What does Scripture say?

 

Tonight we pray for the momma who is worried...

I think that the following prayer comes from the Midnight Mom Devotional that I used to draw from often on this blog.

Tonight we pray for the momma who is worried. Her heart is heavy. She's having trouble sleeping. She may even be crying inside but putting on a smile for others. Lord, there are so many things that we as mommas worry about daily and even nightly. You asked us to give it to You. Tonight, we give You our worries. We ask for Your peace. We thank You for taking care of all our needs. Please help this momma to find community and any help that she needs. Please grant her sleep tonight. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

This photo comes from Ward Weems on Facebook. The accompanying caption says, "A tenant family who lived in the Camp Croft area and was removed, The man was employed working for a neighboring farm and loses employment when moved. Near Pacolet, South Carolina, March 1941 in photograph by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress."

This photo also comes by way of Ward Weems. The caption reads, "Decosta famile mother and children, Portuguese immigrants, and Farm Security Administration client borrowers, Little Compton, Rhode Island, December 1940 in a photograph by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress."

Millions of people the world over are leaving their homes in search of safety and work. Many are fleeing the effects of global warming and climate change and must take their children with them as they go. Some never find what they are looking for and perish along the way and only God and their families know their names. 

These photos remind us that it was not so long ago that many families in the United States were forced to move, traveling north or west in order to escape bad conditions. Political and economic refugees from fascist governments came as well, and are still coming. We should remember their struggles and trials when we consider the mommas and families seeking sanctuary in the United States today and include them in our prayers.

A memory of a cold morning

This was posted by by Keith Betsy Cain on the Appalachian Americans Facebook page. Readers of this blog know that often I post here about Slovak coal miners ands steel workers. In fact, this blog began with a quote from the book "Out Of This Furnace," a wonderful book that tells the story of several generations of Slovak and Slovak American steel workers. The account below is so well written that I could feel myself warming up on a cold morning when I first read it.

These cold days sparked a memory for me. Dad worked at the coal mine and was always the first one up. On really cold days, he would wake me up a little early for school. I knew the routine well. I would sit up and rub my eyes while the sleeves of Daddy's white t-shirt, that I wore as a nightgown, would be near my wrists. I would take the sheet off my bed and head to the living room. There, in front of the hot air register, I would lay on my stomach with my feet touching the warm metal. Daddy would completly cover me with the sheet. Then I got to work, pulling the sides of the sheet under my body and using my feet to hold the sheet to the wall sealing the register inside the sheet with me. All I had to do now was wait for the furnace to kick on. (Now, I think Daddy probably went over to the thermostat and bumped it up) When it came on, warm air inflated my sheet tent. I would lay there surrounded by perfect warmth in my little cocoon while Daddy made me coffee-milk and toast humming and singing in English/Slovak. When the furnace shut off, breakfast was ready, and I was ready to start my day.

Caring for the Deceased, Caring for the Living by Bees, Desert Aid worker

I have mixed feelings about writing this piece about death in the desert.

Our organization is named No More Deaths; our stated mission is “to end death and suffering in the Mexico-US borderlands.” Death is central here, I know. But so much has already been written about the US government’s choice to use the desert as a weapon of genocide, and journalists have produced copious portraits of individual volunteers coming across deceased people at the border.
Let me first tell you, if I may, about the delight.

Let me tell you about getting my ass kicked in pick-up basketball by teenagers who had been walking through the desert for weeks. Let me tell you about how many times I’ve explained “Yes, you have correctly identified the English word for chicken, but Chicken of the Sea is not, in fact, chicken.” Let me tell you about meeting people who hadn’t had access to clean water in days and telling them (truthfully) that they smelled better than the ragtag crew of punks dropping fresh gallons and food around the Altar Valley.

Let me tell you about a man who had spent nearly a month trying to get through the Sonoran Desert on foot, whose eyes filled with tears when he spoke about the desert because to him the plants, the birds, the sunrises blossoming across the mountains, were all so wonderful. “The desert is beautiful,” he said.
In August, No More Deaths volunteers working around Arivaca found the remains of four recently deceased migrants. Death is central here, and yet none of the longer term volunteers can recall finding so many people in so short a time in this particular corridor. The desert is wonderful and terrible all at once.

Let me tell you, if I may, about the care and compassion of people in the desert.

One man explained to me why it’s difficult to report deceased people on the trails, even to humanitarian aid workers. “It’s dangerous, you know? If I tell somebody I saw a body, maybe they’ll decide I’m responsible for it. Maybe they call the police.” And then, risk be damned, that man proceeded to tell me where he saw someone who had died and made me promise that we would go look for that person. In fact, undocumented people reported three of the deceased people that we found*, ensuring that we could recover them quickly and help their families find a measure of closure.

When it would be easy to prioritize rage and anguish, I see volunteers prioritize care. People who have had traumatic experiences with law enforcement hike for miles with police to ensure a person is retrieved quickly and with dignity. Volunteers take photos of the surrounding landscape so families can see where their loved ones passed away. Atheists place flowers and pray. Cynical feelings arise in me and I wonder if these gestures are useful. Then I speak with a relative of one of the men who died.
I was in the group that found your loved one. We picked flowers and prayed for him, and for your family.

We pray for you too. Please, if you can tell me, what was it like where he died?

It was peaceful and beautiful. I know that sounds strange, but it was.

That’s good. That is helpful to hear.

Please let us know if there is anything we can do for your family.

Thank you for telling me. Thank God my cousin was found.

