Thank you for your wonderful support and warm welcome. I am so glad to be here, so deeply honored, moved and certain that God is up to something good here. I want to thank the board of directors and staff for entrusting me with this charge. And I especially want to thank Rick - for all he has done to bring us to where we are today, including sharing his dream with me. Thank you Rick. I will be faithful to the mission and vision of BorderLinks that you have helped to dream into reality. Having walked a parallel path with BorderLinks, I have known some of you for a while now. Some of you I have just met, and others I have yet to meet, but, as the people of Chiapas with whom I lived and worked say, I can see your hearts. That was a deciding factor in my coming here. This is an organization with heart.
Since some of you are probably wondering who in the heck I am, I'd like to tell you a little of my story. There are two things that will give you some insight into who I am. One is that as a good southern girl, I went to charm school twice. I knew Amy Vanderbilt's book of etiquette backward and forward. Charm school would help me to cross borders between classes and good manners were key. The second thing is that I am a product of a program much like what we offer at BorderLinks. The first experience gave me access to wealth and power - and the second brought me back down to earth and a growing awareness of who and whose I am.
In 1989, I was living in an expensive high rise on the Upper West Side in New York. My daughter went to the best private schools. My husband was a financial consultant with a big NY firm and I was working as a professional actress (which means I auditioned a lot). I found this great Quaker Buddhist Presbyterian church (I thought they were all like that at the time!) and heard they were going to an interfaith retreat center called the Cuernavaca Center for Intercultural Dialog on Development (CCIDD) in Cuernavaca, Mexico for a "reverse-mission, cross-cultural immersion program. I had no idea what that meant except that we were supposed to encounter God through the people-made-poor of Mexico. I had never been anywhere with Bible carrying Christians before and, although that was a little scary, I decided to go along. Like so many who have participated in BorderLinks programs, I was changed forever through that experience. I saw a model of church as an agent for positive social change and the Bible as relevant to people's lives. I came to realize that the model of rugged individualism, which I had internalized, was much less effective and gratifying, than working for change in and through community. I discovered to my horror, that as a US citizen, a "tourist", and Christian, I actually was complicit in the suffering of the people I met. And paradoxically, I found the more my heart broke open to the suffering of the people, the more capable I was of feeling love and joy.
I remember so clearly standing on the back of a flat bed truck that had taken us into a squatter's community. I was filthy and furious and sad and exhausted and I said, " I feel so alive!" My minister at the time said, "Pay attention to that. That means God is up to something." And I did . . . .
I returned to the US and quit working as an actress and sold produce for two years. I wanted to learn something about power, my own, not power given to me by the dominant culture. I went back to school and began to simplify my life. I attended my first protests. My daughter suspected I might be involved in a cult, I was so happy! She was relieved to learn it was only a Presbyterian Church!
Eventually, I discerned a call to seminary. I remember selling all my stuff at a huge yard sale, in which I made $7,000 so I could go to school. My friend who was helping me could not for the life of her get it, why I would sell my jewelry and fur coat! I don't want to sound like I am bragging or to imply that these changes came easily. They didn't. If I had known then that I would end up selling everything and going to live in Mexico, I probably would have had a stroke. But my story shows that one step at a time, we can turn our lives around.
While I was in school, I kept going back to Mexico. I couldn't figure out what this gringita who spoke not a word of Spanish was doing there, but I kept following that yes I had felt in the beginning. I hooked up with a women's craft cooperative and sold their stuff at my church. Half way through seminary I got a grant to study Spanish for five weeks. I went and stayed for a year and a half. I knew I needed to be able to say more than "Donde está el baño?"! Much to the dismay of my seminary professors, I insisted on staying until I knew what God was up to. During that year and a half I made my way back to CCIDD, the center where I had first gone with my church, and became their spiritual director and trip leader. All this made me even more uppity and when I returned to seminary I would never again be able to imagine ministry divorced from solidarity with people-made-poor.
