not us

Church friends left yesterday, heading home to Canada. We had expected, and hoped, they'd be here a couple more weeks, until the end of March, but there were murmurs of PM Trudeau possibly closing the border, and they knew they had to get home lest and before. So, farewell and Godspeed. They've done the trip for years, know their way and their stops en route. Every year they leave again and we always hope for next year. So again.

The word border reminded me of something read some years ago, don't remember where it was exactly, of a town that straddles the US Canadian border, where folks lived and loved and moved freely sans any thought whatsoever, back and forth, here and there, across the street to chat with friends, down the block, like any town, to the grocery and home, the filling station and back, pharmacy and stop to chat. Then suddenly the border is fact not air, a fence, and to visit my neighbor across the street I have to go down to the official border crossing, and say where I'm going, and why, and how long I'm staying, and there's a sense of it that never was, a surfaced consciousness, uneasy awareness that they're not friends and neighbors, but Canadians, or Americans. Foreigners. It never occurred to me, but now I know we're not the same. 

What? Say what? 

Genesis 15:18 notwithstanding, hard borders are evil, not part of any loving god's dream; in our own God's creation, a human construct of blasphemy against God and neighbor. It is borders that imbed difference and suspicion and bring wars and hatred.

Creation First. Neighbor First. Make Humans Great Again.

IDK.

RSF&PTL
T+

small ship arriving last evening as we sat on 7H porch after supper