What the magazine profiles do not describe is that when we find people in the desert, we care for the people who walk on these trails, for their families, and for ourselves. They care for us in return, sharing food with us, sharing stories with us, asking how they can help us, and praying for us (forgiving any non-believers). Volunteers forgive each other for speaking clumsily and imprecisely, for responding from trauma and anger, for not doing and thinking everything with absolute perfection. One particularly hard day I share a feeling – that these people died close to where we leave gallons and it’s hard not to feel haunted by that – and no one shames me for it.

My fellow volunteers know the truth as well as I do. We could drop hundreds of gallons of water on every trail in the desert, and people would still die. They die because of settler colonialist violence, extraction economies, and imperialism. Because Border Patrol agents are paid to scatter and terrorize and kidnap people, instead of help them. Because horror is central to US border policy and no quantity of water can wash the blood off the hands of the people who write it. Because of a lack of care that is antithetical to so many of us in the desert.

I once met someone who carried a member of his group on his back so she could make it through alive. Another who assumed tremendous personal risk to ensure ailing people could receive urgent medical treatment. Another who reported a deceased person with the full knowledge that he might be blamed for that person’s death. I never found a way to contact the man who reported the deceased person directly to us to assure him we kept our promise, but I did run into a group who had walked the same trail. They were relieved someone cared enough to search, and then asked if we knew his name or where he was from. They intended to pray for him and his family. I told them we went to recover the body and saw that police treated the person with respect, and they asked me if I was okay.

Major publications construct a landscape of ceaseless adrenaline rushes – guides abandoning groups, cartels exacting exorbitant sums from the destitute, brutality of Border Patrol agents, death on the trails – and it feels like strange pathos porn, bordering on romanticization of the worst of humanity. What I would like to offer is that there is also care here, and I have seen the best in people.

I do not ignore or erase the despair in this work, nor do I pretend away the violence. Simply: I agree with the man who told me the desert is beautiful. If you have ever lost someone close to you then you know what this feels like. Your loved one is dead, light shines through the trees, a baby giggles in your arms, the world continues to turn, and the person you loved most in the world is dead. I was present on three occasions when we found people. There were wildflowers everywhere, birds singing sweet and clear around us, creeks flowing gently in the background. We cared for the deceased, and we cared for the living.

This is what I ask us to remember when we read other stories about the border, when despair and doubt settle in to stay for a while, when the challenges feel insurmountable and endless: many awful stories are true, and so are many wonderful ones. Terrible things happen, and we can provide comfort in spite of it all.

Death is central here, and care is all around.
 
Author’s note: I am a white settler who grew up in the Great Lakes region, not the desert. This piece is written from that perspective, and I intend to represent no one’s experiences but my own.

Today marks the 114th anniversary of the Monongah Mine Disaster, the worst mining disaster in American history.

From the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum;

Today marks the 114th anniversary of the Monongah Mine Disaster, the worst mining disaster in American history. 362 people lost their lives, many of whom were immigrants.

This was just one of a string of disasters that struck coal mines across the United States within the next 30 days. 4 more coal mine explosions happened in December of 1907, marking it the most deadly month in coal mining history.

On December 1st of 1907, 35 miners died at the Naomi Mines in Fayette City, Pennsylvania. On December 16th, 35 more passed away at the Yolande Mine in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. 239 miners were killed on December 19th at the Darr Mine in Van Meter, Pennsylvania. And lastly, 11 were killed on New Years Eve at the Bernal Mine in Carthage, New Mexico.

Sadly, the mistreatment of workers and their appalling labor conditions continued on, leading to the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, where 10,000 mine workers–immigrant and native-born, Black and white–banded together to fight for their rights as laborers and as humans during the West Virginia Mine Wars.

Today, we remember the lives taken in this string of devastating events on National Miners Day. We thank and honor the skilled, hardworking, and inspiring coal miners–both past and present–who have powered the American Labor Movement and our country with their backbreaking labor. #NationalMinersDay

(Photo from WV Public Broadcasting)

A prayer for those who are forced to flee their homelands

Oh, Lord, tonight I am praying that in Your mercy You will welcome into eternal rest and peace the souls of those who were found dead in a truck in San Antonio and who were killed in Melilla and comfort their families and their communities. O Lord who left your native land as an infant under the cover of darkness as your family searched for safety, be present with those who are forced to flee their homelands, bless the work of those who comfort and protect them, and arouse in us a love of our neighbors through justice and solidarity. Where there is despair among those who have been forced to migrate appear to them as you appeared to those men on the road to Emmaus and fill all of us with the joys of Your justice and salvation. O, Lord, hear my prayer and show your mercy!

Solidarity means...

 

How we see childhood has changed---or has it?

The photo on top is of a thirteen-year-old boy working in a coal mine in the early years of the last century. His jobs were either to open and close the doors for ventilation in the mine or to put sprags in the wheels of the mine cars carrying coal out of the mine to slow them down. Spragging was dangerous work and many children died or were injured doing that work. If was a union-represented mine, a boy whose father had been killed at work who was in his mid- or late-teens was allowed to work in the mine with a fully-qualified miner for a certain number of shifts every week or month.

The photo below that is of  a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. I lifted it from an Amnesty International advertisement. This is where people without papers are held pending trial or deportation. "Detention center" in this case is a nice word for "jail" or "prison." Kids and young people can end up in places like this rather than, say, receive wrap-around services in a humane environment and be reunited with their families on this side of the border and enrolled in schools or apprenticeship programs. 

We still treat some children as if they were adults while some other children grow up with more and better and feel entitled before they can walk. The economy in the U.S. still depends on exploitation. Immigrants are still at the bottom of our social (dis)order. We are still breeding hopelessness, disappointment, and despair. 

 

The Church Is Called To....