What a Man

Taken from a Relevant Magazine podcast interview done earlier this year with author and speaker Donald Miller:

"I like the way post-modernity is taking thought. I'm somebody who believes in absolute truth, but I don't believe in absolute truth in the way that, probably, the modern traditional evangelical believes in absolute truth. I believe in absolute truth in the way that Jesus defines absolute truth, in the sense that Jesus is asked what is truth, and He says 'I am.'"

-Don M.

That's so hot.

I propose that from now on when we say "The Donald" we agree that we are referring to Mr. Miller and not a NYC developer with a bad hair piece and a habit of marrying models.

Like Chores For the Internet

I have been meaning to update my links for a few weeks now and they are finally done.
I now have some music review sites, a whole bunch of blogs (from Christian to political to feminist), and a few webzines up there. If you get some time check those out. They are pretty well organized, more or less.

Sunday Music Video Blogging

In honor of the last concert I went to before wandering on down here to Meh-hee-koh I am posting a couple of really awesome videos from two incredible bands that I absolutely love.

This is the new video from The Format for their song "Dog Problems." This album is full of really great pop music with an orchestral bent, and the video is perfect for the song.



This link: http://www.tubopopcorn.com/mp4/anathallo/hanasakajijii.wmv takes you to a video that I put up last year on instant messenger. It is two songs performed by the band Anathallo, Hanasakajijii 1, and Hanasakajijii 4. Floating World was one of the best albums released in 2006. Do yourself a favor and check it out if you missed it the first time around.

Special thanks to Special K, E-Rick, The Legend, and Third Wheel for going to this concert with me and dancing to Anathallo when the rest of the crowd was being lame.

Kings to you Mr. Perica

My great friend Bryce Perica has once again improved my life by pointing out to me the incredible advantages of Blogger Beta.

The big news is that I just received a whole bunch of comments I had never seen before. Apparently you could leave them and they just never showed up. So, umm, thanks. I promise to respond from now on.

Almost as exciting: I now have labels! I feel all grown up in a blogging sense.

Meet Your Neighbors: Phoenix

Every Monday I spend, at a minimum, about eight hours working in the Migrant Resource Center. I've written about the MRC before, so for those of you just joining this little party you'll have to go back and find the explanation of what it is for some of this to make sense. Back to business. The result of this extended shift at the MRC is that I get to meet a lot of migrants on Monday, and often spend most of Tuesday distracted by thoughts of where those people are and what they are doing.

As a result I have decided to start a series of posts called "Meet Your Neighbors," where I introduce some new American residents that I have met, both as a way to process some of my experiences, and to share a little bit of these people's lives with all of you.

This inaugural edition of "Meet Your Neighbors" is aimed primarily at residents of Phoenix, Arizona, as that is where Rosa is headed today, God willing. Although I will give the real destinations and place of origin for everyone that I talk about here, I will change all names to protect their privacy.

Rosa comes from a small town in southern Mexico in the state of Puebla. She has lived in the United States with her husband for the past eight years, and now resides in Phoenix. Rosa had returned to Mexico about three weeks ago in order to attend the funeral of her older brother, who had died while living and working in North Carolina. Of Rosa's four siblings, only one still lives in Mexico, and at a great distance from their original hometown.

Rosa was caught on the American side of the border yesterday afternoon, and deported back to Mexico late last night. This is fairly common for many migrants, as they tend to cross in the late afternoon or early evening, and are often caught within a short distance of the border. What is so unusual about Rosa is that she had been crossing the desert without a Coyote, the name the Mexicans use for a paid guide. Instead she was accompanied by her two year old son Roberto, her ten month old baby, and a friend from Phoenix.

Rosa was not able to leave her children in the U.S. with her husband because of his work schedule and the fact that she is still nursing a very young child. She had risked this crossing to bury a beloved brother, and was returning only three weeks after she had left because she was worried about losing her own job bussing plates at an all-you-can-eat buffet. As I write this 24 hours after I met her, it is possible that Rosa and her children are still alone in the desert, still walking north towards the car that will come to pick her up. It is possible that she has been caught and deported again. It is entirely possible that something very bad has happened to her or her children. I'm praying that they are home safe.

