This tension is a holy thing

During the early months of the pandemic, when people were dying regularly and COVID-19 was still new enough that some news outlets attempted to publish the names and photos and brief bios of the dead, I started praying for those who had passed on, most likely, alone. I searched through the news clips, read their stories, and closed my eyes with their image in mind. Energetically, it felt right to accompany these souls as they transitioned. Unexplainably, it felt powerfully healing. A loving gesture offered to strangers. My own heart space softened and expanded in the process.

But, as COVID-19 mutated into one variant after another and now the delta variant sweeps through community after community, that sweet spiritual practice has dropped out of my daily ritual like a New Year's diet resolution the second week in February. I forgot about it. I stopped striving to search for names and stories. I left the dying to make their own way into a peaceful transition.

It's easy to do. To lose the incentive to pray for and care about strangers. Not because I'm a cold-hearted person. But I'm human, and there's a weak, self-centered, displeasing side of me that I'd prefer not to own. But here it is. Sometimes I'm lazy. Sometimes I lose focus, especially when so many pressing "issues" in the news howl for attention. Chaos in Afghanistan. Earthquakes in Haiti. The number of refugees growing worldwide. Sometimes I grow indifferent or even impatient with the demands of people dying and suffering, even if I'm the one who has placed those demands on myself.

And now it's happening again. Showing up in something else that has been going on for a long time — a lot longer than COVID-19. Immigration at our southern border.

It might be easier to understand why I feel this way if people were crossing illegally on my property and trashing it along the way. Or if I belonged to a far-right anti-immigration group. Or if I were just an average joe watching too much negative news about an "illegal invasion."

But I'm none of those. Just the opposite. I'm someone who's accompanied migrants and asylum-seekers for nearly five years in El Paso, Texas. Someone who's heard a myriad of painful, sometimes horrific, stories. Who's seen the effects in fearful faces and bent bodies. And someone who's been graced a million times over by encounters with these humble, lovely people blessing me with their gratitude and faith.

It's been more than a year since I stepped inside one of our temporary shelters to accompany asylum-seeking families that have been vetted and are ready to move on to their sponsors. And now requests for volunteers have resurfaced. And I've willingly and gladly agreed to go.

So, why has this side of me shown up? This internal tension?