When I did graduate, I was ordained to serve as pastor and director of CCIDD in Cuernavaca. CCIDD was a 80 bed interfaith retreat center, with a multi-national staff. Program participants came in equal parts from the US and Canada, faith communities, school and universities, and non profit organizations. Two studies we did at CCIDD gave significant information about the people who came on programs: Over half were taking antidepressants (perhaps they came to CCIDD as a last ditch effort to make meaning out of their lives) and 94% of those who passed through our doors reported a dramatic change in their world view. A study two years later showed a very high percentage had changed their lives as a result and reported feeling greater satisfaction and joy in their life work. This is the same work we are engaged in at BorderLinks and I would guess that if studies have been done here, they would show similar results. Programs like this matter. They seed hope in individuals and communities by creating bridges across difference, creating new understanding and appreciation of diversity, and even stronger bridges of solidarity.
After five years as a stipended volunteer at CCIDD, I began to get stirrings that it was time to move on. I dedicated one full weekend to meditation and fasting. I told God I was ready to let go, all she had to do was show me where and how. Nothing spectacular came to me . so I broke my fast and went on about my evening. I know, it doesn't usually work to expect God to adhere to our time lines, but I had reached that level of desperation and readiness, so I thought God might take notice. That evening as I sat down to supper, the phone rang and it was a friend who was in Chiapas, who said the UCC/Disciples missionary with the Catholic Diocese of SC was leaving and she thought I should apply.
I had dreamed of some day going to the mountains and working with some radical nuns, but I wasn't too keen on going to a war zone. But as time went on, it became clear to me that this was my next calling and I accepted the position. I would say that Chiapas was the experience that has most informed my sense of ministry, of God, and community. I was invited to serve as a pastoral agent - a female, Protestant pastor - among Catholics, most of whom were people-made poor of Mayan decent. I had the honor of working beside men and women who were Jesus to me, so courageous and committed, so determined to change themselves and the world. One group, CODIMUJ, a 10,000 member diocesan women's organization, met weekly in every community to read the gospel con ojos, mente, y corazón de mujer with a woman's eyes, mind, and heart). They believed that educating themselves about their history and culture, gender and religion was essential to their well-being and the well-being of the world. There were the Abejas, a group of Catholics dedicated to non-violent practice of Jesus, Gandhi and MLK, who, in 1997 were attacked as they fasted and prayed for peace and 45 members of the community, mainly women and girls and including 5 pregnant women, were slaughtered. Another group, CAPaz is dedicated to healing and transforming trauma. Melel Xojobal teaches a culture of peace to children who live and work on the street. The list goes on an on of organizations and individuals who work for peace and justice with dignity.
These are the very same people, who, due to 500+ years of economic, religious, and social oppression and militarization, are forced to flee their homes, their communities, their churches, their roles as leaders. These are people who are essential to the well-being of their communities and, I dare say, country.
Antonio is one such person. He is an Abeja and was present at the massacre and still was a leader who called for reconciliation (with justice) and peace, immediately after the killings. Antonio risked his life to go to Columbia, where he met with other leaders in the peace movement there. Antonio's son was coming down the mountain in a public transport one day, when it's brakes failed and it ran off the road. People-made-poor in Chiapas often travel in the backs of open trucks and have absolutely no protection in the case of accidents. Antonio's son fractured his leg in six places and was taken to a hospital in SC. There he lay in the hallway for five days without any medical attention, without even being seen. It was only finally when a priest came along and demanded that he be seen, that he was he given something for his pain.
The cost of his son's medical care was the equivalent to $7000. There was no way that Antonio, an impoverished campesino, could come up with that. So he borrowed it like many people-made-poor are forced to do, from a loan shark. You know the rest of the story. In order to pay his debt, Antonio went to Mexico City to look for work, and when he couldn't find work there, people say he crossed the border. These are the people who are risking their lives to come here. The vast majority of them don't want to be here. They come because they cannot sustain life at home. And what a loss it is.
