June 4, 2023 – Greetings and joy from the Convent of Mercy retirement home in Mobile, Alabama! I find myself here for the night after driving 7 hours from Houston on my way to Decatur, Georgia, another 5 hours away. I am three months overdue for a proper update on this beloved journey of mine!
If you will forgive me, I will attempt to summarize the past three months in the best way I can. In early March, I arrived to El Paso, Texas with so much excitement, eagerness for familiarity and rest, and a big question mark on my schedule. I stayed with the Marist & Maryknoll community for the first month in the lovely bedroom off the dining room (complete with sliding barn doors, my own bathroom, and easy access to the coffee machine straight from my bed!). For the second month I was blessed with hospitality at the Columban Mission Center.
During those two months, I delighted in delicious food and the presence of inspiring human beings and I started working as a no-prior-experience server at the Village Inn. I got to accompany a group of Seminary students on a trip to Palomas, Mexico where we ate a delicious potluck and purchased the beautiful artisanal goods from the women’s cooperative who received us. I attended Mass in two different migrant shelters, spent the night on the couch at a third, and got to experience a proper Mexican “Way of the Cross” in Anapra, Juarez, which is of the most impoverished, violent, and stigmatized neighborhoods in the city, where I had the extraordinary opportunity to walk with people whose daily life experiences reflect the continual crucifixion of Christ in our world today.
I reunited with people I had not seen since the start of the pandemic, camped in Big Bend National Park, and assisted with translation for a pro-se asylum application for a Venezuelan couple and their daughter.
It was a true gift to be able to go back to this place which is so so special to me in a different, slower way, and to sort of just dwell in the inspiration and the emotion of it all!
From El Paso I drove the 8 hours over to San Antonio, where I was greeted with the warm, moist air of the Texas grasslands. I stayed in an AirBnB for three nights so I could have some solitude for the closing retreat of my Contemplative Leaders in Action program, and it was soo lovely! I turned my phone off for just under 48 hours and prayed. On my third day in town I found Sr. Rita at the mother house of the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate. Here is a journal entry from that day:
May 7, 2023: Sr. Rita and I are sitting on a bench in the outdoor patio at the Holy Spirit Convent, each drinking a cup of tea. We are talking about politics and division and fear in our communities since there were two really tragic tragedies today in Texas. I ignorantly asked her if she had seen the news yet, even though it was already past 3pm. “Yes of course, so sad,” she says as we look on at the trees dancing in the breeze and the water dripping from the rain gutters. It is humid but, thanks to the rain clouds, not too hot outside.
“The whole Republican party is beholden to the NRA,” she says, among so many other things. We are lamenting the shooting in Allen, Texas when a bright red bird begins to bathe in the fountain on the other side of the patio. “Wow, look at that bird!” I say, amazed at how it splashes around.
Rita replies “Well that is a male cardinal. He must have a date, he’s getting all cleaned up.” I must confess I am charmed by her Irish accent.
We first met about a month ago when I was visiting Casa Papa Francisco, one of Annunciation House’s hospitality homes. Her energy is warm and welcome, and I share with her my journey and ask her about her own. After 20 years of teaching high school math and 10 more working for her motherhouse, she went to Mexico for another 20 years to work in a school in Nayarit. She is finally entering her retirement years (she is, as they say in Spanish, in her third age) but still offers herself as a volunteer from time to time.
At one point, Sr. Rita goes inside to attend to a matter and I am left enjoying the patio and scrolling through my messages. Another sister walks out, stops, and just looks at me.
“I’ve found an ice cream and I’ve come outside to enjoy it,” she says, and continues past me. This woman is also speaking with an Irish accent, for your information, so naturally I am fascinated by this exchange also.
The birds in the grasslands part of Texas where the air hugs you and the green is lush are singing so loudly all day. It is so beautiful and has such a different energy that I can’t quite explain.
