Hiding our faces

Why am I not surprised that we have been systematically ignoring the problem of children and families at the border, and the fact that many of them are truly asylum seekers willing to face jail or even separation, relying on the mercy of our American values.

I think it is because we have become so conditioned to ignore the great and growing number of homeless people that gather like cloud shadows among us, staring at us as we drive by with fathomless expressions on their faces, haunting us and disturbing our oblivious lives. The same thing is happening to them as we categorize them all as alcoholics and drug addicts - their untold stories are not being able to be told.

I wish there was a column in the paper of these untold stories so that we may understand and acknowledge the fact that many of these people are deserving of help, instead of being ignored. I wonder how many of them die on the streets without their names even appearing in the obituary pages. Is it a matter of law that they have to at least print their names? If not, it should be.

Or are they just missing, just like children on the border? Missing and ignored. Why don’t we have more funding in order to sort out these people according their legitimate needs? I hope there are things in place to do this or start doing this. If we have no funds for this and no sensitivity to have them, shame on us.

This is how evil is allowed to have a foothold on society - we begin to allow it. The problem is overwhelming, true, but ignoring it doesn’t make it better.

This morning I am analyzing a song going through my head and have learned to pay attention to what they mean at the time. It is, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord,” appropriately, an old negro spiritual. There is a scripture that goes with it: “He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him,” Isaiah 53:3. This is apparently where we are, grieving what is true charity and hiding our faces from him.

Francie Armstrong

Spokane