Migrants all
November 15, 2018 |
I've had a lot of disparate things on my mind recently.
I've been thinking of the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, and my German-speaking great-grandfather Calvin Sterner, the Pennsylvania Dutch grandson of immigrants, who awoke in 1918 among the dead on the battlefield of Belleau Wood, whose body and spirit were never the same, and whose encounter with death—he would later say—brought him to God.
I've been thinking of the hundreds of alumni who returned last weekend to a campus they hardly recognized. Dozens came to surprise Dr. Gene Beaupre, linchpin of the PPP program, by honoring his 44 years of dedication to the Xavier community.
I've been thinking about Fr. George Traub, S.J., and of his profound influence on my engagement with Xavier's Jesuit Catholic mission. Didn't know George? I'd be tempted to call him the Stan Lee of Xavier's Mission & Identity programs, and then wonder which superhero AFMIX would be. No: that wouldn't do justice to George's humility, kindness, and wisdom.
And I've been thinking of migrants, fleeing war and violence and hunger around the world, who too often find themselves pawns in other people's politics. This week two migrants, Norma and Juan, shared with me their stories over a Guatemalan dinner at Saint Leo the Great parish. Their reflections left me humbled, impressed, and full of unexpected hope.
Disparate thoughts—about movement, change, dislocation, and significance.
Then a novel called Exit West by Mohsin Hamad surprised me with an idea. A tale of migrants, it was this month's reading for the Diversity Learning Circle—a group of Xavier cabinet members and others who join Father Graham for periodic conversations with community partners. Monday we met with parishioners of Saint Leo.
Describing a elderly character whose neighborhood had changed around her, Hamad asserted something that caught me off guard. It helped me connect my disparate thoughts: "We are all migrants," he wrote, "through time."
Hamad, I think, is right: we are all migrants, some of us through space, and all of us through time.
