Tag Archives: immigration

Journey 3, Day 17: Rainy Day People

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

September 16, 2023, Crossville, TN- The flinty-eyed man seemed to regard me warily, as I walked into the front room, where he and two other folks were socializing, with the homeowner, over beer. After our host introduced me to the three neighbours, the wariness went away, and I was asked if I would consider moving here.

Crossville, and the immediate area around this house, are certainly salubrious enough, and the people are downright friendly, after about ten minutes of sizing up a newcomer. I am happy with my present Home Base, but it surely is fun to visit here.

The Pond at Crossville. (Above and below)

The flinty-eyed man asked me about Arizona. He wanted to know if Mexicans dominated the state. I answered in the negative, saying that while there was a sizable number of people of Mexican heritage there, that they were not in the least a dominating, domineering or unpleasant, in any respect. I told the group that I found Mexicans to be a hard-working people, which is true in Arizona, and from what I’ve seen, true in the Southeast as well. The restaurant where I had breakfast this morning, in Marion, VA is called Sur 81 (south on I-81). It is owned and operated by a wonderful Mexican family, and drew a large crowd while I was there. The food was sumptuous and the server, a gracious young lady. Basically, I see no difference between them and the Appalachian Whites who work the Bucc-ee’s, down the road from here. All are working hard and are merely providing for their families, as most people everywhere are doing.

The subject changed, from the politics of immigration, and of the next election,once I simply repeated that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and of course, vote accordingly. It seems to me that the most conservative person, and the most progressive, want above all to just be heard. It is when someone feels shut out, that the shrillness kicks in. The rest of their visit focused on the local high school football team, the way that the marching band’s sound carries, over the woods and to this bucolic neighbourhood, and the skill sets that help people make ends meet around here. Our host, Chuck, is a retired firefighter, so his life is pretty much cut and dried-he can either volunteer somewhere, or just hang out, and no one is of a mind to be critical.

Those who are depressed by a rainy day, such as today, might have taken the short gathering in the room as an invitation to sow division. My company, being more optimistic, and basically seeing “no problems, only solutions”, to quote John Lennon, takes a rainy day as a sign of blessings. So long as one is in a safe, dry place, the rain only enhances life. I had no issues with bringing my bags from the car to my room, in the pouring rain. God knows, there are way too many people who have no car-and no room.

I will leave here tomorrow, but Chuck’s encouragement of his neighbours, his wife, Laureen’s food truck, the flinty-eyed man’s auto repair shop-and the Bucc-ee’s down the road, will with any luck, long continue.

Piscean

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

September 16, 2022-

A planeload, or two, of migrants showed up, on the tight little island. A busload, or two, of refugees showed up, at the gate of an Observatory.

A pair of men, outwardly claiming to spread the pain caused by loose enforcement of law but inwardly looking to embarrass their perceived foes, arranged the journeys, telling the travelers that they would be soon living lives of prosperity and peace.

Imagine their surprise, when those hosting the unexpected guests responded with kindness, hospitality and plans for actually helping those guests move towards those lives.

Imagine the consternation of those men’s apologists, those who say “It’s high time the elite take in their share of the rough-edged and unruly”, when it is pointed out that the northern states, regardless of the dominant ideology of their residents, are a polyglot bunch, and are ready to become more so.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”- Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus”

The Piscean idea, of top-down decision-making, often misses the fact that the masses themselves are taking steps to solve their own problems.

Summits Are Only A Beginning

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Uncategorized

April 23, 2021- I have never been to Ciudad de Mexico. The fifth-largest metropolitan area on the planet, it is also the second-largest metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere. Ciudad de Mexico may soon become the locus of the worst ecological nightmare that humanity has seen, in several centuries. The Valley of Mexico, indeed, the entire middle swath of the country, is experiencing the worst drought it has seen, in nearly a millennium. Central Mexico, as a whole, may very well be running out of water.

We in the Southwest of the United States (including southern California) have also been experiencing drought. The occasional snow and rain that we have received, since last autumn, have not done much to put a dent in the dryness. Only more judicious use of our water has, and will continue to, keep our communities from literally blowing away in the desert wind.

