodist congregation in Southern California. In the churches I know and love, gay and lesbian people have served op...

On January 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as President, I will march in the   Women's March   here in San Diego. I want to explain why.   Like many pastors,  I  feel conflicted because the people I serve are profoundly divided when it comes to politics.  At the (mostly white) congregation where I serve on staff, some people are pleased with the outcome of November's election, others are apprehensive, still others are genuinely upset.   Meanwhile, at   El Faro: the Border Church , the unique community I convene on the US-Mexico border, almost everyone finds Mr. Trump’s election deeply distressing, especially that he won while  vilifying Mexican immigrants  and threatening to implement policies that would  disrupt millions of families .  Finding myself pulled in many directions,  I am trying to respond with integrity to the division that characterizes both our public landscape and my own pastoral predic...

In the imagination of Mexican children the event of Christmas is overshadowed by el Día de los Magos – the “Day of the Kings.”    The day, January 6, is called “Epiphany” in the church’s historic calendar (“epiphany” means “manifestation” or “revelation”) because on this day the light of Christ is said to have been revealed to the nations of the earth, represented by the three kings.   The day is important to Mexican children, though, for entirely more practical reasons – on this day, after twelve, long days of Christmas, they receive their gifts. During my time in Calexico (from 1992 to 1996 I was the Pastor of the Calexico United Methodist Church) one woman, Maria Isabel Roacho, was determined to see that the church do justice to the Mexican traditions of the Día de los Magos .   The children of the church would have already received their gifts – al estilo norteamericano; in the North American style – but on the Sunday nearest the Epiphany, Mari...

Imagine the First Lady of the United States punching a hole in the fence on the U.S.-Mexico border.   Imagine her publicly lamenting that there was a border fence at all. In fact this scenario doesn’t need to be imagined … because it happened forty years ago right here in San Diego County.   The date was August 18, 1971 and the location was “Friendship Park,” the small cement plaza on the U.S.-Mexico border, at the southwest-most corner of the continental United States. The First Lady was Pat Nixon, who had been a prominent champion of our state’s public parks when her husband Richard Nixon was Governor of California, before being elected President of the United States.    She came to Friendship Park to inaugurate the surrounding area as California’s Border Field State Park.    After planting a tree as part of the inauguration ceremony, Mrs. Nixon approached the large stone monument which sits at the heart of Friendship Park.   The monument commemo...

Distributed to the Friends of Friendship Park , March, 2009 My new friend, who works for the Border Patrol, resists my use of the word “wall” to describe the vast system of barriers being erected along the length of the U.S.-Mexico border. He would prefer that I – and others who oppose current U.S. border policy – talk about the barriers by referring to them as “tactical infrastructure.” Here is a picture of Jill Holslin standing in front of the second barrier that cuts across several miles of the San Diego-Tijuana urban corridor. PLEASE NOTE: This is Not a Wall And here is a picture, taken from the top of the metal fence that marks the international boundary, of the second barrier that now spans the western-most 3.5 miles of the border. This barrier cuts through the Tijuana Estuary and Border Field State Park at a distance ranging from 150 feet to 800 feet north of the border: PLEASE NOTE: This is Not a Wall Finally, here is a line of vehicles and Border Patrol agents t...

Posted to Friends of Friendship Park , Monday, Feb 23, 2009 On Saturday I was almost arrested for committing assault with a tortilla. Or was it my communion cup that Customs and Border Protection agents perceived to be a threat to the national security of the United States? The setting was Friendship Park, a historic venue on the U.S.-Mexico border, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For generations people from the two nations have met at this location to visit with friends and family through the border fence. As part of its commitment to build 670 miles of double and triple barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Department of Homeland Security is building a second wall across Friendship Park. On December 23, 2008, Customs and Border Protection declared the site a construction zone. On January 6, 2009 CBP released final design plans for the park and announced that these plans would allow for no public access to this unique site. We, who are aficionados of the park, were stunned ...

Published in The Christian Century , October 7, 2008 NOTE: This article was recognized by the Associated Church Press with its 2008 Award of Merit , the citation reading: “In this well-written article, the author uses the lens of his experience to focus on the larger issue of U.S.-Mexico border policy. A compelling and challenging look at a highly charged issue.” Among the least recognized yet most lasting legacies of the Bush administration's "war on terror" has been a dramatic transformation of the U.S.-Mexico border. This transformation is about to reach its symbolic and geographic culmination at Friendship Park, a plaza atop a seaside bluff south of San Diego. For generations residents of San Diego and Tijuana have gathered at Friendship Park to visit with family and friends through the border fence. In coming months the Department of Homeland Security will erect a secondary fence across the park, eliminating public access to this historic meeting place. Until then, I...

Published in The Christian Century , September 18, 2007 ON JUNE 28, President Bush's grand bargain with Congress over immigration reform legislation collapsed. The event is best understood not as a failure of short-term political leadership, but rather as an inevitable long-term consequence of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the historic overhaul of hemispheric economic policies initiated by the United States, Canada and Mexico in 1994. NAFTA's architects allowed themselves one false assumption. They believed that as goods and services began to flow in unprecedented volume throughout the world's largest free market, one commodity--low-wage labor--would remain largely fixed. Unfortunately, when NAFTA unleashed the forces of the free market, those forces did exactly what they should have been expected to do: they uprooted longstanding social and economic arrangements in Mexico and caused the already meager economic opportunities, especially in the rural parts of ...

Published in The Christian Century , March 6, 2007 WHEN I TELL OTHER PASTORS that I hate weddings and love funerals, they smile knowingly. Of course, the dark humor rings true with them--every pastor I know can tell a "wedding from hell" story, and all pastors can think of a few funerals at which they'd love to preside. In my colleagues' smiles I also see an understanding, born from firsthand experience, that funerals--and the events that precede and follow them--present some of the most meaningful opportunities for pastors to witness to the grace and love of God. My passion for funerals has led me to research the historic Christian practices of marking the arrival of death. Since so many generations of Christians lived before dying people were confined to hospitals, they spent their entire lives surrounded by death and dying. As pastors we can draw on their wisdom in ministering to modern people, who struggle so mightily when confronted with the reality of death....