After three hours of waiting in line on the Mexican border, the bus pulls into the specialized zone at the United States border that is reserved for immigration inspections.
“Am I on U.S. soil right now?”
“Yes sir. You are.”
Internally, I hear myself say, “Yippee! I’m home!”
The sensation amuses me so much that I enter my alter-ego, the one that delights in child-like curiosity. I begin peering around corners, and reading signs with astonishment, especially because the signs were actually written in English!
A border guard was standing in front of a sign. I squinted to read it from a slight distance. She notices that I am looking at the sign, and so she moseys up from her comfy leaning posture so that I could read the whole sign.
She pipes in, “This sign displays what you can expect from us. It basically says that we’re here for your protection.”
I tilt my head in and grunt “Huh!”
She adds, “But it should really say, “We claim that we’re here for your protection. We don’t really pay attention to what it says.”
My child-like outlook demeanor evaporates as I think to myself, “Gee, I bet you’ll wish that I wasn’t going to write down exactly what you said and publish them so that others can read. You should be glad that I’m not going to take down your name and rank.”
“David?” Another guard comes back with the travel documents for the five of us who were on the bus. I am the only United States citizen.
“Yes?” I reply.
“Who do you work for?” she says as she thumbs through my passport, the other guard giving back the visas to the Mexican visitors.
I have a brief moment of contemplating my rights. I know that I don’t have to respond to her. She is asking me private information without informing me of anything for which I might be under suspicion. But, I’m feeling nice, so I respond to her.
“I work for the Catholic Church.”
“What were you doing in all of these countries?” She inquires.
“Visiting Catholic churches.” I reply in a monotone voice, trying not to become indignant.
She hands my passport over to another man who thumbs through the pages.
“Are you a priest?” he inquires.
“No. I’m a Pastoral Associate.” I respond unexcited. I’ve just spent eleven months trying to explain the position of a Pastoral Associate to Catholics around the world who don’t understand the roles occupied by Catholic lay people in the Catholic Church in the United States, I’m not exactly eager to start the same conversation within the first few minutes of retuning to the United States.
“What do Pastoral Associates do?” he inquires.
“They help the priests.” I curtly throw the conversation back to him.
Looking to trip me up, he looks down at the stamps in my passport and asks, “What Catholic Churches are there in Turkey?”
“Oh you mean the cradle of Christianity? Well there are a few Roman Rite churches in places like Istanbul and Izmir which are mostly staffed by Italian missionaries and mostly serve international guest such as diplomats and tourists, but when we talk about the “Church in Turkey,” we usually refer to the early Christian communities which preceded the Byzantine era, and were abandoned during the Ottoman Empire. They are formally recognized as “The Seven Churches” and are listed in the Book of Revelation, outlining their importance in the apocalyptic battle that will bring and end to the world as we know it... If you haven’t read it, you really should… It’s a good book.”
Lesson one to the Boarder Patrol: Never ask a smart-ass a question that he’s prepared to answer… in full.
“Well what do you think?” the first guard asks her colleague.
He thumbs through a few more pages, feigning disinterest.
“Here you go sir.”
“What! No ‘Welcome home?’” I smile, turn, and head back onto the bus.
I’m sure there are many American citizens who are happy to hear how thoroughly the Border Patrol was doing their job, and admire that these guys were tough on me. I find it funny that they missed the obvious. A pleasant five minute conversation with my Mexican friends on the bus was all it took for me to discover that they are working illegally in the United States, while entering legally on tourist visas. Meanwhile, I’m the legal one, and I’m the one getting harassed.
What is alarming is that I haven’t had such a difficult time crossing a border since I was in Israel, and at least the Israeli officials had good reason to harass me. I showed up forty minutes before my flight was scheduled when they explicitly ask for your presence three to four hours before. The United States loves to demonize the lack of freedoms that are experienced in countries like China, North Korea, Iran, or pretty much anywhere else, but we have somehow lost the ability of self-examination. We don’t see that we have, in many ways, become worse than the countries we criticize, while we justify our actions with trite impenetrable catchphrases like, “It is for the common good.” Or “We’re only protecting our freedoms.”
Dr. Marin Luther King once said, “Let us never forget that everything that Hitler did was legal.”
I knew that re-entering the United States would be one of the more difficult tasks for me, not because of harassment, but because of the frustration that comes with stepping outside the United States, and taking a critical look at who we are. I have seen other U.S. citizens who have struggled with the same adjustment. They often get frustrated and angry.
I knew coming through the border with Mexico would be a challenge for me. The current debate in the United States includes the building of a wall along this entire border to halt the flow of illegal migrants to the United States. I’ve seen several walls this year. The Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the West Bank, the walls surrounding African families. Walls are such an absurd addition to God’s creation that they utterly confuse me. I am absolutely baffled how the United States would take so much pride in President Ronald Regan saying to President Gorbachev, “Mr. President, tear down this wall!” and then we would turn around and start building walls. It makes no sense.
I don’t remember who said it, but earlier on this pilgrimage I heard, “The only thing we have learned from history is that we have learned nothing from history.”
By the time I had gotten back on the bus after my run-in with the Border Patrol, I felt as if the child-like joy that came from being back on U.S. soil was bleached out, sun dried, and beaten with a mallet. Though no one spoke, I could almost hear the brutish voice that dominates the political climate in the hum of the bus wheels, now cruising on American pavement, “If you don’t like this country, then leave.”
I know that I have taken more than one jab at the United States over the last year. Some Americans might think that I am the kind of trash we need to get rid of. I’m sorry if I have offended anyone, but I assure you, I actually am a patriot. Even when the United States has problems, I still feel the United States is the greatest country in the world. I still want the best for my nation and my countrymen.
I just think we need to remind ourselves what is great about this country.
Over two hundred yeas ago, we fought for an idea “that all men were created equal.” Our founders were willing to die for that principle. Paraphrasing a quote from the book Animal Farm, now we live with a shame that corrodes our virtue, “Everyone is equal… but some are more equal than others.”
It doesn’t have to be that way. We’re better than that.
We are better than determining the value of a man or woman by the travel papers s/he brings with him/her to the border. We’re better than amassing great wealth at the expense of other’s poverty. We’re better than needing to control foreign government and economies in order to maintain our own. We’re better than exploiting children and women for their labor or for sexual amusement. We’re better than using fear as a vehicle of control for political power.
I feel like we have lost our steering. Whatever happened to the John F. Kennedys of country? “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Well John F. Kennedy is dead. We built him a nice tomb in Arlington, Virginia, and then set up a fund to build a nice center for the performing arts in his honor in Washington D.C. The United States is not that much different than the Catholic Church. Our heroes die. We call them saints. We build huge shrines in their honor, and then we distance ourselves from living with the kind of zeal they had, with the justification that, we are merely mortals.
So were they.
They just chose to use their mortality in pursuit of a future that was better than the past.
I am proud to be home. I am proud to be an American. I am proud that we have the resources to make great advancements for this country, and the opportunity to improve the lives of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. I just think that we need more than opportunities, we need action. We need to commit ourselves to the belief that our best days as a nation are still ahead of us, and those days will only be found by committing to personal sacrifice for the benefit of all humankind, not only ourselves.