8/11/22

By Josh Rubin

Those of you still following this group may have noticed that, pinned to the top, there is an announcement of what we are calling a JOURNEY FOR JUSTICE. The details will continue to flow as our plans firm up.

The Journey is an auto caravan, a pilgrimage of sorts along the line that is drawn and enforced between two countries, and also between hope and despair. As conditions worsen south of our border, as well as in many parts of the world, people make their way to this southern border in the hopes that they will be able to save themselves and their families from dire fate. As they do this, our immigration policies respond by etching the line we have drawn deeper into the land, raising walls and defenses against the flow of humanity.

The line is arbitrary. At times in recent history, the line was further north. At other times the line was blurred, and passage from one side to the other not difficult. Before Europeans arrived there were no lines save the rivers and the oceans and the mountains. Oh, there were even then disputes over territory. But today you will scarcely find a map that does not incise the borderlines with special dots and dashes, highlighted with color, almost as if the ball of rock we live on had deep faults, profound separations. As if those on one side live in a different world from those on the other.

The division is both true and false, deep and meaningful on the one hand, shallow on the other. But one thing is certain: the border tells us many things about who we are. And while we travel along the line, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, we will breathe the dust of division along the line. We will see the markers we have blazed into the earth, the looming walls and towers. The line will fade in some places, and we will taste the faith of those that struggle against the inequality and brutality.

And we will look up, above it all, and see the unbroken sky, seamless and untouched.