As she was leaving last night, after I had given her some blankets and jackets, hats and socks, burritos, water, and tea, I had this moment where it was all I could do not to start crying. I had this moment where all I could think of doing was to beg for forgiveness. To get down on the floor and ask her to forgive me, forgive us, for making her risk her life and her children's lives in the desert just so she can bus my plates at a greasy spoon. I wanted her to tell me that I was forgiven. I wanted her to tell me that they would be all right. I wanted her to know that if I could have it any other way, I would. I wanted to feel better somehow.

Ultimately I didn't say any of those things. I told her "Vaya con Dios," go with God. Frankly, God's all she's got right now.

Buy Nothing Day

Ariah over at Trying to Follow (http://blog.iamnotashamed.net/2006/11/20/the-consequences-of-buying-everything) reminded me that Buy Nothing Day is coming up. I love Buy Nothing Day, not just as a way to think more deeply about consumption, but also as a way to avoid going anywhere that might involve shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Hell can't be any worse than Wal-Mart is going to be on Saturday.

I'm not actually sure that I´ll be able to participate in this, since my parents will be here, but I'd like to suggest it to you anyway. Actually, scratch that, they are taking me out to dinner, so technically I will buy nothing and they will buy me dinner. Sweet.

Also thanks to Ariah, here´s a little video for your viewing pleasure. It´s an interview with Adbusters founder Kalle Lasn from last year´s buy nothing day. I love him. I don´t know who that CNN woman is but I´m pretty sure that I hate her (in the Christian you're not supposed to hate people sense of the term, of course).



Apologies to Ariah since I basically stole his post, a huge blogging party foul, but I just really liked it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

I´m baaaack.

Guess who´s back, back again...
Sorry. Couldn´t resist.
Actually, I am back, and happy to be home again here in good ol´ dusty, dirty, Agua Prieta. I returned yesterday from a Presbyterian youth conference at a church in Chihuahua City, which is about eight hours drive from here farther into the interior of Mexico. This conference was a pretty big success compared to the last one I went to since I did not find myself on a date with anyone underage, nor did I badly damage the engine of the van that was supposed to take us there.

Instead I spent the weekend in what is easily one of the nicest cities I have ever been to in my life. No joke. Chihuaha is clean, economically prosperous, and culturally engaging. It was a side of Mexico that was completely new to me, i.e., where government works. That´s not to say it didn´t have its problems, but I won´t dwell on any of them as I was just so impressed with how amazing it was, especially in comparison to the other Mexican cities I have seen, and, well, Los Angeles, California. I love LA, but frankly, it´s pretty terrible.

Here is a picture of the Cathedral in the main plaza,
a beautiful building and a very active church.

I really did enjoy the weekend, but it was also very exhausting. As much as I would like to think that I just sort of fit in here, or that I´ve learned enough Spanish to make it almost all the time, being immersed in another culture is just hard, and having to do it 24 hours a day for three days straight doesn´t make it any easier. I don´t do very well around people for extended periods of time anyway, something that Mexican culture HIGHLY values, and the language and culture thing strain my endurance that much more. By the end of the weekend I was trying hard to appear polite while avoiding talking to anyone but some close friends. Good times, glad to be home.

Work starts again this week, but it´s going to be very interrupted by my Mom and Steve, who are coming for Thanksgiving. I´m really looking forward to having them here and integrating two parts of my life a little bit better. Other things on the too do list are contact people about Just Coffee, ease tensions with a very upset former drug addict, and try to get myself insured. Turns out I´m not. Oops.

I also have to distract myself from the fact that many of my best friends in the world are reuniting for a week of great food and good times in Longmont, CO. I miss them all dearly and am really glad that they will get to enjoy one another´s company, even if I do not.

"I've Been Reading Your Blog"

The title of the post says it all. This is probably going to be a little introspective and confessional, even by my standards, but I have been thinking a lot about it and I think it's important.

When I started this blog just a few short months ago I did it for pretty self-serving purposes. Basically, I wanted to be a better, more confident, and more faithful writer. I am, slowly but surely, meeting some of those goals. I started the blog for me, but along the way it has come to serve a lot of other useful purposes.

For example, since I started blogging my relationship with my parents has gotten better. Really. I can skip over some of the stories that I have already written about and get on to explaining more about how I feel about things. Unexpected, and great.

This blog has also been a soapbox of sorts, which I think all writing inevitably must be. I have been able to write a lot, although not as much as I would like, about my work and about border issues. Obviously I think that this is a good thing.