I loved living and working among people like Antonio. But after the events of 9/11 and our subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I began to feel a strong call to return to the US. I saw a growing despair and fear among fellow clergy and church members, and I felt my time of walking with Jesus in Chiapas was drawing to a close. When I told the people of Acteal with whom I worked closely, that I was leaving, they presented me with a stole - Catholics who had been attacked and killed by members of a Protestant denomination, presented me, a Protestant woman minister with a stole, and said: "You came here to be a missionary among us and now we send you home to be a missionary among your own people."
I returned to the US without a clue about what I was called to - except to share the gospel or good news of Chiapas. My first task was a twelve state speaking tour for the church in which I was to put a human face on global economics and militarization and to raise awareness of US policies and practices in the world, especially Latin America. I called it my "stompin' for Jesus" tour.
One of my first stops was right here in Tucson where Randy Mayer, UCC minister (and now BorderLinks board member) hosted me while I preached and gave a workshop at his church. I told Randy then that I felt something stirring here, that these were the issues close to my heart - so he took me on a water run with Humane Borders, took me out to walk the same desert stretches those who immigrant take, and brought me to meet with Rick, who I had met some years before. But it wasn't the right time or place and I continued on with my tour.
Everywhere I went on that tour I met immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, often invisible to those around them. I was preaching about Antonio in Spanish one morning in Albuquerque and a man sat weeping in the back of the sanctuary through the whole sermon. After it was over he approached me timidly and told me I had shared his story. He had just spent two years getting to the US from El Salvador. He had been attacked by gangs at the Guatemala/Mexico border and all of his belongings stolen, including the paper with the number of the neighbor he could call to tell his wife he was OK. For two years, no one knew whether he was alive or dead. He was robbed a number of times, stopped to work along the way and robbed again. Finally he got here - broken in mind body and spirit. He had come to church that day thinking it would be the last thing her ever did but somehow found some hope in hearing that he was not alone.
It was clear to me that my work would be to live in solidarity with people like this, but to my complete surprise, I found my next calling while I was preaching at a mainly Caucasion, upper middle class UCC church in Rhode Island known as "the white church". This was my worst nightmare and about as far of a stretch from Chiapas as I could find. What was God up to? But they wanted to connect with the outside world and I wanted to learn how to translate where I'd been to their setting. I think I needed tofall in love with my own people again and to understand the complexity of the reality the live. Over time, I came to love the people and place, but not without a great deal of struggle on all sides!
TOne day last May in the early hours of the morning, I went on line to book a group from my church for a trip to BorderLinks - but instead of the home page coming up, the job description for the Executive Director appeared. It was as if someone had taken my resumé and written a job description. I sat at the computer and wept. I knew this was what I had been waiting for, and maybe was what I had been called home to. I gathered every reference together that I could get my hands on and sent off my materials to the Search Committee. Two days before I left to take a group from my church to Chiapas, the Search Committee called. I noticed an ease and openness with them. They told me they weren't a big bucks operation and I told them I wasn't a big bucks person or we probably wouldn't be talking. We laughed and dared to reveal our hearts to each other. It was a very good sign. One of the many things that impressed me about the interview process was that when Lauren sent me the draft schedule, I realized that there was joy behind it. I saw laid out on paper an interview/ convivio/party! This was another sign I was headed in the right direction. Then I came on the interview and met with every single staff member and volunteer, in formal and informal settings in which we could interview each other, and every person had a voice in the process. The interview process revealed a lot about BorderLinks, and I continued to feel a growing yes between us. For me, it has been a love match from the beginning, and that was long before I came to interview.
I share some of my story with you today because I believe it is our stories that connect and root us - to each other, to what I would call God, to all of creation. My story weaves together with your story. Our story is a part of a story of a global movement for right-relationship - for peace and justice. We at BorderLinks are portavoces. We carry the stories of the voice-less - those who might not otherwise ever be heard. Their stories are important too - essential to our story as the human race. I believe not only their lives, but our own, depend on us hearing and carrying their stories to others. Through them we are transformed and we can transform the world. That is what we are about at BorderLinks. We are weaving a tapestry, a beautiful, vibrant, multitextured tapesty of hope.
