Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

Hi, I’m Carmen Acevedo Butcher, and welcome to Learning How to See. We’re glad you’re here. When I was 19 and in college, I applied to be a summer missionary. My motivations were: a genuine desire to be of use to someone who needed my help, maybe to learn English, a hope to better my speaking of Spanish, a wish to spread the gospel as I misunderstood that then as a teenager raised in the Southern Baptist Church, and a yearning to travel, because I was from a very rural part of Georgia.

My mother made all my dress clothes as we did not have much money. My father was unwell and physically abusive, and I wished to escape all this. Plus, beyond visiting my Cuban relatives in Miami during summers, I had not been beyond Georgia and Alabama, and felt claustrophobic in my understanding of the world. My life felt like a prison then, growing up in three Southern U.S. states where women were not seen as of much worth, and my brown skin from my Cuban father made me feel like an outsider.

On my Baptist International Missionary application, I put down I hoped to attend law school, and I wanted to serve in a Central or South American country. At the interview, I was asked a whole lot of questions about my goals of being a lawyer, which made me realize maybe I really didn’t want to be a lawyer. Weeks later, after imagining travel to somewhere outside the country, the letter arrived and I was deeply disappointed to see I’d been assigned to a maximum security correctional institute for women in, of all places, South Georgia.

Only three hours drive from my college. To get to the prison, we had to take a long, dusty road out into the isolated, unincorporated community of Hardwick, Georgia. I came with the notion that the women there were different from me. And I didn’t know it at first, but on some level, at 19, I felt myself superior to them. After all, I wasn’t in prison and my community looked down on people in prison.

What surprised me once I got there was that so many of these women had experienced childhood or spousal abuse and had also been dealt an impoverished hand in life. One had written bad checks to feed her children, as she told me. I began to see the women there as humans, as I realized humbled, we had much in common. I visited with each woman on death row alone also, and one of them was my age. And she was there for life for killing her father in self-defense.

As I ate the terrible food there with the women, played basketball with them, worked with them, saw how criminally little money they were paid for hard work, and had my hair done by trustees in the prison hair salon, I began to see how life is a rigged affair. As Walter Brueggemann says, “God is mocked by an economic system of greed that does not notice the poor or the poor are excluded from the well-being of the economy. But God will not finally be mocked because God is in resolved solidarity with poor people.”

That hot summer when I was 19, my assigned partner, a nursing student, got overwhelmed and left. She couldn’t take the stress of working in a prison all summer long. Even my psychologist supervisor burned out, and also the volunteer prison choir leader quit. So imagine what it’s like for those who live there 24/7. I was asked to lead the choir. I’d never done anything like that, but I said yes.

They were patient with me, the women, as I fumbled around teaching them Ken Medema songs as best I could. One day, one of the women asked could they teach me a song, and here is what they taught me and the way they taught me to sing it, and I’ve been singing it ever since I was 19. [Singing 00:04:48] Their yearning, my new friends in prison, and their suffering and their singing have never left me.

As our beloved and honored guest today, Father Rafael Garcia, communicates in his stories of ministering to immigrant communities, seeing the humanity in others increases our own humanity and not seeing it decreases our own. May through the eyes of love we see the humanity in all those we meet. Amen.

Brian McLaren:

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Learning How to See. This season we’re talking about learning how to see through eyes of love. Now, I would hope in many ways this has been our theme without acknowledging it since this podcast began. But today we’re going to talk about seeing in our times when there are many people who are being taught to see through something other than the eyes of love.

And we have with us a guest I’m so happy to meet today, Father Rafael Garcia. And Father Rafael, thank you so much for being with us. And I wonder if you could introduce yourself and maybe tell us a little bit also about your connection to the Center For Action and Contemplation.

Rafael Garcia:

Good. Well, thank you, Brian for inviting me, and Carmen. Yes. I’m Rafael Garcia. I’m a Jesuit priest. Originally, I was born in Cuba and grew up in Miami, Florida and came as a refugee myself. I was nine years old with my mother and brother. My father could not leave at that time. Anyway, so I grew up there and then I felt the call to be a Jesuit. I studied architecture, worked as an architect for a while in Miami, and then entered the Jesuits.

And my first assignment that actually as a priest, first long assignment, was here in El Paso. That was what really changed. Actually talking about seeing, it gave me new lens through which to see the world. Because growing up in Miami and just working as an architect, I had limited vision. Being here in El Paso at the border, and also I did some work in Tijuana, Mexico, just opened up new horizons of seeing the suffering, the structural sin, the way people have been treated in this area for decades because they’re poor, the Mexican immigrant.

