I have a confession to make.  I’ve been hiding out for a few years.  It’s been much easier than I expected.  I’m feeling a little like Jonah, only I didn’t get swallowed up by a real whale—my whale was a more comfortable, but just as isolating.  My whale was a nice home in Falcon, Colorado, with a nice paying-albeit-uncertain position dependent on federal funding.  Not super cushy, but cushy enough to feel like I was accomplishing something and helping our household, which, for the past three or four years included three young adults in college on and off. (Yeah, my husband Curtis and I didn’t think that through when we had three kids in three years 24 years ago!)

But it was my privilege to assist my children as they endeavor to succeed however I could.  After all, I have learned that love is lavish with gifts big and small.

I often worked nights, so I would get my cooking, cleaning and caregiving done, then work a night shift.  My sleep and life rhythms were all mixed up.  I’d hardly see my friends and too often skip church when I was scheduled Saturday nights and then sleep Sundays to recoup. On my days off during the week, I would run errands and shop till I dropped—it’s easier to hide while camouflaged stylishly!  Oh, I knew I was using my job as an excuse not to do the things that define me:  attend and serve more at church, write, connect.  I did enjoy my job, it was challenging yet fulfilling.  I made life-long friends in the incredible people I had the privilege to work with—all fellow immigrants from various nations. I was somewhat surprised, after having worked most of my life with Anglo friends whom I cherish, that I still felt a little out of place even among my Hispanic coworkers. One of them asked me one day what my ideal job would be.  I said, “Probably a position in ministry, but some place where I can be creative.  Maybe in a parachurch ministry or as the owner of my own nonprofit.”  My coworker replied, nodding, “Yeah, I can see you doing that.  I hope you get to do that someday, Celi.”

I do believe God has used me in that position to be a help and a comfort to my fellow coworkers.  And that comfortable home in Falcon was a place of refuge, too, not just for Celi-come-Jonah, but also for extended family needing somewhere safe to heal during trying times.  My momma lived under the same roof for a couple of years. We hide together nicely.  More recently, my youngest brother, Alonso, suffered a traumatic brain injury and I became his caregiver for an extended period of time.  Seeing Alonso suffer has been the most uncomfortable I’ve been inside the belly of the whale.  We were all literally and figuratively immersed in the darkness with him.

But what a privilege to be available–that God would use me in my hiding place to sit in the dark with someone I love so deeply.

I wonder if Jonah ever felt like he just didn’t belong, especially in the prophetic position in which he was placed during those precarious times.  God managed to find Jonah when he hid.  I’m no prophet, but God continues to find me in my hiding places as well.

Even when I’m not deliberately hiding, I’ve never felt as if I perfectly fit in anywhere.  I’m a sojourner.  I’m a light-skinned immigrant Mexican girl camouflaging.  I can blend in with any estadounidense (Spanish for a person born in the United States, i.e, United States-ian), speaking proper English with no accent.  On the other hand, I can converse with fellow Latinos in fluent Spanish about our similar upbringings and traditions.  I have one foot in each culture but belong fully in none.  People are often confused when they meet me.  Is she Italian? French? Spanish?  Alien?!  Not gonna lie, I’m often confused, too.

Who in the world is Celi and where in the world does she belong?

I’ve been in the United States since I was four years old but have only been ‘legal’ for 29 of my 47 years of life.  Though I received legal permanent residency or green card when I was 18, I didn’t become a U.S. citizen until January 27, 2006 at the age of 35.  My father brought me, my sister and my pregnant mom from Mexico to live in Two Buttes, Colorado back in 1975. .  My parents, siblings and I had to ‘live under the radar’, so to speak, for so long that we became good at being invisible.

I had no say in my fate at four years old, of course, but, frankly, I probably would have done the same thing my parents did for me for my own children to provide a better life for them.

What If I had never left Mexico? That question becomes a mind game I often play.  If I had never left Mexico, I would probably be dead, honestly.  I have moderate to severe asthma and wouldn’t have had good healthcare in Mexico.  Had I survived, I maybe would have gone to school until junior high, but probably not. The tiny village we’re from not only didn’t have running water or electricity, it didn’t have anything but a tiny elementary school; we were so poor, sending me to school in the city would have been expensive and unlikely. Being born into poverty in Mexico means you will most likely always be poor unless you leave Mexico. And there is no easy, legal way to U.S. citizenship or residency for the Mexican citizen.

I have much more to say on this topic, but because of the current political climate, I don’t want to just add to the noise or be contentious.  I know I’m probably not going to convince anyone of anything anyhow. But I will attempt to write and speak in love while trying not to be a resounding gong and clanging cymbal. My husband, ever my earthly encourager, says I might be able to bridge an ever-widening gap between two cultures with my words.  I’m not sure that’s my job, but I’m coming out of hiding to try to tell my story and perhaps broaden the perspective.

So, speaking of the current political climate…[insert deep, shaky breath here…]:  I confess I have been hiding out, as is my tendency and history,  because I suddenly felt even more out of place when some of the people I loved and worshipped with starting acting and saying unloving things about immigrants. I’m becoming more thick-skinned, but it’s hard not to take what people say personally.

Because when people say “go back to Mexico” they’re not just speaking to someone they see as an intruder, but to a little four-year-old girl who knows no other home as well as this one.  When people say “build the wall”, they’re not only expressing fear for limited resources, they’re talking about keeping out their own housekeeper, their landscaper, their farmhand, the craftsman of the walls of their homes. When people say “illegal immigrant”, they’re not just talking about criminals, they’re also talking about an honest hard-working dad, a loving mom, a gifted sister, a brilliant brother, a cherished friend.

Because when people say “you don’t belong here”, they’re not just talking to a stranger, they’re talking to me, Celi, a friend with whom they have prayed, who they have welcomed into their home, with whom they’ve broken bread and communed–someone who they love who loves them fiercely back.

Had my father never brought us to the United States, had he never forsaken the only home he’d ever known, would I still live in a two-room home and cook on a wood-burning stove?  Probably. Would I be poor and uneducated?  Maybe.

Would I be happy?  Yes!  Because if Jesus can find me hiding here, he would have relentlessly pursued me in Mexico, too. He had already called me by name even at four years old.  He didn’t and doesn’t care what color my skin is, where I was born, or my legal status.  He calls me his.

We are all just sojourners passing through, practicing for heaven and preparing for a wedding feast where all will be welcomed.

And I would still be a sojourner even if I lived in Mexico, because Jesus has made me a citizen of heaven.  That is the only birthright to which I am entitled.  For now, I AM the illegal immigrant, the intruder, the sojourner.  And so are you.  None of us really belong here, wherever that is.  I find great comfort in knowing we can sojourn together.  I hope someday all of you will, too.

With all my love,

Celi