Social Justice

No Kings Day Austin, Texas

“We will be protesting today in Austin. I dedicate this act of resistance to the Lord and his mother Mary, who praised the One who brings down kings from their thrones and lifts up the lowly, who fills the hungry and sends the rich away empty. I pray for all of the protestors today, that our acts of resistance may be given their full power for righteousness and Justice, amplified by the Holy Spirit. May everyone be safe and may peace prevail over all. The American people bow before NO KING, ” I wrote on social media the morning of June 14, 2025, the day of nation wide “No King” protests.

We bought stuff for our signs in the early afternoon. While we were there we saw a lady buying canvases and American flags and markers. I said, “Oh I think I know what you’re up to!” “You do?” “Yeah that’s what we’re doing too. We’re going to Austin.” I have to explain that my town is VERY conservative. If your’e not, you’re not going to talk about it in public to someone you don’t know. It’s not like anybody is going to beat you up or anything. People here are mostly kind and friendly. It’s just natural I guess. We’re definitely in the minority. Weird for a college town but it’s Texas A & M’s college town. We are always kind of excited to run into another not-conservative around here.

She invited us to come to her car in the parking lot for some masks. While there she told us about the local No Kings protest. I had thought it would be about ten people but was thrilled to hear the number was closer to 600. I could hardly believe it. I regretted not having being there.

At home we made our signs. My daughter Roise’s was so funny. (Rosie is how we pronounce it- it’s a Gaelic name that would usually be pronounced “Roh-sha” but we just say Rosie.) I had to laugh at hers it was so typical of her. It’s said,

“Dump your MAGA boyfriend.” On the back she wrote,

“They are a drop, we are the ocean.”

I wrote “He has brought down Kings from their thrones and lifted up the lowly- Mother Mary, Lk.1:52.

On the back I wrote,

“If you want peace, work for justice – Pope Paul VI” and “The American people bow to NO KINGS!”

I was happy with it. I took a dollar store red rosary along as well, to keep in my hand. I took a dollar store rosary so if it got broken it wouldn’t bother me as much as one of my usual ones, all of which are special to me for different reasons. And I made sure to wear my Our Lady of Guadalupe socks. Plus I brought bubbles. I really wanted some rose petals but by the time I took care of what my dogs cats and chickens would need for the day, and my girl wrote down all of our numbers we might need in case of arrest or losing our phones, we were pressed for time.

We dropped off my granddaughter at her godmothers’ and headed out. We both felt more nervous than we usually do for these things. There were a lot of reasons for this. Namely the president is doing dictator stuff regarding protests as if they are illegal which they’re not. Secondly two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses had been shot that morning, one of them and her husband had died. The president was having a dictatorship type military parade that day on his birthday. Protestors in L.A. were being overshadowed by a federalized national guard against the will of the governor of California, and so many other signs of text book authoritarianism, including ignoring court orders, were cropping up as if out of a fascist playbook. Today y’all know all this. But someday we might forget so I want to write down some context. It felt like this day could be a sea change, either in a good way or a bad way, as “No Kings” protests took place all over the county. I still don’t know, at this writing, what that sea change will be. We alternated listening to social justice themed songs and more calming songs in the car. We played a lot of Kendrick Lamar (love him) and I pulled out some 80″s hardcore punk with anti fascist themes. (I was a little punk rocker in my teens. In some ways I haven’t changed much.) My daughter didn’t like it so well . But it was my turn.

A friend let us park at his house in Austin and use it as a home base while he was out of town. So we met another friend there we were going with and called an uber. Our friend looked adorable. He had a back pack on with a bouquet of colorful roses sticking out of it, with a small American flag. Otherwise, we all dressed as plainly and comfortably as possible.

A friend from home was coming too, with her husband. We never did find them. There were 20,000 people there so this is no surprise. We texted each other but still gave up after a while.

People were excited and happy to see each other. It felt good to do something about the scary situation in our country while we still could. I’m not exaggerating here as some may think. Not being able to protest anymore is a distinct possibility. Our governor had called out the national guard of Texas too. I don’t think I saw any National Guard people though. Police and State Troopers were everywhere however.

