The church service ended and I rushed to the parking lot in a desperate quest to reach the safety of solitude before I burst. Once home, I watched my favorite comfort movie (You’ve Got Mail), took a self-pity power nap, anger-baked two dozen strawberry basil cupcakes, wept until my nasal cavity buzzed from the strain, wrapped a quilt around myself when I couldn’t find my coat and walked around the block in the crisp November air, and finally emailed a friend to confess I was feeling a bit “topsy-turvy.”
My father died in 1994. The day of his funeral was significant for me. Not because of my loss, but because that was the day my sisters confronted the remaining men in our family, my two brothers and me. We had gathered for a meal after the service and social time with friends and extended family. When the meal was finished and the second cups of coffee were poured, the brothers got up from the table and began to make our way to the living room as the men usually did after a family meal.
My sisters, not my blood sisters (I don't have any of those), but my soul sisters and I visited an art museum together last spring. When I'm around these two beautiful women, I feel heard. I feel known. There is no pretense and no anxiety. These two women possess the kind of deep soul beauty that comes from years of belonging to Christ.
I poured my life out in volunteer ministry and was halfway through seminary, but there was still no sign that I would ever be in vocational ministry. Worse yet, I was beginning to believe the thoughts that lingered in the corners of my mind—that maybe there was no place for my gender in vocational ministry, and even if there was, I didn’t have what it takes.
Bringing Zack to church was the most challenging hour of my weekly routine. It meant that he had to sit and be quiet. Leaving him in the nursery was impossible, unless I stayed with him, which defeated the purpose. Skipping church altogether wasn’t a good option either: I was a pastor’s spouse (and a pastor myself, taking time off to stay at home), and I deeply believe in the value of raising children within a church community. And so, week after week, we sat. And, while most church members were unfailingly kind and helpful, I could never quite find a way to sit with my own anxiety.
This piece is delves into the moral, ethical, and biblical ramifications of the current practice in the United States of separating immigrant parents from their children. In it, we include reflections on the plight of children in the Old Testament; the plight of families in the Western hemisphere; and the ways in which Jesus, a Messiah who saw the suffering of families, stretched his followers’ moral imaginations.
