current events

Slo-o-ow down

/ njmyers / Leave a comment

Who would know that it is Saturday? One day rolls into another. Hey, it’s a bit like retirement! What does corona-sheltering mean for retirees? More of the same. Intensive retirement. Moving from you don’t have to do much to you can’t do anything. You thought you’d already slowed down a lot? Well, you can slow down even more. Those frequent trips to the grocery store and library, just for a change of scenery and stimulation? They’re not happening anymore. Dinner parties? Uh-uh. No church. No meetings. No spontaneous trips to see the grandkids, let alone flights to far places.

The effect of this diminished possibility, for me, is a kind of soothing inertia. Continue reading →

Help

/ njmyers / 4 Comments

I feel so helpless. That is the main takeaway from these days of rapidly shifting news. (Warning. This post may not be  helpful to anybody. Remember the line from the Marlo Thomas song in the seventies? “Some kind of help is the kind of help we all could do without.”) Continue reading →

Beware the Ides of March

/ njmyers / 3 Comments

Hello, Sunday!

As recently as last Sunday my husband and I went to a buffet restaurant, although we did wash our hands thoroughly after going through the line and filling our plates using the utensils everyone else had touched. I felt a bit foolish doing this.

As recently as Friday morning (two days ago) I went with Ben to rehearse the scripture drama we were planning to perform in the church service today. Before we rehearsed we greeted the pastors, who had just decided to cancel church services for the next three Sundays. Pastor Janice made a video of our rehearsal. Continue reading →

This was the week that was

/ njmyers / 2 Comments

On Monday at Chicago Midway airport we greeted “Ben,” the long-awaited asylum seeker we’re sponsoring, wrested from detention after more than four months. It was in the nick of time. That center near El Paso was being emptied out in preparation for a whole new batch of refugees coming across the border from Mexico. Hundreds of the previous detainees were being sent to other centers around the country. A few were being paroled. Ben got bonded parole.

Phew. He’s here. Just in time for Covid-19. Continue reading →

An extra day

/ njmyers / 4 Comments

February-29-leap-day (1)

I am fully appreciating Leap Year today. This bissextile day comes exactly when I need it, coinciding with a parallel appreciation that emerged in my psyche yesterday afternoon that had nothing to do with Leap Year. Or perhaps it did.

Somewhere in the course of yesterday I forgot that it was Friday and began thinking that it was Saturday. This sometimes happens to me when I am juggling a number of different schedules, obligations, or deadlines and feeling a bit under pressure. Continue reading →

The state of waiting

/ njmyers / 2 Comments

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to write yet another “waiting” post. I was hoping that something would shake loose and “Ben” would follow his friends into freedom. Failing that, I was hoping I would be able to turn my creative energies in other directions to so that I would find something totally different to write about.

Neither has happened, although something could happen any minute. See, that is the problem: the expectation that something could happen any minute. Not good. Continue reading →

Swallowing the stories

/ njmyers / 4 Comments

I have been learning gradually that what we are doing–connecting with an asylum-seeking refugee whom we have never met but who is now in detention, hoping to get him paroled to us so he can seek asylum in relative freedom rather than from prison—is kind of a new thing. No wonder it has seemed puzzling, iffy, and kind of ad hoc, with new developments at every turn. Continue reading →

Life in the sponsor lane

/ njmyers / 6 Comments

Sometimes when you are dealing with an asylum-seeker things happen very fast, sometimes very slowly, sometimes not at all. It’s stop-start rollercoaster stuff. Last week, for example, a friend of our guys who had been held for five months in a different detention center was suddenly sprung free on parole with no explanation. There is a welcome party for her tomorrow night at the Episcopal church. Miracles do happen.

Meanwhile, we and the other two sponsor couples we’ve teamed up with, because our guys are being detained together, have adjusted our sights to the long haul. Continue reading →

What is a sponsor?

/ njmyers / 2 Comments

Since we signed on in early November to “sponsor” an asylum-seeker who is being detained at the border, we have been learning what that means. On the one hand, you’d think such a relationship should have been clearly defined for us at the outset. On the other hand, it is not at all simple, so no one could have predicted that it would turn out the way it is currently unfolding. Continue reading →