Can you Imagine being separated from your family?

By Libby Marie Hall

Do you remember that early 70s song Imagine? Please take a moment and listen to this song from John Lennon. 

This song has words—Imagine there’s no countries—I would like us to take a moment to ponder. Imagine for a moment how we would feel if our own children were ripped from our arms and put into cages like animals. I, for one, believe that God would not want us treating each other this way. It reminds me of that saying, “Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.”

America has lots of rules about immigration and I believe that we should be proactively educating people that are wanting to come to America on how to come here legally and honorably. Immigration laws in America are not the easiest to navigate. Helping people to understand the process of entry, and making that process clear and more just, also supports others that are taking proper and legal paths to citizenship. 

As a Church, we should be working together with people to prevent violence and inhumane treatment at the border, and advocating to keep families together no matter what. As the 22nd chapter of the Gospel of Matthew relates to us:

And Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Libby Marie Hall is the Social Action Coordinator for United Methodist Women in the PNW Conference.