From “The Asylum Seekers: A Chronicle of Life, Death, and Community at the Border” by Cristina Rathbone
I’d been on the border as a kind of untethered and roving priest for five months by then, traveling on my own from town to town, meeting people, listening, learning, praying, and then trying to make sense of it all. I went with no real plan and was connected directly to no one diocese, or team, or office, which left me free to volunteer with agencies of all kinds up and down the border. This freedom had felt essential back in Boston, where I lived. I’d long been lodged there in the heart of a large and vibrant faith community made up largely of people experiencing homelessness, but that community had grown through relationships that had developed slowly, one by one, over the years. To begin with, and for months, I’d simply walked around, settling in under an alcove with someone for an afternoon of helping someone else carry their bags two at a time, from their daytime spot to their evening spot. The larger, more formal, and regular gatherings of the community had grown slowly, organically, and in response to the particular needs of those particular people in that particular place.