On my way out of the mother house, Sr. Rita takes me to the kitchen and makes me a care package with apples, oranges, bananas, and yogurt. She offers me juice but I decline. “Are you allowed to be taking this?” I ask since we are sneaking around the kitchen while the workers are taking their break. It is a large facility and since all of the sisters are in their third age, the kitchen and other essential duties are staffed (there is even a hair salon onsite!). “It is my house” she says with a bit of a chuckle. Of course there are 40 other women, more or less, who live here, but who’s counting.
“Do you have any advice for the younger generation?” I ask to try to move us out of the heaviness of our conversations about politics, guns, gerrymandering, and people who are becoming violent as a result of the lies they hear on extremely biased news sources.
“Keep on peddling” she tells me as we hug goodbye.
After my visit with Sr. Rita, I make my way over to another El Paso connection Yvonne Dilling’s house who graciously receives me for another night in town before I head south into the valley. It is barely noon but we are talking about the 1980s and pilgrimages and cross-cultural relationships and theology. We go to the Greyhound Bus Station to volunteer with the “chalecos azules” Interfaith Welcome Coalition and offer advice, coordination, and basic-need supplies to immigrants passing through from the various border towns. There are a number of people who arrive to the station with no idea of where to go from there, and they are sent to a Welcome Center that is supposedly at full-capacity and has an overflow of around 100 people staying in the parking lot. I mostly give out some juices and sandwiches and learn about how the non-profits support people here, and Yvonne and I get some thai food in between our double shift.
I love wearing the blue vest (extra pockets and identification!) but I love more spending the time in meaningful and deep conversation with Yvonne who has a wealth of knowledge and shows me how to live out the values that I hold so dear. We scoop mulch off the bed of a pick-up truck into wheelbarrows and she gives me a copy of her book “In Search of Refuge” which details her experience volunteering with Caritas in a Salvadoran Refugee Camp in Honduras during the early 1980s.
From San Antonio I venture down into the Rio Grande Valley where I am welcomed by two Sisters of Mercy, Patricia and Terry. Within a few hours, Patricia and I are laughing hysterically and making memories about Mongolian food and whataburger drive-thrus. I am so pampered, once again, with my own bedroom where I spend my evenings on the phone with my most supporting and loving partner, Antonio (which explains where all of my free time goes!).
While in the Valley, I spend a day with the South Texas Human Rights Center learning from Eddie and Nora and Chris and talking about the tragedy of missing migrants and people dying trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico Border. I visit the Team Brownsville/Good Neighbor Settlement House Welcome Center next to the bus station in Brownsville and support the distribution of clothing and hygiene items to recently released immigrant families and individuals. Sr. Terry takes me to see the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Sr. Pat takes me to visit the Arise Adelante office and eat a delicious meal with a group of university students from Misericordia U while listening to the testimony of one of the new staff members who recently arrived from Tamaulipas, Mexico, and I take myself down to the National Butterfly Center where I see lots of butterflies, birds, and a giant tortoise (and I drive along back roads in search of the gofundme border wall that is falling into the Rio Grande).
I am so grateful for all of the hospitality and accompaniment I have been graciously given on this journey. Each and every encounter that I have had deserves its own blog post, truly – if only I could keep up with my experiences, or my memory could store it all perfectly! And worse is that when I let the time pass me by without documenting, I end up simply writing a list of where I have been and missing the opportunity to delve more deeply into the ways these experiences have impacted me. But I trust that the time for more in depth writing will come eventually… 🙂
The Prayer of Catherine McAuley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy: My God, I want to always associate with you. Teach me to trust in you because I know that you love me. Help me to always search for your will, even if it is difficult. Empty my heart of all fear and anxiety. That nothing makes me sad that does not cause me to stray from you. Help me to always be full of joy because I know that you are my God and one day I will be with you forever.
Next up: Three more days in the RGV and two weeks in Houston with Casa Juan Diego (!!)