the challenge of immigration reform

"Take up the challenge! Become a maker of peace! Work and pray for reconciliation wherever misunderstanding, suspicion, and enmity prevail. Engage others in your church and community in study, dialogue, and action to prevent a resort to arms. Put yourself to the hard task of making up your mind about specific issues of "immigration" (my substitute)policy. Then use your influence to change public opinion and to influence governmental decisions. Dare to set your course toward the wholeness of the human family at peace and be bold enough to chart that course with faithful witness to Christ's way of love, justice and peace. For that way is shalom."
- From Seeking God's Peace in a Nuclear Age: A Call to Disciples of Christ

My friend Tia pointed this quote out to me in our Guide to Prayer Book. It is another encouragement to me to talk about and act on the call for immigration reform in the US. Last week I shared a devotion with my MOPS group about thinking about immigration from a Biblical perspective of hospitality. So as people who follow Jesus we would enter dialogue and take action from an understanding of God's call to be kind to the stranger and love our neighbor. There are so many stories in scripture about migration, refugees, sojourners, strangers in the land... I know this is a complex subject and I don't have all the answers to solutions but I do know God asks us to do justice, to loose the chains of oppression and love. So with that in mind I hope to learn more, to dialogue, and to take action for immigration reform.

I will write more - that is just my thought for today. There is so much more to understand: myths about undocumented immigrants, the fact that there is no "line" to wait in, that immigration law hasn't been changed in over 20 years, that the system is broken ,that families are being torn apart...

So I know this subject evokes all types of feelings in people's hearts - so I will write more...