One of my bosses told me the other day that he wants to post a link to my blog from the Frontera de Cristo website, and give the URL in the quarterly newsletter. I didn't really know how I felt about that, and it instantly sent me back to questioning why it is I blog in the first place, what I blog about, and how I do it. I write some serious posts here and there, but I also make posts that only a small and self-selecting group would ever find interesting. The reality is that I started this blog for me, but my readership is surprisingly large. On the advice of my friend Bryce, a more seasoned blogger by far, I installed a stat-counter to tell me how many people visit this site, and where they come from. I confess that I don't really use it very much, but since I was going to write this post I opened it up today, and the results surprised me.

Here are just a few of the things I learned:
- Someone in England has read my blog.
- Lauren Brown (hi Lauren, I was actually just thinking about you!) has a blog, and links to this blog from her own. Her thoughts can be found at http://laurenbrown.typepad.com/weblog/
- More people than my mom, my dad, Bryce, and Mike Cruz, along with a few other usual suspects, are reading this blog. I have to say that I was actually very surprised by that.

I haven't really decided what, if any, changes I am going to make in light of these new discoveries, but I'm sure I will give it some serious thought. In the past weeks I have considered whether or not to blog about the elections, the arrest of Peter Kim, a former youth pastor, and how much I hate the NYTimes Select Edition. I haven't actually written any of those posts, nor am I sure that I will, but if and when I do I now know that apparently someone is reading.

I am aware that no one is commenting, and I have been told that my comments are broken, something I'm not sure how to fix. I have really enjoyed this sense of isolation, a sort of digital journaling where I send out information and no response ever comes. But this period is apparently over. A response is coming now, as I hear "I'm reading your blog" quite frequently, and the stats are telling me that this isn't a lie.

So I send out a question that no one can really respond to: Why do you come here, and what is it appropriate for me to say to you?

I think I'll stick with Wells Fargo...

Good ol' http://www.relevantmagazine.com posted a link to the following video, which I pass on for your viewing pleasure. Well, not pleasure really, more like entertainment. Well, it's actually sort of boring, but...well, watch and you'll see.



For those of you unable to watch the video, or unable to stomach watching the whole thing, I'll give you a little play by play. Against better judgment, or perhaps as an affront to class and good taste, two employees at Bank of America decided it would be a great idea to defile the song "One" by U2, and to play it at a corporate meeting for who knows how many staff members.

In the interest of journalistic integrity I will admit to "One" as being high on the list of my favorite songs of all time. U2 has written some good tracks in their day, but nothing that even comes close to competing with one. The combination of its composition and lyrics leaves nothing to be desired. I think of it as a perfect song. But I digress...back to the bloodbath. In my humble opinion these two banking "professionals" actually pulled off a pretty impressive cover of the song. The guitar was understated and the singing was, to be honest, very good. It was changing the lyrics that really signalled their doom.

Here are a couple of select passages that I particularly enjoyed:

"And we’ll make lots of money, forever I can sing about trusting and teamwork and doing the right thing. We’ll live out our core values while the competition crawls."

"One bank. One card. One name that’s known all over the world."

I could write all day about this video. I could talk about what an poweful example of cultural appropriation this is, especially coming from a massive, faceless corporation. I could talk about how awful it is that they changed the lyrics to this particular song, especially since they changed them to sing the praises of corporate banking and making money. I could write about these things, but I want to post something else. Instead I will just say this: Did they actually get a standing ovation?

"Duty is the pilot light of passion."

Bart Campolo, who writes down his thoughts, conveniently enough, over at http://www.batcampolo.com, has left up a really brief but really important post about the place of duty and passion in our daily lives.

He writes that "Passion waxes and wanes…motives are always mixed…but the kid still needs to get tutored, the old lady still needs a visit, the food still needs to be delivered. Do the right thing anyway, out of duty…and sometimes, in the midst of the dutiful act, the kid ‘gets it’, the old lady feels loved, the hungry delight in being fed, and in that moment of secondhand joy, something goes off in your heart and reminds you of why you thought this stuff was so important way back when you were passionate…and you are again."

I think that this sums up something that I have been thinking about in my own life, and a struggle that I have from time to time about the decisions that I make and the work that I do.
The thing is, I am passionate about a lot of things. One of the things I am most passionate about is justice. I always have been as far as I can tell. This passion has brought me to a lot of interesting places, and into a lot of interesting situations. I am blessed to have such a passion and to be able to share it with those around me (whether they want me to or not).

