Reign of Terror | Reign of Love | Random Reflection on ICE in Chicago

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For 20 years I lived in Chicago. I was called to the Bridgeport neighborhood and to the campuses in the South Looop, and in the end to Cicero. 

Whatever tragedies took place among us, whatever bodies in Chicago I personally marked with the cross of christ and chrism holding fast to the promise that neither life nor death can separate us from the Crucified and Resurrected One’s Love; whatever blunts lit mourning, tossed in with roses; tequila or holy water poured’ whatever grandmothers’ shed as we lowered a casket into the earth; never once did that mourning turn into terror the way it does when I see images of masked ICE agents sporting rifles, tear-gas and “pepper ball” guns. 

I have friends (perhaps mostly family members) who feel safe when they see images of masked men. Too much Batman and Lone Ranger for them? 

If I am being honest: this morning, I have no idea how to help them understand the feeling of nausea and mourning that wells up in me when I see the same images. I do not know how to help them feel the tension that overtakes my neck and back, how my toes curl. My legs kick unintentionally. My teeth grind. I’m no longer sure how to invite them into empathy by describing the pain and terror these tactics induce –if not for the actual targets of this white supremacist regime (those who actually really suffer) at least for me, because: I used to think that somehow (in that way) I could serve as a bridge; that I could communicate something to folks “over there” outside of the complexity and more into the images and story “as seen on TV.” And I hoped that that could make a difference. Perhaps in injecting some drops of compassion or “otherness” into their lives, I thought, there might be a chance that it’d “trickle up” or even down to those within their sphere. Maybe love would shatter even the most hardened heart. And if I’m being honest, well, sometimes it did. 

But this is heavy. And I’m not even sure why I’m sharing this this morning. But I guess I’m hoping that my perspective might speak to someone. 

⅔ of the “Alligator Alcatraz” inmates have been “lost” by ICE. They patrol city streets, Chicago, LA, Portland (?!), uninvited by local governments, a presence forced in by a party that used to talk about “states’ rights.” But this isn’t about contradiction. It’s about power. 

Humans, neighbors, people who are loved, parents, are disappeared, ripped away from homes and relationships. Killed. “LOST?!?!?!” Shit, friends. Shit. 

What does it take? 

To empathize? What does it take to demonstrate that this is nauseating, painful, dreadful, life-taking, terrorizing to your neighbbors and (if that is not enough) even to people you love? 

And if I may wear my pastor hat: 

What does it take (Christains) to see that, where those who welcome strangers entertain angels (Hebrews 13:2), whatever you do to harm any of these, so you have also done also to Christ (Matthew 25:40? This reign of terror is not love and it is not of God. And this violence is not safety. It is certianly the same kind of hegemony-reinforcing violence that was aimed at Chirst and the early Christians whose nonconformity and community made them targets. If I still spolke in terms of idolatry, I might say that the implementation of ICE is the worship of the Cross (the Roman instrument of torture that promised safety through the sacrifice of difference and hope, and not the worship of the Crucied One). 

And to gloss over it in whatever way y’all are . . . well, I don’t know what to say. 

Maybe this: 

Please. The heart of everything good we have been a part of together was compassion. Listening. Understanding. Adapting and growing based on the pain and the desires to live that we shared and heard. You know: love. Becoming. Etc. Getting better because we got together. Not anathemizing those who no longer fit the norm. But changing the norm for the sake of love. 

The heart of our shared faith is compassion, redemption. The resurrection of the crucified ones. For real. It’s image is the Feast shared, the multitudes singing and sharing bread and fishes and joy. It’s answer is not guns but redemption, reunion, concilation, and relation, the building of banquet tables from toppled prison walls. 

At least that’s what stuck for me. 

We never chanted anything about anyone being “locked up.” Lord, have mercy. But: remember when we used to sing “Break every chain?” Or “The Love Round?” “Love all humankind as you would love yourself?” Remember when you sang it like you meant it. If you’re down, I’m open to singing it again. 

That’s all I’ve got for you this morning. No editing here. Just words that needed to get out. 

And now it’s back to work for me.

 But our shared work: as society, as people of faith, is ongoing. And I don’t know… I guess to quote the prolific and most profound Mason Jennings, “What do we got if we ain’t got love.” 

Nothing. 

Nothing at all.