“Border Church” by Dan Grossman

Maria Theresa Fernandez, Seth Clark, and Robert Vivar at border wall across from the Whiskey 8 open air detention area

Border Church
(Tijuana River Valley, 32 32’23.7″)

Most of the congregants were migrants stuck 
on the other side of the border fence.
The priest, on the US side, told them what Jesus
told migrants 2,000 years ago, “You must 

love your neighbor as yourself,” before offering
communion. There was a weight to these words 
transcending all attempts to twist them. 
It was the Sunday before the election:

I thought I could smell the hate. But it was only 
the stench of sewage wafting up from
the Tijuana River basin. As pigeons

flew back and forth overhead, I put 
my hands on the warm fence bollards.
Hope, at that moment, still seemed posslble.