There's a big problem with this, however, and Bart hits the nail right on the head. Passion can make us do something initially, but it is almost always insufficient to make us see that thing through to the end. Passion can give us a conviction that we ought to do something, but it cannot make us do it when we just don't feel like it that day. In other words, passion often fades when it is confronted with the often gritty reality of daily life.

I have certainly found this to be true in my own life, and it continues to be true here in Agua Prieta. In theory I love the work that I am doing, and the work that I have chosen to do, but in practice it can seem more like torture than a calling. There are days, sometimes weeks, where I find myself wishing to be someplace else with some other people, doing something a lot more, well, a lot more normal. I think a lot of these feelings are pretty natural. The truth is, I love a lot of the things I have left behind. I love A LOT of people who are not here with me, and who would make my life that much more enjoyable if they were. And I can't escape the fact that I have chosen what is often a really hard job, and a really hard way of life. I don't always have a lot of time or money or freedom of choice. I don't live in the culture, or the country, in which I was brought up. I can't do many of the things that make me happy or feel relaxed. But it is a way of life I believe in. And I also can't escape the fact that, all of this excluded, everyone, at one point or another, wishes their lives were different in some way.

Ultimately, this is my choice, and I really like doing it, but sometimes I keep on doing it not because I want to, but because it is the commitment I have made. Bart is right when he says that duty is the pilot light of passion. More often that not I find myself really enjoying what I am doing, even if it didn't seem like I would. I do things out of duty that end up fueling the original passion that I had. I attribute this to a generous and loving God, but I trust that doesn't surprise anyone. In my present season of life I have agreed to do a specific job for a specific period of time, and I imagine that I am being prepared for a future without a forseeable ending and with fewer boundaries and guidelines. I expect I will have passion for what I am doing in future seasons of my life, but I also expect that I will need a sense of duty and commitment to carry them through to whatever end.

I have experienced both duty and passion today, I pray you have as well.

Dear Minutemen: Those Tanks Don't Pay for Themselves.

Sitting in front of me, right next to my keyboard and a "Happy Secretary's Day" commemorative coffee mug, is a nice little copper colored bullet. I'm not sure what caliber it is as I have limited experience with small arms (and very little experience with any real guns to be honest), but as far as I can tell it is probably the spent shell of a .38. This bullet was given to me on Wednesday by a woman I work with. It was found in the desert outside of Naco, Sonora where it was embedded in the plastic of one of the water tanks used by Agua Para la Vida. Apparently another tank had been shot as well, but that was done with a shotgun and so no bullets were recovered. I have been told that the tanks we sent to replace the ones that were shot have had their taps stolen, rendering them useless.

Agua Para la Vida is an organization very close to my heart. I spend at least one solid day a week out in the desert with the water truck making sure that our tanks don't go dry. Agua Para la Vida is a good thing. It is a coalition of groups including Frontera de Cristo (where I work), CRREDA (a Mexican drug and alcohol rehabilitation center), No More Deaths ( an umbrella organization combatting deaths on the U.S./Mexican border), and Healing Our Borders (a local NGO), among others. The idea behind Agua Para la Vida is pretty simple. Basically, over the past several years, hundreds of people here in Cochise County, and thousands of people nationally, have died in the deserts as they were attempting to cross into the United States without documentation. These people have died, and continue to die, of both exhaustion and hypothermia, but primarily they have been dying of dehydration.

Agua Para la Vida, literally Water for Life, tries to address this problem by leaving tanks of water out in the desert outside of the Mexican towns of Agua Prieta and Naco. The goal of Agua Para la Vida is to have water available to migrants who are thinking about crosssing so that they do not suffer from dehydration, or to migrants who have become lost and are in need of water. While there is a legitimate argument to be made that we aid in illegal immigration, our goal is strictly to prevent further deaths. I'm not talking about dangerous criminals here, I'm talking about men, women, and children.

We put out the tanks and fill them with water to stop people from dying. Someone shot two of those tanks. Should I read these actions as support by the shooter(s) for people dying in the desert? Despite the title of the post, I am not going to accuse anyone of doing this. I have my suspicions, but nothing even close to something resembling proof. Plus, let's face it, there are a lot of people wandering around out there in the desert with guns. I will say this, however: the two tanks that were shot are the only tanks that we have which are easily visible from the United States, and are in fact only about twenty or thirty feet away from the border.

Isn't it usually considered war when one country shoots at another one?

Friday Picture/Meghan/Puppy Blogging

Umm, these pictures aren't really going to help you understand my life that much better, but they sure are cute.