And our parish here, Sacred Heart Church, was founded by the Jesuits. It’s still a Jesuit parish since 1893, and it’s in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the United States called the El Segundo Barrio. And so we’ve always served the immigrant poor. That’s just been our bread and butter for every day. It’s really an honor to be able to work here as a Jesuit.

Just a little bit about myself, basically I know Richard Rohr well. My first encounter with him was actually back in around 1999 or 2000. A friend of mine, an architect friend, he was playing a CD from Richard, that time was a cassette, by the way, on his car, and it was from one of the LA conferences. And I said, “Who is this person?” The way he spoke, the message was so different.

And so I started connecting with Richard in 2002. I was able to go up there to first conference that I went to. He’s been an amazing influence in my life, really a great mentor, a great friend. I can spend a whole hour talking about that, but I won’t. He’s been good. It was the first conference with Thomas Keating. After I was here in El Paso for 13 years, in 2007, I was assigned as pastor at Immaculate Conception Church there in Albuquerque, in downtown.

A bonus of that assignment for me was being able to be close to you all there at the CAC, and I was asked to be on the board. I was on board for three years. And so yes, I mean, CAC and Richard have been just a great, amazing part of my life.

Brian McLaren:

Oh, that’s great. I have a question. A lot of our listeners are Roman Catholic and many are not. I think one of the things that happens when a person becomes a member of an order like the Jesuit order, they learn to see the world in a specific way. How do you feel that being a Jesuit has changed the way you see the world and see people and see life?

Rafael Garcia:

When I was in Miami right after I finished high school and I was working with an architect, I started participating in a Christian life community or sodality group that existed in Cuba run by Jesuits, and I would do retreats every year. We did ministry, different types of ministries, and it really just affected my… That’s where really my formation started. It changed later as I became a Jesuit myself because I began to see the world in a broader context. What St. Ignatius taught…

One thing I’m finding, and I’m sure you’ve talked about that yourself, all great spiritualities converge. And I find that a lot of the things that Richard speaks about from a Franciscan point of view are so similar to what Ignatius says except it’s different language and just different ways of presenting it. Maybe also different personality types, Ignatius and Francis for sure.

Seeing the world from the eyes through Christ the eyes of love and the eyes of the kingdom of God is just so different. That’s something that I’m constantly… However I can communicate that to people. I think that what I find is that people today, Catholics and Christians and so on, are using mainly the lens of… For some, I’m not saying all, but the lens of nationalism and a false patriotism as the overriding factor.

And I think that that’s just a real problem because then the values of the kingdom of God or just the values of humanity and love and simplicity of life are just not there anymore where it used to be more in the culture.

Brian McLaren:

Boy, we really do face this situation where many people, Catholic, Protestant, and other, they think they’re being good Catholics or they think they’re being good Protestants or good Christians or maybe good Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or whatever, when they refuse, when they resist seeing an immigrant as a full human being. And I’d love to hear how you’re observing that unfolding just in recent years and especially what’s going on there in Texas now.

Rafael Garcia:

Sure. Well, I’m going to step back a little bit. When we opened the shelter, I don’t know if you know we had a shelter here, we served about 30,000 people during the time we were open. And if I could just try to picture the scenario, it was in the media. You may have seen it on the news media. It was on international media. There were literally close to 1,000 people around the church here camped out because the city and the other shelters were not really prepared.

We at first began to see a flow. These were people from Venezuela. And so we were at first referring them to the established shelters. But then when they got filled, and this is something that touches on your subject, like seeing through the eyes of love or how did I see through it, it was a very strong message for me to say, “We have a gymnasium building,” which is an empty building right now.

But when I saw families walking around with little children, pregnant women, it was winter, it was below freezing sometimes at night, it was just very clear to me that we just have to open. There was not much discernment needed. It was just a matter of we got to open. Talking about through the eyes of love, one of the things that I’ve learned too is through the Enneagram, I’m a Type 1 person. It’s almost like it hit me in the gut when I saw the people outside.

I said, “How can I be a priest here or sleep here and see people on the street and have this empty building?” So it was very clear that we had to do it. So we right away started opening up, started getting volunteers. People began to come to help cook, bring supplies. It started. It worked. And we started getting sometimes up to 200 people a night, which is more than what we wanted to because of the facilities.

