When Stacey Merkt sent her contribution to this issue, she was in the middle of a complex legal situation, the outcome of which was uncertain. The details and history of her sentencing are included in her article.
After her reflections arrived, Stacey was ordered to report to the Fort Worth, Texas, Federal Correctional Institution. On Jan. 29, 1987, she began serving a 179-day sentence for conspiracy to transport refugees from El Salvador. U.S. District Court Judge Filemon Vela intentionally gave her a sentence one day short of six months so that she is ineligible for parole. She was due to deliver her first child within a week after being released from jail.
- The Editors
Being a woman, I think it's wonderful that it was other women who discovered the empty tomb, the resurrected Christ. I am not surprised at their perseverance, their daring, their commitment made evident by their presence at the tomb and its sadness.
Does such perseverance, daring, and commitment exist today? I say yes. I have seen it - in people from El Salvador and in people in the United States.
And are we present today not only at the sunrise service of resurrection but also at the journey, the crucifixion, and the empty tomb?
I cannot begin to think about the resurrection without first talking about the passion and crucifixion, without which there is no resurrection. When I think of Christ's journey, which included so much sacrifice and suffering, I cannot help thinking of the Salvadoran people. El Salvador - a country where war's violence raged from 1979 to 1992, causing approximately 75,000 deaths and more than 500,000 of its people to flee.
They are a crucified people. Many had no choice but to leave, so they sold their last cow or borrowed money in order to have funds for the journey. The journey to the United States was filled with hardship and danger. Continual bribes in order to continue north were the norm. Often women were raped. And what happened if they finally made it here?
I have lived in the Rio Grande Valley on the Texas-Mexico border for more than three years. The valley is a geographically isolated region, encompassing an area of about 600 square miles. It is 80 percent Hispanic and 90 percent Catholic. All too often this border was pictured in terms of "illegal aliens that swarmed into the U.S.," drug traffic, or a weak border and thus a "national security threat."
The realities of poverty and high unemployment - 40 percent in some places - often got lost in the shuffle here, as did the people. It is this atmosphere that most Salvadorans entered after a long and dangerous journey. And, unfortunately, reaching the border was not the end of their journey. Refugees were routinely picked up and quietly deported from our valley, many not adequately understanding that they had the right to apply for political asylum in the United States.
Where was the resurrection amid the suffering and sacrifice that they endured? It was in their perseverance, their continued reliance on their faith in a God who cared for them, who does not abandon, who will provide. In their faces of hope and faith, I saw the resurrection.
So many faces, names, and stories flash through my mind. I remember a Salvadoran woman, Anna, and her 19-day-old son. I met her in the mid-1980s. She made the journey while she was nine months pregnant - not a very wise thing to do, according to our standards. But Mary, the mother of Jesus, also knew such a predicament. And the war was raging in El Salvador.
Anna gave birth after crossing the Rio Grande River, right there on the riverbank. Later she calmly answered my questions, saying that there was no doctor, no midwife at the birth. She and her son were arrested by the border patrol and, after showing the officers the afterbirth - proof that the child is a U.S. citizen - they were released on their own recognizance, though they were unable to leave the valley. Anna's trust and faith in the living, not dead, God were reflected to me in her words, her manner, her example.
AS EASTER APPROACHES I THINK AN APPROPRIATE question to ask ourselves is: Where is evidence of our journey of sacrifice, crucifixion, and resurrection? I believe that we are evidence of the resurrection. We are vessels of God's hope on earth. We are the witnesses. "What we have seen, what we have heard, watched and touched with our hands, we are telling you" (1 John 1:1-3).
Many of us, as people of the First World, are not used to sacrifice, suffering, hardship. We easily hear the words "Christ has risen!" Yet at one time, to even speak those words was taking a risk.
We don't need to go out and seek sacrifice. We only need to be witnesses, to speak the truth. And if suffering or hardship come our way, we shouldn't be surprised.
How many of us have been called irrational because we advocate stopping the arms race? Or a communist because we wanted to stop supporting a Salvadoran government which killed its own people? Have you been lectured by someone refusing to take a leaflet on how you should appreciate living in a free country, when distributing the leaflet is itself an exercise of free expression?
I think of the many brothers and sisters who are imprisoned for praying on land "dedicated" to nuclear war, stepping over a line on an Army base, or for acting with compassion toward a refugee. Resurrection doesn't come without a cost.
In the time I've lived in the Rio Grande Valley, I have worked at Casa Romero, a temporary shelter for Central American refugees, then with Proyecto Libertad, which provides legal services to detained refugees. Part and parcel of it all was the never-ending task of education. Who are the refugees? Why do they leave their homelands? What happens to them once in the United States?
In the midst of this work, I went through two court trials involving charges of transportation and conspiracy to transport Salvadoran refugees to the United States. The first conviction in 1984 was appealed, overturned, and eventually dismissed last year by the government. But in 1985 I was sentenced to 179 days in jail after being convicted of conspiracy. Since this sentence was based on my having a prior conviction - which was subsequently overturned - a motion was filed on my behalf for re-sentencing as a "first offender." It was denied.
I have struggled to understand why I received such a harsh sentence for a conspiracy charge. Where's the reasoning? Where's the logic? It's so unjust. Yes. And so are the U.S. bombs that rained on the Salvadoran people, forcing them to flee. So is the situation here in the Rio Grande Valley, where refugees were arrested, released, then forbidden to leave the valley. The valley was a detention zone.
We live in an unjust world, one that doesn't always understand love, compassion, community, or the real meaning of the empty tomb. And sometimes when there is no understanding, no logic, there is only the leap of faith. That is when we too can be persevering and leave our tombs, be they the tomb of violence in El Salvador, or the tomb of uncaring, apathy, or fear.
We, like the first women at the tomb, can proclaim the resurrection and begin our journey toward justice and life, but not without risk or commitment. And when the suffering or the hard times comes, given God's grace, we will pray for trust in God's promise: "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you" (Matthew 5:11-12).
Stacey Merkt was an advocate for immigrants when this article appeared.
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