Our Common Smallness
The hawk circles
high, nothing escapes his eyes. Big white and grey clouds are billowing in blue
sky. Out of old habit, I enjoy paying attention to the “ordinary” beings around
me, there is little pomposity to be found in their extra-ordinary splendor. Observing,
asking questions, listening curiously, intuitively sensing how to best connect.
This Thursday, I am happy to see the open round face of a young man coming up
the stairs. Right away, I know we are going to have a good time. Despite my big
problem that turns out to be very expensive, sigh – quickly we are at ease with
each other. He expresses his admiration for the Memorial Mural on the garage
doors, wants to take a picture of it, share. It moves him. Later I tell him
more about honoring the people affected, whether dead or freed. The research it
took to give each their tiny bit of personal story. A wall for mourning.
Obviously, his heart is spacious and has a natural tendency toward justice. He
is not university learned, does not know world history, ideologies, politics. But a
large goodness exudes from him. Like me, he is an ordinary “small” individual. He
is inquisitive and thinks for himself. Interweaving our humanity – Mexican,
German – a sudden feeling of faith rises up in me. America is truly a
breathtaking experiment. My natural defiance is strengthened with this encounter.
Soon, he is
the one who asks: “What do you think about what’s going on with ICE, and the
masking and all that?“ Together we decide which method best used to unclog my
storm drainage filled with caked mud leftover in the pipes from last spring. In
recent years, ferociously cascading waterfalls caused by ever-stronger rains
wash lots of earth down the stairs right onto my back patio, and into the
drainage system. Manual tells me about his mother, a housecleaner, now renting
a room here and there in order to evade the increased raids. Here we are problem
solving, storms, damage, water, gravity, and fixing has to be a possibility,
finding solutions. She visits the family only once a week, for her grandson (his
son) or her husband’s birthday. He is flummoxed, not angry. Why would they do
this to hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding people like him and his family?
Disasters are even worse when man-made and infused with extreme
cruelty. They rob us of human dignity. Of our deep knowing what is right and
what is wrong.
Then, in a
leap of faith – I know that vulnerable feeling myself – he “confesses” that he
was born in Mexico, but has lived here now for 25 years under DACA. Briefly a
dark shadow flitters over his vibrant face, settles in the brows. A brutal kind
of betrayal – one’s sense of safety is forced to shift – again I can identify
with this so well as an immigrant. It cuts deep. Beyond politics. It is
existential betrayal. Life threatening. Devastating. We all build our lives and
communities in a place which we make ours over the years and decades. We create
our haven. To have it destroyed in a violent flash of a second is unfathomable.
Why? For what? His youthful optimism and buoyancy are sweet and firm. “I love
talking with people,“ he reaffirms. Telling him my deep concern, and how NOT ok
all this is, I get emphatic. How disturbing, inhumane and wrong. It needs to be
said out loud over and over again, defiantly. So, nobody can doubt their heart.
So that courage has space to grow. And secretly, already I pray for his safety.
For his mother and family.
After taking
a photo of the garage doors, Manuel walks to his truck, and I spontaneously
call out: “Be safe. If there is trouble, come here.” I myself don’t feel safe,
but offering refuge, makes me feel more human, safer. The mural opened our
hearts to communicate in difficult times, when people already feel silenced, or
silence themselves.
In our common smallness,
may we be defiant and protect the vulnerable.
Maybe it’s not about left or right.
How about solidarity in practice?
From Spain: “It’s a Question of
Humanity”
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