Sanctified Art Everything in Between | by Dr. Mindy McGarrah Sharp
Stones have seen a thing or two. Grabbed in rage, they’ve absorbed the shock of violence. Balanced in meditative towers, they’ve marked graves and birthed centering peace.
In an Arizona courthouse, I wasn’t thinking about stones. I was thinking about students’ passionate shouts and silent death stares. We had traveled to the borderlands to listen in a place about which there is much shouting and even more silencing. A most progressive student and a most conservative student grudgingly traveled together, carrying histories of screams and silences into that courthouse. In the pre-trial explanation, we heard that doors would open, and we would all rise. But this would be no triumphal entry, no cloak-lined path, no donkey willingly lent from a neighbor, no rejoicing. Just hand sanitizer and instructions: Silence! No photography!
We were entering Operation Streamline’s20 public gallery, the daily hearing where up to eighty humans are tried en masse for immigration violations. Since 2005, this has continued through Democratic and Republican administrations. Chained by ankle, wrist, and waist, human beings walk to a judge six-by-six, clanging, pleading. It would be over in under an hour, and then we’d go on about our day.
Unexpectedly, the polarized students joined voices: This cannot be! One quoted scripture: the Imago Dei, neighbor love, caring for strangers, remembering Jesus’ own journey as a migrant. The other quoted law: due process, presumption of innocence, amnesty, constitutional rights. Between stony silences and snarky shouts arose some solidarity. Together, they witnessed what we humans can do to each other and the lengths we go to make it all make sense.
Bearing witness complicates things. Divisive soundbites crumble, north and south get confused. But, stones certainly know the violence, graves, and peace prayers held in this sacred, desecrated land.
On a borrowed donkey from a gracious neighbor, on crowd-sourced paths accompanied by loud rejoicing, Jesus wept on arrival,21 knowing full well what we humans are capable of doing to each other. He rode right into what stones have seen: criminalization and death-dealing decisions, dehumanization and denial of dignity, disregard for expansive beauty. What would stones shout? What do you shout? What do you silence?
Reflect
Where is your voice needed now? Where are you called to silently bear witness?
20 Operation Streamline, formed in 2005, is a joint initiative of the US Dept. of Homeland Security and Dept. of Justice to prosecute immigrants entering or reentering the country without authorization. Streamline courts were created to fast-track criminal court proceedings en masse.
21 Luke 19:41