This is Estrella, Mark and Miriam's puppy. I love her.



This is Meghan, my fellow intern and partner in crime. She is neat.



This is a totally appropriate bumper sticker that I saw the other day. I am in fact reading Pride and Prejudice RIGHT NOW. Yeah, the hair's a little out of control.

Three posts in one day? This is sooo worth it.

I am in love.

Dear family, if you are considering getting me a Christmas present, this one would be a good bet.
I have some of these songs already, but not nearly all of them, and not in such spectacular packaging.

Link to buy: http://www.asthmatickitty.com/music.php?releaseID=63

Shameless? Perhaps. Effective? God I hope so.

For the rest of you, head over to that link as well to stream those songs. Sufjan and Christmas are such wonderful bedfellows.

Seriously, what are the chances of this?

My dear sponsee Cathy, who I have a deep love for, informed me via the miracle that is the facebook that I have something of a doppleganger here on the old world-wide-web.

Apparently if you visit http://www.throughtincansandstring.blogpsot.com you get quite a different little website than the one you find here.

This is the actual description of the site:
"A mega-site of Bible, Christian and religious information and studies; including, audio and written KJV Bible, churches, doctrine, links, news, prayer, prophecy, sermons, spiritual warfare, statistics & tracts. Features Chronological 4 Gospels, Prayer Book, Prophecy Bible, and a photo
tour of Israel. By God's mercy, one of the largest Bible-centered sites on the web (app. 6000 pgs). If it's in the Bible, it should be on this site."

Now, based on the fact that I am a bit of a self-proclaimed Godbag already (read a few posts below) and the fact that the difference between this link and my own is the change of blogspot to blogpsot, I have a feeling that there is some sort of tomfoolery at work here. I promise a full investigation. If I have the time. Maybe.

Oh hell, I'll probably just laugh about it some more.

That's My Representative!

Via Jim Marshall over at Talking Points Memo I bring you this incredible clip of my very own Representative Marilyn Musgrave.



I didn't actually get the chance to vote against her, as they sent my absentee ballot to the wrong place and my dad had to fill it out for me (shhh...I think that's against the law), but Bryce Perica, a true gentleman and scholar has promised to send some satisfaction my way when he votes against her. Thanks Bryce.

Paz Sea

I've been having a pretty great week so far, which is a relief because last week was probably one of the most difficult since I have been here.

I spent what was a pretty relaxed weekend puttering around a book/record/organic clothing store in Bisbee, and taking a group of high school students from New Mexico out into the desert with a group of recovering drug addicts from Mexico. I would include both of these on my top 50 favorite things to do in life.

I also spent the weekend persistently harassed by various law enforcement agencies, which has become an increasingly large problem in my life. On an average day in college, where I rarely drove, or an average day in Longmont, where I drove quite often, my encounters with law enforcement were brief at best, often little more than a passing glimpse of a squad car, and a quick check to make sure I wasn't doing more than ten miles per hour over the limit. Here on the border guys with guns have become a fairly constant part of my everyday existence.

Here's a case study over the course of a weekend:

Thursday- Stopped in the desert by a patrol from the Mexican Army, complete with hummer and rifles.

Friday- Stopped by U.S. Customs and Immigration at the border for a check on my identification, citizenship, and criminal record.

Saturday- Stopped in the desert once more by the same Mexican Army patrol. Questioned more thoroughly about why we were there. Questioned by U.S. Customs and Officials at the border where my car was searched. Stopped by U.S. Border Patrol on the highway because my rear lights were not working. Asked about my citizenship.

Sunday- Stopped by U.S. Customs and Immigration at the border and questioned about my citizenship, residency, and status of my identification cards.

I suppose that a logical response to all of this law enforcement could be a feeling of overall safety and security. Outside of Baghdad this has got to be the most heavily patrolled U.S. territory in the world. The thing is, safety and security is not really the feeling that I get. Instead I find myself becoming increasingly paranoid, scared of these officials. I often feel like I am about to be arrested for something even though I have done nothing wrong.

To explain this I have to go back a little bit and say something about immigration and border policy. In order to combat the twin scourges of illegal immigration and illegal drug smuggling the U.S. government has granted a wide range of powers to a large number of law enforcement agencies. Border Patrol trucks are everywhere in Douglas, along with Customs trucks, Police cruisers, National Guard vehicles, and Cochise County Sherrif SUV's. The County Sherrif's officers are particularly intimidating because instead of shotguns they carry AK-47's. There are Blackhawk Helicopters. There are cameras. And believe it or not, they are watching.