It is an irony, that the first place to which people in Mesoamerica turn, when faced with economic hardship, or sociopolitical repression, is the American southwest-from San Diego to Houston-and everywhere in between. We have done relatively well here, economically, though the underbelly of homelessness and economic inequality is as much a concern in the Southwest as it is anywhere on the planet. A splinter wedged under my fingernail hurts just as badly as it would under anyone else’s. So we go about being concerned with our own, first and foremost.

All the same, those who express disdain for the current immigration impasse at the border between Mexico and the United States must brace themselves for what will happen, should the water crisis in central Mexico worsen. The six-figure populace massing near, and permeating, that arbitrary line could all too easily morph into millions, or tens of millions, of people.

The Group of Twenty summit, convened virtually, on addressing climate change, is a tad behind schedule, through no fault of those who gathered. That said, it is painfully obvious that every single person on the planet has a role to play in conservation and better use of resources-especially of our planet’s basic elements (water, air, soil/minerals, and fire). It falls as much to local teams, neighbourhoods and families to double down on meeting the challenge of climate change. Everything from taking shorter, though equally intense, showers to intelligently recycling items that won’t decompose (and not just depending on municipal contractors to do the job), is the responsibility of everyone who enjoys running water and non-decomposable packaging. Providing clean water for drinking and bathing, to those who lack this basic resource, is a whole other topic.

These are the thoughts that come to mind, after the G-20’s most recent summit.

My Love Letter to America

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

January 19, 2021-

Dear America,

Tomorrow, a change will take place in our governance, which a bit more than half of the voting public wanted; which nearly half hoped, against hope, would perhaps be thwarted and a few of us, including yours truly, wanted to see blended with the best of what its opposite has advocated.

Changes are a constant. In order to truly realize the cohesion that every politician, regardless of stripe, says is imperative, may we look at what you have meant to so many-and what you might better mean to all who come to your shores.

“There was a time”, Neil Sedaka once sang, “when strangers were welcome here.” Yes, and no. People could come from everywhere, and there was a crucible to be borne. Those who were established, the First Nations, welcomed Europeans, sometimes openly and as time went on, and the mindset of conquest and dominance became more apparent from the first such Europeans, the welcome became far more cautious. People were brought here, mostly from Africa, but from other places as well, against their will-to serve and promulgate the fruits of conquest and dominance. Those who came from other parts of Europe, either in search of freedom from oppression and tyranny or in search of opportunity to succeed materially, had to prove themselves to those who had been here for a century or two-or at least had been here for a few decades.

Let you now be viewed, and experienced, as a place of healing. Of course, your people must begin by healing themselves-and one another. The energy, both spiritual and medicinal, that emanates from you is immense. The ancient wisdom, much of it preserved by the First Nations, and other parts of it rooted in the land itself, can serve to generate enormous healing for those who have lost their way, in the course of nearly five centuries of material quests and forgetting Who the Creator actually is.

I have had the blessed experience of carrying ley lines, from west to east, and back; from southwest to northwest, and back; from north to south, and back-over the past ten years. Far more than merely enjoying travel, as a friend remarked a few days ago, I sense that carrying healing energy-both for myself and for others I encounter- is both your gift to me, and my gift in return, back to you.

Blessed homeland, your nurturance has helped me shed so much emotional and psychological burden, and as I recall my early days of sitting very still, by a gurgling little brook or of visiting a hill, with a view of Boston’s skyline, from a rock behind a turreted house, I feel your healing energy has always been here. Even when buried under the Shrines of Progress, or when ravaged by all that people have deemed essential to build their empires, that energy has sighed, bided its time and waited, sometimes patiently and at other times expressing urgency.

Now, more of us see what the headlong rush into material advancement, regardless of cost, has produced. Now, more of us are making a place in our lives, a place in our hearts, for the healing which, alone, can bring a balance between material stability and spiritual well-being.

I love you, my homeland. May your strength of spirit long make itself known, and endure.