And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home.
I spent my childhood in the company of immigrants and
refugees. Dichondra and Bermuda, chlorine in pools; the neighborhood. Settled
in. Life in the San Fernando valley. Yet our parents still smelled the salt
water. Our parents; family names like Mitrevics, Oeffinger, Cardella and Fusillo.
Fleering other lives to live this one; leaving pogroms, property and riches for
the new world.
We observed like kids do. I told my close friend I could
barely understand his mom because her accent was so thick. “What about your
mom’s accent,” he asked with emphasis. I assured him that my mother had no
accent. He swore his didn’t either.
The accents are an echo of a land no longer lived in. A
home that day to day life keeps at bay. Comfortable at get-togethers. Almost
home again. Laughing in native tongue, breaking traditional breads; pirogi and
Rupjmaize (dark rye). At times; quiet, lonely times, the pain is palpable.
James A. Smith gives this example of what it feels like to be an immigrant, “You
lose something of your upright bearing if you no longer have the soil of your
own land beneath your feet; you feel less confident, more distrustful of
yourself.” What’s my takeaway as the child of an immigrant?
Freedom is a painful process. Hardship is part of the
process. Moving forward (a myriad of meanings) entails going from the
comfortable known to the questionable unknown. Always trading something;
cigarettes and soap buy the next border crossing. The journey isn’t about
escaping pain. It’s about grasping freedom—inching forward in small increments
toward greater fullness.
There will always be a transient tension; the homeland
behind you, hunger for all that ‘home’ implies ahead of you. Home is comfort
not permanence. Being home is having a sense of ‘place.’ In a broader sense just
as Jesus had no place to lay his head, he was able to find sleep wherever he
laid his head.
Be hospitable to strangers. As God reminds us in the first
testament, “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels
to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” By culture, compassion
or both the mothers in the neighborhood were mom to their own children and their
friends. They, my own mom included, often took in the outcast as well. As the
sojourner is blessed he blesses others.
By faith Abraham lived as an alien in the land of promise,
a seed of blessing to many. Freedom, tension, movement and pain are part and parcel
of the process. This is the transient tension, setting out then settling down. Losing
self, finding self, giving. Such are the lessons learned from the immigrants.