The other day a friend crossed the border and gave his ID to the U.S. Customs and Border Official. "Mr. Bassett," he said, "Where do you work sir?" With Just Coffee, my friend replied. "I already knew that," the agent sneered, "Your name was included in a recent intelligence update." Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up.

For a while I have been comforting myself by saying that I have done nothing illegal here in the United States, that I am a citizen in good standing, and that if it comes down to it I have the money for a lawyer. I have told myself all of these things to keep the fear at bay. This is totally ridiculous. If I am this nervious/afraid/whatever of these officials, how afraid would I be if I wasn't so white/rich/educated/generally anti-authoritarian/working for people who would bail me out? Have we come to a point in America where the price of security is a state of fear?

I try to remind myself that I am not an American, I am a follower of Christ who happened to be born in America. I love some things about this country, and there are more than a few that I hate, but all of this masks a more profound and important truth in my life. I love the Gospel and everything that it stands for, and that's where my allegiance should be. This does not mean that I ignore the clear benefits I receive from citizenship, or somehow reduce my responsibility for seeking justice in the land of my birth, but it does mean that ultimately this place is not my home.

And I have begun thinking about something else as well. At the end of John's biography on the life of Jesus, after his death and resurrection, Jesus meets with his disciples in a house where they are hiding from the Jewish authorities. In this time of persecution, and among a great deal of fear, Jesus's words to his followers are simple and clear: Paz sea con ustedes. Peace be unto you. From now on I have decided to live like I believe what he said. In the presence of guns I'm going to live at peace. Peace be unto you as well.

Careful What You Ask For

Inspiration has struck in a most unexpected way.

A large part of my job here in Mexico is helping to coordinate and spending time at the Migrant Resource Center. The MRC is on the Mexican side of the border in a shopping center that you walk past just after crossing over from the United States. It was created by a colatition of organizations, including Frontera de Cristo, No More Deaths, and others, but is now run largely by Frontera and the Sagrada Familia Catholic Church in Agua Prieta. The point of the center is to assist migrants who have just been deported back to Mexico by the Border Patrol. Most of our clients are people that have been caught that day in the desert, detained, questioned, documented, and dropped back off at the border. Occasionally we get people who have been caught recently in the interior of the United States. Last week I talked with a group of men who had been stopped in Colorado for having a broken tail light and had been handed over to the Border Patrol by the local Sheriff.

The MRC is primarily an information center, a place where migrants can debrief their experiences a little bit, learn about their rights, and get a sense of where they are and what resources are available to them. Although some of the migrants have spent time in Agua Prieta before crossing, many are being deported after being caught elsewhere along the border, or never really knew where they were when they began crossing in the first place. These people are often very confused about where they are and are surprised when they learn the truth. We also document abuses that the migrants have suffered, whether by government officials, smugglers, or general thiefs. The other thing that the center does is to provide food and basic medical attention. Many people have been detained for long periods of time without eating or drinking anything, in addition to the difficult time that they spent crossing in the desert. Other people have blisters from walking, cuts from the mesquite bushes, or twisted ankles from jumping over fences.

On Monday night I was working the late shift at the Center with my friend Febe. At about midnight a group of migrants came in who had just been deported, including a very distraught man named Emmanuel. We learned that Emmanuel had come from the south of Mexico with an 11 year old boy named Jonathan, who was the grandson of his neighbor. Jonathan's parents were already living in Florida and had asked Emmanuel to bring their son with him when he crossed. Emmanuel was to bring Jonathan to Florida before meeting up with his wife and daughter, both U.S. citizens, in New York City. Both Emmanuel and Jonathan had been captured in the desert earlier that day by the Border Patrol. Emmanuel told us that Jonathan had been very scared and had sobbed as he was taken and separated from Emmanuel, who had not seen him since. At the Border Patrol station Jonathan's papers had been taken from Emmanuel and were not given back when he was deported. Likewise, the Border Patrol would not permit Emmanuel to speak with Jonathan or even find out where he was or what they were going to do with him.

On top of all this, Emmanuel now had no money, no place to go, and faced a surprisingly cold night on the streets of AP. After my initial reaction of sadness mixed with a lack of surprise and a great deal of regret about the actions of my government, I set out to find where Jonathan had gone, and how to get the papers that had been taken from Emmanuel back. Long story short, I took some swings and I struck out. An hour later Emmanuel still had nothing, and Febe and I were growing very tired. We discovered that the only migrant shelter in town that accepts men at night was locked, with no guard to be found. After a good deal of debate about what the best plan of action was, Emmanuel came back to my apartment, took a cold shower, and slept on my couch.