Many of you gathered here are long time BorderLinks supporters - founders, friends, former and current staff. You are our "elders". In the Mayan tradition, the community elders come in and sit down first, and men and women file past them as they are blessed with a gesture on the forehead. When decisions are made in community, everyone talks, with special attention that everyone's voice is heard and consensus is reached, and then the elders are heard before the final decision is taken. We have many elders, here, many wise ones, and we rely on you in the weeks and months to come, to keep us on the right track, to call us back when we get too far from the heart and soul of this life-work.
Some of you are new friends. Maybe today is your first experience of BorderLinks. We need you, you new energy and enthusiasm, your creativity and experience in other organizations. Every person here is important.
I have shared my story of how I found my way home here and my new ministry among you has been blessed, but this is really an occasion to celebrate and bless us all. We need each other. Each and every one. We need your support and after the closing prayer, will be passing a basket for you to make a contribution to the mission and vision of BorderLinks. It takes money to do the work we do and we are committed to a bi national relationship which promotes activism and advocacy around border issues, training and empowering leadership on both sides of the border, and supporting projects for community well-being and sustainable development. Please share of your time, talents or money as you are able.
You have heard many words this afternoon. In Chiapas, the people say we have to take the Word and lower it to our hearts, where we let it rest for a while before it comes back out through our hands or feet or mouth as actions or words . . . Let us join them in lowering the words to our hearts through a prayer that I learned among them. It is called the peace Prayer.
I invite those who are willing and able to stand, but you can also stay seated for the movements and even imagine them if they wish to do so.
Place your hands together in prayer position, touching the heart. In the Mayan dialect Tzotzil, the word for peace is jun (pronounced Hoon) o'ntonal, which literally means "one heart." Let us begin by touching our heart, knowing that as we do, we are also touching God's heart, the heart of the sky and earth. Let us remember that we are part of the One Great Heart.
Place your hands back to back. Let us put our hands back to back in a gesture symbolic of remembering and honoring our past, our histories and herstories, all that has brought us to this particular time and place, as individuals, as families, as a community of faith . . . We give thanks for the dangerous memory of all those who risked their lives on behalf of the marginalized.. We give thanks for our past.
Place your hands back to back still but turned inward with finger tips touching sternum. We give thanks for this precious gift that God gave to the world, our authentic selves with the mask. We give thanks for all our feeling that we each brought here this day, feelings that may not feel appropriate here. We give thanks for our authentic selves.
Reach your hands out in front of you, arms extended. We give thanks for our longing to connect, with our desire to know God in the world. We look around and see that in reaching out we make a net, a net that holds us, challenges us, and sends us forth in the world. We remember that we are not alone, that we are part of a world wide movement for peace and justice.
Reach your hands up. We give thanks for the sky, trees, the roof that keeps us dry and warm, the sun and moon and stars. We give thanks for the mystery, for all that we can never grasp or understand.
Bend and touch the earth. We give thanks for the earth, this living organism that supports and sustains us. We pray for the earth's healing and for all the people who depend on the earth.
Place hands together, thumbs touching center between eyes. As we touch what some would call the third eye, we give thanks for our imaginations. We ask to be prophets, to imagine a way out of no way, a better world amidst the pain and suffering of this world. We pray for vision that leads us to a peace beyond our wildest imagination. We ask to be prophets, to be aware of what is happening here and now and to always keep the vision of where we are going, the "new Jerusalem, the "kindom" of God here on earth.
Place hands in prayer position in front of heart. We look around and give thanks for each person here. We remember that we are not alone, that we are part of a movement for peace. We remember that we are one heart. Everything that I do affects you. What you do affects me. We are all interconnected. One heart. Jun O'ntonal.
Amen.