But one of the things that I find is that just looking and being with the folks that are suffering, you hear their stories and you say, “How can these folks be considered criminals? How can they be judged as taking advantage?” Most of the people we talked to from Venezuela particularly, which is the majority we had, they had jobs. They were fine in their home country, but the situation there forced them to say, “We’ve got to go,” and in Central America if it’s violence or organized crime or all sorts of things.

I think that’s unfortunately the narrative that’s out there, particularly with the Trump administration, is that these are criminals. People that work directly with migrants know that that’s not the case. There are bad apples like any group. We have to kick people out of the shelter sometimes. But on the other hand, the majority of people are families suffering and a great testimony of faith.

If you know about their journey coming all the way from Venezuela through the Darién Gap and then up Central America and then up Mexico, what these folks have endured is a testimony of their resilience, their love. And almost everyone would say, “Well, I’m doing this. I trust in God,” and their faith really carried them. To me, that was a very humbling experience to see, wow, these folks, they have this great faith even though they’ve been abused, they’ve been kicked out of their country. It’s just a beautiful thing to see. It’s really different eyes and different lenses to which to see the world.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

That’s beautiful. Father Rafael, one part of your story that really resonated with me was your family leaving Castro’s Cuba, because my Acevedo ancestors did the same, Batista and Castro. I think that we’re all immigrants from somewhere. My family, who came over, are also Catholic and their faith also helped them, as you’re saying, to see them through.

I’m wondering, you have such eyes of love and working and loving those who are impoverished and who are really experiencing the underside of the American culture. How did you get there, I guess? When is a time that you were seeing through the eyes of love and how did that influence you?

Rafael Garcia:

I think it’s been a gradual change. The image of the eyes and the optometrist and all that, adjusting the lens is a very good image that I use often. But even when I was in Miami and I was an architect, I always had an interest of… We tried to do a project after a hurricane in the Dominican Republic for housing after there was major destruction. Then as a Jesuit, I was sent to Tijuana, Mexico, and that was really my first experience of the border and the first time seeing the West Coast.

Growing up in Miami, I was conservative. If you know anything about Miami, it’s changed a lot, but I grew up in that culture. You would see everything through the lens of anti-communism, which is true. But on the other hand, it’s not the whole world. It’s not the whole reality. But being a Jesuit and then being in Tijuana and just seeing the people, their love, how friendly they were, how appreciative they were, I actually then went and spent the whole year designing a project for the poor.

The sisters there, the religious sisters, Franciscan sisters, they wanted a small psychiatric hospital for the poor, and I was involved designing it and spent the whole year there directing the work. So all of those things began to make me see. It was a shift of saying the majority of people are suffering in the world. It’s being confirmed more and more here now the more I learn, the more I hear the news, the more I meet people.

It’s like I think I went from a stage of being comfortable and being okay and we left Cuba, but being here and as a Jesuit and being on the border and hearing the stories, you begin to hear people have such a difficult life, so many challenges, family problems, addiction problems, family violence or abuse, poverty, fear because they’re immigrants. It’s just all of these compounded obstacles.

And I think I began to see more and more. And it gets to you because you really can’t do so much. I can only do so much. That was overwhelming. It was kind of like an overdose of tugging at the heart when we had the shelter. Imagine 120 people. And by the way, many were sick. Many came, they had the flu. Some had physical injuries because of walking in the journey.

Pregnant women who said, “I’m beginning to have movements.” We had to call 911. It was like a field hospital, as Pope Francis would say. Being at a shelter at our gymnasium, people were on the floor. We had blankets, but they would be there. So I think just the work of serving as a Jesuit priest here and in the other places that I’ve been have just opened my eyes to see things in a new way.

At times it really is overwhelming and at times it’s like almost… It’s an uphill battle all the time, and it’s a privilege to do the work that I’m doing. I really love it, but it’s often hard. But I could not see myself being in a comfortable place sitting up just having a comfortable afternoon when I know all these folks here are going through what they’re going through. Because there’s a lot of fear now in our neighborhood.

People are afraid to sometimes leave their homes because of the raids and stuff. So I don’t know. It’s been a gradual thing. I think that’s the way God works for me is sometimes it’s not like an immediate change, but it’s just gradual.

Brian McLaren:

Learning How to See will be back in a moment. We’d like to invite you now to reflect on what you’ve heard from Father Rafael. We’ll take three or four minutes now just to invite you to take a few deep breaths and let what you’ve heard settle in. Father Rafael said, “All great spiritualities converge.” That strikes me as a memorable statement and one that invites some further reflection.