The next day we began the process of visiting the agencies, children's shelters, and banks necessary to find Jonathan, establish his legal standing, and get Emmanuel some money. After an hour of searching we found Jonathan at a center for migrant children where he had been sent after being deported back to Mexico. After three hours of waiting we learned that legally there was nothing Emmanuel could do for Jonathan as he was not a blood relative. After another hour of phone calls we were able to get some money sent to Emmanuel. We left him at 5 p.m., 17 hours after we had met, waiting for a bus that was going to take him to Nogales and some friends of his father. Jonathan will remain at the children's center until his parents or grandparents can come and get him.

That was a very brief, and very understated account of the events and actions that took place during my time spent with Emmanuel. It leaves out a great deal of information regarding the people, agencies, cultural realities, lack of resources, and legal procedures that we navigated in order to do the little that we were able to accomplish. My hope is not to explain all of that, although that certainly would be nice, but to give some context for my personal response to this situation.

Let me start by saying this: It is not love if it does not require you to change. I went to the MRC on Monday expecting to give out some coffee and burritos, direct migrants to the proper agencies, and come home by one or two in the morning so I could get some much needed rest. I did not expect to bring a stranger home to sleep in my house, or to give up my day off so that I could sift through bureaucracy. I did not expect for my life to be complicated. I did not think I would really have to love. And there is a sad reality that I faced about myself. Before I decided to bring Emmanuel home and involve myself in his problems, before I gave him some of my own clothes and all of my day off, after I realized what a tough spot he was in but before I really tried to fix it, I considered doing nothing at all.

My official responsibility to him ended when he left the center. It was a cold night, but I had given him a blanket and morning was fast approaching anyway. By many standards I had already come a long way to love him, already left my own country, already stayed up into the night to await his arrival, already called consulates and tried to find him a place to stay. But I had yet to love him. I had yet to change my plans, to alter my life because of his presence in order to better serve him. And I will tell you this: if Febe had not been there I might have left it at that. I am proud of the work that we were able to do, and that in some small ways I was able to help out a brother in a real time of need, but I have to be honest in saying that at the time I really didn't want to. I wanted to love, but I certainly didn't want it to be unconditional. I don't know how many times I have heard the story of the Good Samaritan and thought "how hypocritical of those 'holy' Jews to just pass him by in his time of need!" How hypocritical indeed.

Which leads me to this: the Gospel is hard, and it is not made easier when it confronts the daily indignities of life in a place like the border. What Emmanuel wanted to do might have been "criminal," but it was not unreasonable. When my own family moved to Colorado, a move instigated by the prospect of a new job, my parents left me and my sister behind while they searched for a house and began to form a new life. What makes Emmanuel's story different is that in this new global economy products, investments, information, and resources flow across borders with increasingly fewer limitations, while human beings are becoming increasingly illegal and unwanted. Each and every one of us who professes a belief in a risen Christ must answer the question "What does the Gospel mean when it is faced with this?"

When given the oppurtunity to speak the Gospel of love, I almost didn't. Thanks be to God for Febe who refused to give up when I would have. I feel blessed for the time I was given with Emmanuel and the things I learned about Jesus and about myself. And that leaves me with this: The next time I am given the oppurtunity to love, and I pray it will be soon, I intend to love abundantly, willingly, and joyfully. I expect I will have to change and I expect it to have a cost.

That's just sad and creepy.

Thanks to Ariah Fine over at http://blog.iamnotashamed.net/ for posting this video.



It's an amazing look at what advertisers to men, but mostly to women, and to our perceptions of beauty, reality, and ourselves.

One further comment is that this film was sponsored by a campaign launched by Dove Soap, a company that I would argue has been complicit in this form of advertising as well. Just something to think about.

A little musical update

One of the things that I really wish I had down here is a record store. Even a crappy one would do, but a great one would be oh so sweet. I do have Wal-Mart, but since I refuse to shop there it doesn't really help me out to much.

Enter the internet.

Through the miracle of the internet I have been spinning some pretty cool stuff recently. I wanted to highlight just one of those things, The Hold Steady.

These guys are fun and just put out a killer album. His voice takes some getting used to, but once you do you just can't stop listening.

