Today I had a surreal moment with all the clamor and clang in the news.
I’m at the Jackson International Terminal with all of my family and specifically my son and his girlfriend as they are leaving for a two week Missions Trip to Honduras. While we are waiting in live at the luggage drop off this woman walks into the terminal arm held high holding a sign. The picture here shows one side saying “We Are a Nation of Immigrants” and the side you can’t see said, “No Wall – No Ban”. She held it high the whole time she waited in the extremely long line, and held it high the whole time she was in the terminal. I do admire her upper body strength and the strength of her arms, as she made it evident her stance and position on the immigration debate going on in our Great Country.
The man behind the counter working with us asked me what the sign said as he couldn’t see it clearly and I told him. He was a gracious gentleman with a beautiful thick accent. At this point in life, I didn’t want to create any discussion or arguments but wanted two young people to get their luggage checked and get them on their way to a great adventure.
He looked across the counter, and said, “Every life is valuable, and every life has worth and I know everyone has an opinion in all of this, but as for me, I’m open to anyone coming to this great country…”, and then he lowered his voice, “but they need to do it legally – I don’t agree with coming into America illegally. It’s not right for people to come in illegally – I didn’t.”
I shared with him that of all my friends that I have, the ones who are the most vocal of their support for legal immigration, and their opposition of illegal immigration are those who paid the price of due process and obtained their citizenship legally. I personally have never met anyone who has gone through the process of legal immigration into the United States who believes borders should be open as many propose today, and that they in their obedience should be ignored. I have to agree with him as one of the founding principles of our Great Republic is ‘to establish justice’.
Again he had a beautiful accent and I asked him where he was from, and his face shined naming the name of the country of his birth, and it shown even greater when he talked of his love for being able to live and work in the United States of America.
Guess who took the place beside me at the luggage counter… the lady with the sign.
Neither he nor I wanted any discussion to turn into an argument so both he and I had a great time discussing his home country and its beauty not wanting to offend anyone. I’m not one who have ever wanted to be a world traveler, but his home country is one that I have always wanted to visit and he encouraged me to. His eyes lit up again as he described it’s beauty.
It was quite a juxtaposition of standing between two people with different views in this polarized time, and at the same time, about to send my son to a country that is in such need for basic necessities and more importantly the so many people needing to hear the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So here’s to the greatest country in the World!!! Bar none! Where discussion and discourse take place and hopefully we as a nation remember the Preamble of our Constitution…
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.