I’d like to invite you into reflection on three parallel statements from three of our world’s major religions. First from the Christian faith. You’ll remember these words from Jesus. “So in everything do to others what you would have them do to you, for this is the law and the prophets.” It from the Jewish scriptures in the Book of Leviticus, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And from the Hadiths or traditional teachings of Islam, “As you would have people do to you do to them, and what you dislike to be done to you don’t do to them. None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” Let’s now go back to that simple, but profound statement from Father Rafael, “All great spiritualities converge.” I’d like to invite you just in a few moments of silence to feel the convergence of the different statements you’ve just heard, inviting us to see everyone everywhere, no exceptions, through eyes of love, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

I can hear you have a heart of empathy and you put that into action. Father Rafael, we really hear that, that you so much see through the eyes of hospitality and the eyes of sanctuary to the point of it feeling overwhelming sometimes. I’m wondering, would you like to share with us a story of a time when you yourself were seen through eyes of love, you yourself, where someone turned their eyes on you and what a difference that might’ve made in your journey or your life?

Rafael Garcia:

Actually, I’d like to mention a couple. One of them is recently my going to a spiritual director, who actually is a Franciscan and he knows Richard up here in Las Cruces, his name is Henry Beck, for spiritual direction. And of course, if you know the Enneagram, we 1s are very hard on ourselves and we’re critics. After the long conversation with him, at the end he says, “Rafael, I’ve known you for a while,” because I’ve known him. He was here before the first time I was here in the ’90s.

He was here as campus minister at UTEP. He says, “From what I know of you, you’re a good man and God sees you as a good person.” Sometimes to hear that, we preach it all the time, but to hear it from somebody else, it’s almost hard to accept. And he said one time a spiritual director of his told him, “Here, take a mirror. Take a mirror and look at yourself in the mirror and see what do you see and imagine God seeing you there.” Often I do need that.

I’m sure all of us do, but I think I often… I know I beat myself up all the time, like I should have done this better or all kinds of things like that. So the fact that he just said, “You’re a good person. You’re a good man. God loves you like you are,” So I think comments like that. I’ll say that to other people, but often I won’t say it to myself.

Brian McLaren:

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

We need each other.

Rafael Garcia:

Another example that I’m also finding very consoling now is there’s a lot of confessions here, Hispanics. Its a Hispanic parish, a lot of people come to confession. And often they come for things that are… You can tell it’s not sin. It’s just either fear-based or however they were formed in the church. And one of the things that I find very consoling now is to tell people, “That’s normal. That’s not a sin. Don’t worry about it. Of course, you’re going to feel angry if somebody does this to you.”

And just to see their face and maybe how they look at me and say, “Well, thank you for saying that.” That’s a short brief experience, but I think often they expect the priest to say, “Okay, you’re a bad person. God forgives you. Here’s your penance.” But often to be able to turn it around and say, “That’s fine. That’s normal. What are you supposed to feel if somebody betrays you or just does this or that?”

And started to open their eyes to a God of love and to mercy and to a bigger spiritual world. I mean, it helps me. I’ve seen them the way they look back surprised. They’re surprised that that’s the answer. So those encounters have also been for me very powerful.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

Beautiful.

Brian McLaren:

I love that story. I think we all identify. Especially those of us who are pastors or priests or preachers, we can become expert at telling other people that God loves them, but it’s hard for us to look in the mirror and see ourselves with God’s eyes of love, unconditional, non-discriminatory love. And that’s a gift. And I think that’s going to be a gift for many people who listen to us today. I’m so happy we’re meeting today, Father Rafael.

I hope we’ll meet many times again in the future, but I just want to tell you today being in your presence, I have felt such humility, such compassion, such honesty, such vulnerability. I’m so grateful that the people in your parish, they get to experience the love of God through you. I’m so glad the people who you’re helping who have made dangerous, difficult journeys trying to find safety, trying to find someplace that will accept them and see them as a human being, I’m so glad that they ended up in your presence.

And I suppose my deep hope and prayer is that many, many people who listen to us today will now become a presence that other people will find safety and love in.

Rafael Garcia:

Good. Well, thank you. Thank you. With regards to the immigrant, one of the things that when groups come here to the border to learn, because we have a program that groups come down to learn about the border here, we actually have a group from the Marinols here now, is we always tell them, “You don’t have to be in El Paso to encounter the immigrant, the migrant.” If you go back to your hometown and if you look, there’s people there in need, probably even in greater need.

