TRAVELING WITHOUT STICKS--and a hope for mercy

 From the Boston Globe, October 25, 2018

The title of this blog is Travels with Sticks and Spokes, something I started about a year ago to chronicle my efforts in getting back to a nice long walk--or bike ride--with severe spinal stenosis. Earlier this month I managed to kick the last big item off my bucket list with an 11 day tour of WWII European battlefield sites, in particular Normandy and Bastogne, Belgium. Recovering from an enormous blister--and the bruise underneath it--has set my walking efforts back. Or my back back. I am trying hard not to be discouraged, but that is not what this post is about. But first, bear with me as I take one of my infamous tangents, which, at least in my mind, is pertinent to the subject: "the migrant caravan."

From the Boston Globe, October 25, 2018

     In 2007 my son Brian, then 25, thru hiked the Appalachian Trail, a 2181 mile path that leads from Spring Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin here in Maine. He walked alone, making friends, and buying beer for everyone whenever they hiked into town. He walked with a 42 pound backpack (it had weighed more when he started.)  It took Brian almost six months, two pair of hiking boots, two pair of poles (including a pair that belonged to me,) two sets of clothes so smelly we pitched them, and a backpack of equally disgusting smell and disrepair when he got home. His food had to be carried in and his paper/plastic waste carried out. He got off the trail three times: 1. outside Winchester, VA so my sister Laura could pick him up, wash his clothes, and feed him steak and brownies, 2. in New Jersey with his new hiking friend "Earthquake" to spend July 4th with Earthquake's family, and 3. on his father's birthday in early August mostly to see his new niece, Alice, who was 10 days old. By then he was somewhere in Vermont and it was easy to pick him up, or resupply him in . He finished on September 11th, 10 days short of the 6 months of the day he began. It changed his life and helped him focus on his future, but that really is another post.

We were able to resupply Brian by sending him dehydrated food to predetermined mail drops. We had a dehydrator so we could boil pasta and dry it, which seemingly makes no sense, except dehydrated rotini weighs less, and we learned to dehydrate jars of spaghetti sauce to go with it.

I doubt that hiking the Appalachian Trail resembles the path Honduran and Guatemalan refugees are taking north expect both are long. (About 1750 miles from the starting point to the US border.)  Nothing external compels people who hike the Trail, whether as a thru hiker or a section hiker, to do this. People hike the A.T. because something deep in them demands it. I am quite certain of this. Why else would a 65 year old, overweight woman with bad knees bike across the US?

So what would compel a young mother with 2 or 3 small children in hand, or any of the other people walking from Central America with no arranged support, and, most likely little money? If you believe the fact based reports of their plight, and  I do, they are compelled by fear. Fear for their lives, for that of their children, the rape of their daughters, the enforced slavery by gangs of their sons.Or fear for a life spent in poverty. If you ever studied psychology  then you know fear is a terrible thing and compels us to do things we could not have imagined before it took hold of our lives.  I doubt that the people coming from Central America are wearing $150 hiking boots, or carrying a sleeping bag from REI, either. I doubt they have anyone sending them dehydrated spaghetti. I am not sure they even have a plan.

Which leads me to the point of this post.  A couple of days ago, one of my high school classmates, a person as conservative as I am liberal, asked a rhetorical question of his Face Book friends: "what should we do about the migrants approaching our borders?" It's a fair question, and one that needs a thoughtful answer.

The answers so far, not surprisingly, have dealt with the threat respondents feel to the changes in our way of life the migrants represent. I do get that.They were written out of fear.  Yet how many of my classmates are of Irish, Italian, or Polish descent? Each of these groups was feared when they came to the United States a century or so ago. Because of how they would change the social fabric, or the job market, or the language spoken by our citizens.

So yes, we do have to have a sensible policy in place about migrants, immigrants, and people like my Danish-British son-in-law who came here legally three years ago. That policy must also include how we care for children.

That said, I have an entirely different answer for my friends, some of whom consider themselves to be devout Christians. It is MERCY. These people have nothing. They probably have no idea that 1000+ miles north of them their plight has become one of the most hotly contested items of this year's mid-term elections. They probably care about hurting feet, sick kids, not enough to eat, or how to travel the next 30 miles.

