The Big Beautiful Wall

Up Close and Personal

It was a campaign promise we all could visualize. Back in 2016, it was such a wildly popular idea that it unleashed a tsunami of votes. The candidate who led the chorus of chants - Build that Wall! Build that Wall! - caught the huge wave that carried him right into the White House.

Last Sunday, we drove our car along that Wall - the thirty-foot-tall rusting steel pillars crowned with coils of barbed wire - until we found a makeshift camp. There, some three hundred exhausted sojourners were corralled by a small contingent of uniformed officials. 

Our son’s father-in-law, the Rev. Dr. Michael Lodahl had sounded the alarm. These folks who were prompted to embark on an impossible journey from distant lands, possessed by the dream of a better life in America, congregated on the parched desert hills of Southern California with no shelter, no water, no sanitary facilities, and no food. The nights are cold.

We were invited to offer some form of assistance.

In my last Substack, I mentioned the Advent exercise our friend and spiritual director led -  a contemplation of Mary’s Prayer, the Magnificat. From her longing heart, Mary imagines what her son might become. In her song, she anticipates that he would “lift up the humble” and “fill the hungry with good things.” Brenda encouraged us to consider how, in this season of Christmas, we might mirror Mary’s song and do the same.

That’s when I remembered Michael’s story. He shared it with me just a week before as we gathered for our Thanksgiving feast.

He’s a beloved professor of religion and theology. He has also been a pastor. 

Just this year, he came to the difficult conclusion that he could no longer remain in the conservative denomination that ordained him. So he applied for a transfer. The United Methodist Church welcomed him with open arms. His credentials are impeccable. The denomination he left gave him a gracious and glowing recommendation. His long track record of teaching, preaching, and pastoral care makes him a worthy candidate. The Bishop challenged him with an assignment that would complete the process of good transfer. On Sundays, he would accept an interim pastor position in a small church in rural Southern California - just on the border of Mexico. Michael happily agreed to take on the challenge.

Word spread. A recent PBS news broadcast featured the town where Michael works. In this remote place, far from any official border crossings, there remains an unfinished portion of the formidable wall. The gap, several miles long, gives opportunity for unhindered crossing, far from authority’s reach. We’ve been told that arrangements to travel to this off-the-map, unauthorized portal can be arranged by travel agents as far away as China. On the other side, “Coyotes,” the traffickers who prey on migrants, offer transport to this opening in the wall—for a fee. Some travelers were giving their life savings to a driver who would convey them along a dusty, forsaken road to that opening.

The U.S. Border Patrol, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, cannot deal with the refugees’ needs. And Michael’s sleepy little town (population, 600), like many other border towns, can hardly cope. Hence the call to Los Angeles for help.

We met Pastor Michael early that Sunday afternoon at a supply center where we found clothing, water, and a man cooking a huge kettle of rice and beans over a natural gas flame. We packed up our car with as much as it would carry and made our way to the Big Beautiful Wall.

We were not the first Americans to offer aid. A group contributed and set up camping tents. We found Karen, the retired Social Worker who was on the PBS report, interacting with families. She found two unaccompanied minors - took them into her car and fed them. They were shivering, terrified. 

“It’s not my responsibility,” she said, acknowledging what we all knew. “It’s a complicated mess. I didn’t create this crisis and I can’t fix it.” But she could be there with fresh water, warm clothes, caps and gloves, and a sincere word of encouragement. And hugs. She listened to stories. She invited us to do the same. A Registered Nurse volunteered to accompany her to the site, tend to wounds, and offer advice to the sick.

We learned that these immigrants not only came from Central and South America but Turkey, Ukraine, Syria - and China. Every one of them had a story of tragedy: lost homes, lost family members, lost businesses, lost hope. The only hope left was America. Employment. Safety. A new start.

What we did not find out there on our side of the Big Beautiful Wall were drug dealers or terrorists, carting in loads of fentanyl with the intent to kill off America’s young. We didn’t find communists or Marxists or thieves or rapists. They are not vermin. They are not “poisoning our blood.” They are human beings who have sacrificed everything, everything, driven by an instinct for survival and the promise of a land filled with milk and honey on the other side of the Jordan, the other side of the Big Beautiful Wall. A Promised Land. America.

As Abraham heard the call to move on, so did these weary travelers.

I’ve read “When Helping Hurts.” I’m quite aware that we do-gooders can not fix this horrific problem. I returned from my visit to The Wall to my climate-controlled smart-home where Alexa waits at the ready to turn on my Christmas lights at 4:30 in the afternoon and off at 10 PM. The refrigerator is full and the big-screen television brings the world into my living room. Two cars are out in the garage ready to take me anywhere I want to go.

That said, I hear Mary’s Song. I watch Karen the social worker embrace the alien children. I listen to Pastor Michael challenge his people to care. I consider what Mary’s son had to say about both the proud and the humble. The proud will be taken down - the humble lifted up.

I let it all shape my thoughts; inform my prayers. 

I let it change me.