Because at least here, they have a certain support system because of the culture and it’s right next to Mexico. But often people that are working in the meatpacking plants in Nebraska or the fields in Missouri, different places where they have their farm workers, those folks are the ones that are lonely. I don’t know, the pain that they must feel I’m sure is great. So whoever’s listening from wherever they are, there’s immigrant people all around. So I’m sure that you can reach out.

It’s really a transformative experience. One of the things that we always tell people that the immersion program we have here is called The Encuentro Project, The Encounter Project. And it’s because I’ve learned that from Pope Francis mentions it and others that it’s really the face-to-face encounters that change the heart. And I know Richard also mentions that in one of his talks.

You can talk all you want, sometimes there’s talking back and forth or arguing, but it’s not until you meet someone or meet a family and hear what they have to say and their experience that really can move the heart. So those encounters are possible anywhere in the US, and I hope people can look for them. It’ll help them, and it’ll help their church too. I mean, that’s another thing.

Sometimes we in the US are thinking these folks are taking stuff from us, many people in the US. And in a sense we don’t say how much they’re giving to us, to the life of faith, to the church, to the culture, to values, how these people have risked everything with their children to protect when sometimes human life in the US is not considered valuable in so many contexts. It’s an amazing experience that God is providing for us, and I hope people can tap into it.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

That’s beautiful. Thank you, Father Rafael. That’s a good reminder. We really appreciate your being with us here today. We’ve learned so much and been so blessed by your presence.

Rafael Garcia:

Thank you. Well, I’m glad to be here. I’m honored to be part of your podcast. And just please give my regards to Richard. He came out. After we opened in 2023, he was here and he spent a couple of days here in the Jesuit community. And he visited with the people at our shelter via translator, via translator.

Brian McLaren:

Oh, that’s great.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

Wonderful.

Brian McLaren:

Well, I want to join Carmen in thanking you, Father Rafael. As you were speaking, I just felt like something became clear to me in a way that it hadn’t before. When we look at other people and don’t see their humanity, we become less human. And when we look at people and see their humanity, we become more human ourselves.

Rafael Garcia:

That is correct.

Brian McLaren:

This mutual transformation is one of the opportunities of this moment. Some people are defacing their own humanity as they deface the humanity of others. So thank you for helping us and helping us not only understand that, but feel it in your voice and in your heart and in your compassion.

Rafael Garcia:

Well, thank you. I really appreciate you inviting me, and I hope we can connect again.

Brian McLaren:

We’re so grateful to Father Rafael Garcia for being with us today and for sharing from his heart. I think we all feel what he has is in the very best way contagious, and we caught some of his compassion and love today. Earlier we considered what he said about all great spiritualities converging. And I’d like to read you a few more versions of what’s often called the Golden Rule from a few other religious traditions.

First from Buddhism, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” From Hinduism, “Do nothing to others which if it were done to you would cause you pain.” From Taoism, “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.” From Sikhism, “Love for people what you love for yourself and you will be a believer.”

And from the Baha’i Faith, “And if thine eyes be turned toward justice, choose thou for thy neighbor that which thou choosest for thyself.” And as we close, I would like to take these last statements and I’d like to make them specific to the situation we’re facing in many places in our world today. Father Raphael has invited us and Carmen today has reminded us to see through eyes of love, to see the humanity of every neighbor.

And we’re living in a time when immigrants, transgendered people, people of color, and many others who have been protected by DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, initiatives are now being excluded and marginalized again. And so let’s listen to these converging calls to us to see through eyes of love. Hurt not immigrants, transgendered people, people of color, and others protected by DEI initiatives in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.

Do nothing to immigrants, transgendered people, people of color, and others protected by DEI initiatives, which if it were done to you, would cause you pain. Regard the gain of immigrants, transgendered people, people of color, and others protected by DEI initiatives as your own gain and regard their loss as your own loss.

Love for immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, people of color, and all others who are being marginalized what you love for yourself and you will be a believer. And if thine eyes be turned toward justice, choose for all those being marginalized that which thou choosest for thyself.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

Big thanks to Corey Wayne, Dorothy Abrams, and Vanessa Yee who produced Learning How to See. Thanks to April Stace for her musical support. This episode was edited and mixed by the team at Sound On // Sound Off, to learn more about their work, visit soundonsoundoff.com. Thanks to the Center for Action and Contemplation for making Learning How to See possible, and special thanks to you for your investment of time.