Turn up the speakers and dance at http://www.purevolume.com/theholdsteady, but make sure you listen to Citrus before you decide they aren't for you.

"I've had kisses that made Judas seem sincere." Wow, that's killer stuff.

This IS Mexico, right?

So here's the deal:

There's a lot of heavy stuff going on around here. Heavy as in "Wow, I'm thinking a lot about death in the desert and global economics and massive drug smuggling." That kind of heavy. It's so heavy around here that I'm having a very hard time processing it, and as a result I am having a very hard time writing about it. I would really like to leave another serious post about the border here for you to read, but it's just not coming. If this dry spell lasts any longer I'll just force something, but I care about these things and I would really rather have inspiration strike.

Instead I am going to write a little bit about culture shock, adjustment, and delicious carne asada tacos.

To really explain this I have to go back to August and the strange relationship I was having with food. Knowing that I was coming to spend a year here in Agua Prieta I wanted to make sure that I got to eat all those delicious foods that I would not have access to in the next twelve months. High on my priority list were Ethiopian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and Chipotle. Thanks be to God, I actually got to eat all of those. The weird thing is that while I was gorging on these incredible meals the only thing I REALLY wanted to eat was Mexican food. I craved it. Nothing else tasted quite as good. At the time I thought that this strange occurrence was a good sign for the coming year. If I wanted Mexican food that badly I hoped that I wouldn't get sick of it.

Fast forward to now. Here's an unexpected truth: I don't actually eat Mexican food. Well, let me clarify that. I eat Mexican food, but not the Mexican food that I thought I was going to eat. Big difference. It turns out that the Mexican food I imagined eating was a strange combination of Los Angeles Mexican and Chipotle bastardized Mexican, neither of which really exists down here. So while I do eat a lot of rice and beans and tortillas, I have to go out of my way, sadly enough, to get some delicious carne asada.

Yesterday I was rushing around town trying to get things done, not an unusual part of my every day life around here, but made more important because I was in a particular hurry. I needed to be at my apartment by noon in order to meet the gas truck and finally end two months of no cooking and cold showers. The only thing I had left to do before heading to the apartment was grabbing some lunch. Since I don't have gas to cook, and don't really have a working fridge, I don't keep a lot of food in the house outside of some granola and a few Swiss Cake Rolls. Since this is Mexico, and time is, let's say, flexible, if I didn't eat before going to my house and they didn't show up until much later than promised then chances are I would be a very hungry Aaron. This has happened to me several times, I know to fear it happening again.

My friend Hermano Angel was driving me around town on my errands, an unusual luxury, and everything had been going great until the lunch errand arrived. He asked me what I wanted to eat and, having craved them for the better part of two weeks, I immediately answered carne asada tacos. I still hadn't found a good place in AP to get any and I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone by finding one and testing out the goods. This is when the problems started. The first problem was that I wanted carne asada tacos. There are taco stands in AP, but most of them specialize in tongue or head or chicken, really anything except for carne asada. We drove across town looking for specifically carne asada stands, which is when we encountered our second problem.

Taco stands in AP don't open until noon. AP isn't really a big business community, there aren't a ton of people supporting random restaurants, and as a result they really don't stay open all day. Lunch is also, I learned, not the traditional time for tacos here. Breakfast? Sure. Dinner? Absolutely. Lunch? No way Jose. This is when I just about lost it. All I wanted was to grab some delicious carne asada tacos and get to my house so that I could take a hot shower (you'd be surprised by how cold the nights are around here lately). Was that so much to ask? Venting my frustration I blurted out "Why can't this city just have any taco stands that sell carne asada and are open when you need them? In the U.S. you can buy pretty much whatever food you want from whatever restaurant unless it is really early or really late."

And that's when I realized how badly I was experiencing culture shock. My expectations simply did not match up with the reality of the place where I live. I expected Mexico to have carne asada in a plentiful supply whenever it was most convenient for me, and the fact that they didn't was just unexceptable. It would be so much better in America. I think I actually laughed out loud at myself. It's always good to realize that you are being unreasonable.

My happy ending is this: I got delicious carne asada at a reasonable price. I was late to my apartment because we spent an hour looking for it, but so was the gas company, and God willing I will have a hot shower tonight. Finally, I learned that what I imagined Mexico to be and what it is are different and I need to appreciate that.

It doesn't mean I'm going to stop looking for good carne asada that opens before noon though.