No room in the inn

The Christmas story, as recorded in Luke, says there is no room in the inn for the holy family to find shelter, and a safe place for the baby to be born. Throngs of people are in Bethlehem for the census. Traveling long distances is hard on a family. Traveling, only to find closed doors and messages that say “all full up here,” is not just disappointing, it’s disheartening. 
 
The telling continues with a baby being born, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Some say it was a stable, others a cave. Whatever and however it happened, shelter provided the baby safety and warmth. In the spaces between the words, there has been a small act of compassion that offered a place for this most remarkable birth to take place. 
 
People are travelers. We migrate, leaving home for whatever reasons, to find work, security, opportunity, safety. This is the history of the world. Most of us in America are not native people. We have come from Europe, Asia, and you-name-it countries far away. All of us are immigrants. We think nothing of moving from one state to another. We follow jobs, sweethearts, dreams. 
 
Yet we seem to have forgotten from whence we have come. Today, immigrants are demonized and treated with such cruelty it’s almost unimaginable. Today, they are met with threat and razor wire. They are put in cages, separated from their families, bussed to New York and San Francisco and Martha’s Vineyard. There is no room in the inn for them. Still, they come by the thousands because the pain they find here is less than the pain they live with back home. 
 
There is no question that we need an overhaul of immigration. We need legal processes and documentation. But we must find compassionate means of meeting this moment. Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, and Donald Trump are leading the charge of cruelty toward those who come to find a better life. 
 
How welcoming are we? How compassionate are we? How would we feel to be the ones turned away? Are we still a melting pot nation?
 
A lesson I learned in my childhood is illustration of how migration changes a place for good. This may be an apple to oranges comparison, still it speaks to acceptance and blessing when people receive each other in love and hope. 
 
I was in third grade when Dupont came to Kinston. A large migration of people came mostly from Delaware to fill jobs and start a new life in the south. I remember students who came into my class at Ayden Elementary. Some families located in Kinston, but in my opinion, the best of them located in Ayden. 
 
What a love affair the Dupont newcomers began. I latched on to families who were different in wonderful ways. My parents formed new friendships, and off we went into lasting relationships, irreplaceable connections.
 
I remember going to a friend’s house where her mother cooked dumplings with peas. We watched Life of Riley on Friday nights, spread out on her living room floor. She had the first aluminum Christmas tree I ever saw. I was impressed.
 
The mother of another friend made Chex mix. That was new to me. Southern delights in my life at that time did not include Chex mix. Now I make it almost every year. 
 
I suppose we learned from each other, that’s what happens when we mix and mingle with people who are different from us. The whole of Eastern North Carolina was blessed, as Duponters filled our schools and helped build the economy. They were good citizens and good neighbors. This is how we need to live together.
 
Immigration is a hot button issue. There are people who don’t want outsiders of any ilk to come among us. We act as if we own the joint, not realizing just how arbitrary border lines are. 
 
Finding ways to meet the migrations of the world may not be easy, but compassion needs to be part of our solution. We are making the hard life some people are traveling miles and miles to leave even harder. Shame on us. 
 
In this week of Christmas, a tough self-examination might reveal some of the causes of our problem with immigration. Are we afraid of being replaced? Are we buying the line that immigrants are “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood of America?” Assumptions that bad people come only from outside the US is dismissive of the ills of homegrown drug dealers and terrorists who threaten us from the inside.
 
When angels tell us, “Do not be afraid,” perhaps we should listen. Good solutions are not born in cruelty and fear, but in small acts of compassion that grow into blessing. 
 
Who knows what blessing will come when there is room in the inn? 
 
 Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com