Border encounters

In February, Ken Paxton filed suit against Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, for “alien harboring, human smuggling, and operating a stash house." The Texas attorney general’s attack on the Catholic organization, which offers hospitality to migrants and refugees, was in line with the overheated rhetoric that is now a part of our daily national diet. As the rhetoric intensifies, most Americans picture danger, fear, suffering, and failure at the border. Stories meant to disturb and trouble us serve the purposes of more than one politician, though they have rarely generated viable solutions.

But if we look through the eyes of those working at the border, we begin to see a different reality. Annelise Jolley invites us to this kind of attention by highlighting the work Latino congregations do with immigrants. Perhaps the most important thing about the US-Mexico border from this perspective is that it is a place of encounter—between different civilizations, peoples, languages, and cultures, between those who are fleeing and those who live in relative safety.

Encounter is a profoundly theological category. When Jewish theologian Martin Buber famously described encounter as an I/Thou relation,  he pointed to the “intimations of the eternal Thou.” On the border, such encounters take place daily. In the gospels, we are urged to welcome the stranger, not only for the stranger’s sake but also for our own. In welcoming, we learn that the stranger is a gift. When we welcome the stranger as Christ, we learn about our own interconnectedness and vulnerability. Through encounter, we begin to see God in everyday life, and we are changed.