After more than 2,000 years there is still no place at the inn — no place at the border. No place to unburden. No place to lay down the weight of misfortune or the yoke of repression. No place to rest the afflicted body and spirit that follows the light of the stars to a place beyond the troubled waters of wretchedness and hopelessness.
Desolate moments, inconsolable sorrow, petrifying notions and emotions of what lies beyond the river’s edge. Yet, the light entices, the thought of life among the free seduces and the inalienable human power to dream captivates the imagination and inspires the will to strive and to endure the indignities, humiliations and degradations that await beyond the river’s edge.
It isn’t easy to walk away from a life, and a lifetime of memories, and into a maelstrom of political, social, cultural and even fanatical Christian chaos, fueled by bigotry, racism, narrow-mindedness and shortsightedness. However, that is the American way. Tell the world to open their hearts, their minds and their borders to those seeking refuge, protection, shelter. Yet, we turn around and close our hearts, our minds and our borders to those simply seeking to be free, to breathe breath free. Our response: “Sorry, we’re full. There is no room for you.”
Humanity has progressed when it comes to gadgets, contraptions, widgets and gizmos of all sorts that make life comfortable and simpler at the touch of a button or the swipe of a coded card. We have advanced medical technology and skill to save and prolong lives and to repair the damage our advanced weapons of war inflict on the human body. And we have opened corridors of our minds through cyberspace and virtual reality that lead to the darkness of the human soul and the murkiness of waning human passion and compassion. But the one thing we have been unable to do in more than 2,000 years is open our hearts, our minds and our nobleness to the weakening and deteriorating plight of our very humanity and our failure to answer the knock at our door or lift up the fallen or the weak.
We have become the hypocrites of time. Pretenders, deceivers, masqueraders of the very perception of our convictions. Our faith, and our inability to embrace “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, (and) the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,” a contradiction and affliction of human greed and egoism. And during this season of comfort and joy, when we proclaim our adoration and reverence for the birth in a manger of a child and of a life and a promise that was supposed to change the world and make it a better place for those seeking shelter from the night in their time of need, we have forgotten the reason for the birth in a manager, for the trials and tribulations of the “only begotten son” and of the promise on a cross on a lonely hill, beneath a crying sky. Then there was no room at the inn. No faith in what was and what would be. No willingness to believe in the reason for being or the promise of being. And now, there is no place at the inn along our border for hearts and souls who only seek the chance to thrive among the brave and the free. But in reality, how brave? How free? How faithful to the chronicles of time, written in blood and tears, and forsaken hope and dreams?
’Tis the season to be grateful and thankful. ’Tis the season to give, the season to celebrate. The season to believe and to embrace the American Dream. A dream that keeps shifting and drifting, but never changing. Always strong, courageous and true to the spirit of our conception and the vision of our creation. We are the world’s dream of near perfection, despite our imperfections and limitations. And we must listen to the choral cries that ring out in desperation and desolation during this season of comfort and joy.
After more than 2,000 years, shouldn’t it be time to open our hearts, our minds and our doors, and unburden the weak, the old, the young, the unfortunate, the oppressed and repressed, and embrace and uplift the afflicted bodies and spirits of those following their dreams through the night and through the light, to a place beyond their troubled waters, to the promise begun in a manager, beneath the golden light of a star that still shines bright over this wondrous land of the free?
No place at the inn — no place at the border. Words of despair, rejection and dejection. There should be no place under the golden sun for the heartless betrayal of the promise to be or the promise to believe we are all children of the family of man, created to live, to share and to ascend to a kingdom beyond time, without walls, borders, fences or rivers, where no man, woman or child is denied entry or a bed at the inn, or a helping hand over the troubled waters that separate and divide one from the other.
This season. Think about it. What if it were you, seeking to live free, to be free, to feel free?
Al Garcia is a published writer living in San Juan.