I don't have to look hard to find the man whose treatment of others leads me to believe in mercy. His name is Jesus. Yup Jesus. Whether or not Mary was a virgin or he was raised from the dead on Easter--miracles I sometimes have difficulty wrapping my 21st century scientific mind around is not the point. It is what he did during his life that is.

Consider the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Approximately five thousand people showed up one day to listen to Jesus preach. They hadn't had lunch. When the disciples figured out how much food there was it was minuscule. Clearly not enough. Jesus said, "pass the food around anyway." And there were leftovers! Was the miracle that he made bread from air? Fish from water? Maybe. But there is another possibility, equally miraculous: people shared the food they'd been husbanding away for themselves. They shared so much there were leftovers.

Not convinced? Then how about The Beatitudes? Or Jesus's pronouncement that it would be easier for a rich man to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than to achieve the Kingdom of Heaven? Does this mean, because I am reasonably well off (even if I didn't win that Mega Millions prize) I am doomed? I don't think this was meant literally, but rather that those of us who can must share our wealth with those who have little.

So, while these poor people continue to trudge northward, let's spend some time actually working on a realistic immigration policy. And in the meantime consider showing mercy, and if that's not possible how about a little grace? Remember "what you do for the least of these you do for me." (Matthew 25: 40-45.

Here is the article that goes with the picture:

From the Boston Globe, October 25, 2018

by Mark Stevenson, Associated Press, October 24, 2018

 HUIXTLA, Mexico — Thousands of Central American migrants renewed their hoped-for march to the United States on Wednesday, setting out before dawn with plans to travel another 45 miles of the more than 1,000 miles that still lie before them.

The five days of walking in the southernmost reaches of Mexico — after seven days in Honduras and Guatemala — were beginning to show: Mexican authorities said Wednesday that about 500 migrants had accepted an offer to be bused back to their countries. Many said they were sick or exhausted, especially the children who toddled or were carried along on the march.

Still, the size of the caravan — estimated by the United Nations at more than 7,000 strong — seemed basically undiminished as the throng set out in darkness cut by occasional flashlights or the spotlights of municipal police who were escorting them.

Rosa Duvon of Cofradia Cortes in Honduras was pushing two baby boys, both named Daniel — a son and a nephew — in a rickety donated baby carriage over a potholed road at 5 a.m. Sign Up

‘‘This thing is going to die,’’ she said of the carriage, pointing to a wobbly back wheel. Still, she vowed to keep going.

In worse condition was Maria del Carmen Mejia of Copan, Honduras, who was already sweating profusely before dawn. She carried in her arms 3-year-old Britany Sofia Alvarado, while with her other hand she clutched the hand of Miralia Alejandra Alvarado, 7, who was also sweaty — and fevered.

Miralia ‘‘isn’t well, has a fever. Let’s see if they give us a ride up ahead. I’m worn out now.’’ But she too pledged to go on. ‘‘I’ve walked a long way. I don’t want to return. I want a better future for my children.’’

While the group has been discouraged by Mexico’s government — and prompted threats of aid cutoffs for their homelands from President Trump — they have received an outpouring of help from locals as they pass by.

Neighbors have supplied the marchers — many of them largely penniless — with food and passersby have stopped to give them rides in cars, pickups, even dump trucks.

Such caravans have taken place regularly, if on a smaller scale, over the years, but Trump has seized on the phenomenon this year and made it a rallying call for his Republican base ahead of Nov. 6 midterm elections.

Trump has blamed Democrats for what he said were weak immigration laws and claimed — with no evidence — that MS-13 gang members and unknown ‘‘Middle Easterners’’ were hiding among the migrants.

Trump later acknowledged there was ‘‘no proof’’ of the claim Middle Easterners were in the crowd. But he tweeted Wednesday that the United States ‘‘will never accept people coming into our Country illegally!’’

The caravan had advanced about 45 miles since crossing the border from Guatemala and the marchers hoped to trek another 45 miles on Wednesday to the town of Mapastepec.

Even if they eventually reach the distant US border, many have low odds of qualifying for asylum: The United States does not consider things like fleeing from poverty or gang violence as a qualifying factor.

‘‘I’ve walked a long way. I don’t want to return. I want a better future for my children.’

Nearly 1,700 from the current caravan have already dropped out and applied for asylum in Mexico and hundreds more have decided to return home. The numbers could thin further as people decide to take their chances in Mexico or strike out on their own.