Tomorrow I am headed to the Arizona/Mexico border for the first time, to what has become a bitter ground zero for our broken immigration system.

My traveling companion is Hispanic House of Studies director and Duke Divinity faculty member Edgardo Colon-Emeric.  Our guide is Max Cisneros, the modern-day saint I called “Desert Father” after I met him last October at Duke.  We may be walking the desert to offer hospitality.  We will be crossing the border to see and learn.

I wrote of Max:

“Throughout the abandoned places of America’s borders, a prophet walks toward a ‘new we’ among strangers and aliens as a living sign that the system is deeply broken—washing feet, clothing the naked, remembering the dead, offering water that others may live.  It is time to walk and pray with our desert father.”

I didn’t expect that I’d ever be walking with him.  Pray for us.  Max told Edgardo, “Bring walking shoes.  We may be driving late into the evening, sleeping under cacti, God alone knows.”  Now this is a pilgrimage.

About the Author: Chris Rice is co-director of the Center for Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School.  He is author of Reconciling All Things, Grace Matters, and More Than Equals. His writes regularly at the blog Reconcilers with Chris Rice.

Related Posts:

• Desert Father: A Walking Sign of a Broken Immigration System
• The Future is Mestizo: Beyond Integration and Diversity to New Creation

Also See: Watch the 2-minute video about Max, “Humanizing the Border”

Last 5 Posts on the Reconcilers Blog:

• Something “Beautiful” Out of the Polish Tragedy
• Learning from InterVarsity’s Long Multi-Ethnic Journey
• Friendship at the Margins, part 2
• On Turning 50 at Easter: If Not an Affair or a Harley, What?
• Final Four: Gotta Respect Duke