One thought that has recurred in my mind this advent is the fact that the one whose birthday we celebrate, the feast which practically means so much for most of the western world, Christmas which means so much to so many in so many different ways is actually the celebration of a migrant birth!!
That Jesus was born outside his own home, his own parent's house, that too in a stable, a lowly place considered fit only for domestic animals, is so often repeated in our sermons and reflections, but we can sum it all into one word: being a migrant, a refugee, a stranger in a lowly and lonely place. Amazingly we celebrate this birth with such great festivities, yet choose not to be disturbed by the way we treat the stranger and the lonely, the 'other'.
Not just the child Jesus, but practically every other Biblical character was a refugee, a migrant at some crucial point of his or her life, if not the entire life itself: Abraham was on the move, after he thought he had set his roots, Moses had to flee from his brother, Joseph was sold into slavery and imprisoned in Egypt... why, even Adam was evicted from his first home, by none other than God himself!!
While there are numerous generous and noble people today (as in times before) who open their hands and hearts to the migrants and refugees, it is alarming to see the modern world speckled with countless refugee camps and agonising immigration processes that dehumanise persons - most often, in the name of securing the dignity of other human beings.
So I ask myself, how justified am I everytime I claim something as 'mine'... my land, my home, my property, my inheritance, my rights... what is the cost of making something 'mine'? Can there be a 'mine' wherein the other is not denied 'his'? How do I happily make the journey from 'mine' to 'ours'?
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