Bridges, Borders, Parking Lots & Porches

Todays special guest blogger is Dominic Sanfilippo, a PULSE volunteer from our first cohort in 2016-2017. Dominic served at Chaminade-Julienne High School and shares on the fluidity of life post-PULSE!

Many years ago, Marianist Founder William Joseph Chaminade mused, “I am like a brook that makes no effort to overcome obstacles in its way. All the obstacles can do is hold me up for a while, as a brook is held up; but during that time it grows broader and deeper and after a while it overflows the obstruction and flows along again. That is how I am going to work.”

In my almost twenty four years on this spinning globe, I’ve never been too far from water. It always stands out in my memories of the places I’ve lived, from marveling at the vastness of Lake Michigan, strolling near the rivers Thames and Isis in London and Oxford with a cup of tea, or watching the Dayton sunsets spill onto the Great Miami River.

I now live near different waters; from my balcony, I can see sailboats, catamarans, and naval submarines in the San Diego Harbor, and the sun sets beautifully over the Pacific Ocean out here, too. I moved to San Diego last summer after concluding my PULSE year to become the Director of Christian Service at St. Augustine High School, an all-boys Catholic high school in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego.

Ohio Governor Taft speaks with the Social Issues course in San Diego

Although I knew I would be starting an adventure at the time, I didn’t realize how much setting out across the country on my own spurs intense growth amid highs and lows- and how much living in community would prepare me for the journey ahead.

Most days, I weave back and forth between different roles: teacher, van driver, school Mass band coordinator, trip planner, colleague, office candy buyer, sympathetic ear, stern voice, cheering fan. My job has taken me up and down the length of California, and to sleepy villages and active volcanoes in Guatemala; most days, though, are centered around simply being present to our students in our chaotic, warm Campus Ministry office, where students constantly tumble in and out of full of questions, stories, laughter, tears at the speed of light. Their energy, enthusiasm, and wisdom never gets old.

Those who work in education know exactly what I mean, and I am sure our stories would echo; likewise, educators know that moments of joy, discovery, and growth in and out of the classroom more than make up for the occasional frustrations- and constant sleepiness and over-consumption of caffeine- that come along with the job. We are students still, too, for we learn so much each day.

I started thinking about what I wanted to write in this space a few weeks ago, while on our first Border Day of the term. On Border Days, we offer senior students enrolled in our Social Issues course a chance to get out of the classroom and encounter those whose lives and stories are tangled up in the messy, heated public discourse around immigration.

After opening the morning with reflection and dialogue, we load up vans and cars with water bottles, granola bars, and lunches and head to a Home Depot down the road in Mission Valley. At this particular store (and many others like it around the nation), men and women wait in the parking lot for an opportunity for work. Some have come from a few miles away across the border, originally hailing from Tijuana or a small town in Baja California, a Mexican region; others have journeyed from much further- El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela, Haiti, Africa- by foot, bus, car, rail, over desert, in rain, sometimes safely, sometimes not. We break bread with them, share names and stories, hear about their families, their dreams, their sorrows. Some are legally here; some are not. We don’t linger too long on those questions; for a few moments in the parking lot, all are welcome in this place.

The second half of the day takes place right at the border itself. We meet up with Border Patrol Agents at their San Diego headquarters and drive in their vehicles to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, one of the busiest land crossing zones in the world. With them, we are able to drive in the “in between space”; several roads (some paved, some dirt) and a few fences are all that separate the United States and Mexico.

The agents have complicated, full stories, too; they tell of the complexities of the laws they enforce, the small moments of grace and sorrow that their jobs entail, and how they try to build community in small ways with the people and families they encounter. It is easy to paint people with a brush, and mark some good and others evil, depending on our vantage point. One thing I have further learned in California is that people are often simply that- people, in all our triumphs and failures.

As I gazed out over the weeds, dirt, and fence staring into an outlying Mexican neighborhood from my American hill, it occurred to me that community had prepared me for this journey & these experiences in ways I had not anticipated. Our PULSE porch on Wellmeier Avenue in the Linden Heights neighborhood was not so different from a Home Depot parking lot or a dusty border road, after all; in both places, we welcomed friends and strangers alike to stay, sit for a while, have a lemonade or water, and share stories.

Dom with the #MP1 Community

Although I live alone out here, I rely on small lessons learned from each of my community members- Ellen, Sarah, Kateri, Ani, and Martin- throughout the day; each of them shines through in small moments and in unexpected ways, whether I am cooking, cleaning, consoling a student, or laughing with a stranger.

Our world is complicated. When we look through some lenses, and all we see is division, anger, and fear, it can make the horizon seem a little uncertain. However, in other lights, the world has never given us more opportunities to encounter and be present with one another. We are brooks, held up for a while; no matter, though, for our true and only work is to be human, to be neighbor, to live as the Holy Spirit spills across the Earth; and that can never be held up for too long. It is as natural as breathing air, if only we’d remember it.

All waters run true, and lead to where and whence they came. From the border road where I stood, the ocean sang clear and free beyond Imperial Beach, perfectly in view, beyond lines, walls, and fractured stories in the dust. It seemed to say, “Come, stay, rest a while. This is your home; this is our home. We are like a brook…”

Peace,
Dom