Oh it was hot. We couldn’t really see anything up front. There was speaker after speaker on the Capital steps but we couldn’t see; a drag queen and activist called Bridget Bandit was first. Apparently the number performed after the speech was pretty good but I could only see the top of a big yellow wig. Loved the music. Then there were veterans, immigrants, immigration lawyers and Democratic state legislators, young people whose parents had been taken away by ICE, various activists. I was surprised that Dan Rather spoke.

I didn’t like that we had to stand around in the heat for three hours listening to people talk and we weren’t marching. Marching is the fun part to me. It really feels like community and shared purpose. It’s a powerful experience, walking with others. There were a lot of great signs though. People get so creative and artistic with their signs sometimes. And it was Austin so of course. There was a lot of color – people with clown make up on, Cowboy hats of course, with flags draped over shoulders or worn as capes. Plenty of baseball caps and the ocasional sombrero. One person was carrying a watermelon (a symbol of Palestine) or wearing the traditional Palestinian scarf of black and white checks and fringed ends. There was plenty of colorful hair as well. I enjoyed the variety.

I saw a sign or two with pictures of Elvis thst said something to the effect of, “The only King in America.” This just seemed typically Austin to me somehow. There were lots of flags; American flags, Mexican flags, the Texas flag, even a few Palestinian flags. There was an inflatable Elon Musk that was pretty creepy.

Lots of people were blowing bubbles. Who could be un-cheered by bubbles? So I remembered mine were in my pocket and joined in.

We lost our friend for a while. When he found us I said dang when are we going to march? He said he didn’t think we were going to because we were absolutely surrounded by law enforcement. I was mad. How annoying. I thought about leaving. But we didn’t. I was feeling dizzy but thankfully there was free cold water and even popsicles. People are great.

Finally people started leaving. I thought we were all going home but actually it turned out to be the march. It really was fun in spite of the ubiquitous police and state trooper presence. People came out of buildings along the way and cheered us on. Others rolled down their car windows to yell some of the chants. There was lots of honking. I saw a line of police in which one of them seemed to be trying to read my sign so I walked over and showed them all both sides. One of them said, “Wait it didn’t finish reading the other side,” so I flipped it over again. We smiled at each other. We should always be kind, I think. They’re just people doing their jobs. One of them said, “Watch your back!” There was a car coming up way to close behind me. They told me to move aside and I said “What about you?” I mean we didn’t know whether it was a friendly car or not. I moved on of course.

Somebody gave me a bouquet of white roses. I loved that. I held them as long as I could but it ended up being kind of a pain. I handed them to somebody who had just joined us and didn’t have anything to carry. She was happy.

Our friend we were marching with started a couple of the chants. “FREE FREE PALESTINE!” Hey this was about everything. We chanted that for a while. There was a young woman there in our part of the marchers who had a megaphone and she started some chants. Some were in Spanish and they meant, “The people united will never be defeated.” and then we would say it in English for a while. There were chants about ICE. The one most familiar to me from all the other protests I had been to was, “No fear, no hate, no fascist USA.’ I told my daughter and her friend about my first big protest. I was a teenager then. That protest was about trying to get Texas A&M to divest from South Africa over Apartheid. I had been to Brazos Valley Peace Action protests before (this was during the Cold War and the concern about nuclear weapons build up). But in this town those were fifteen people or so getting ignored on the side of the road. The anti-Apartheid was actually a pretty big protest. I carried a very big metal sign that said “FREE South Africa.” It was exhilarating for me. It felt so good to DO something about stuff that was out of my control and to do so with people who were as concerned as I was.

Along our way yesterday I kept giggling about the funnier signs and nudging the kids. One just said, “BRUH.” Some of them would qualify as great folk art. That would be a cool exhibit I think. Protest signs through the ages.

Mine was certainly not the only sign with Bible verses. I saw some with Psalm 107 about “may his days be few and someone else take his office.” I thought that one was kind of mean. Several people had the verse about “You shall love the immigrant and treat them as one of your own.” (LV. 19:34) Of course “Love your neighbor” showed up a lot. A girl marching in front of me had a sign that said, “Jesus is my only King.” I had thought saying that on mine too. I was pleased to have met other Catholics too. They saw my brown scapular and said, “Hey we’re from St. Austins’ what’s your parish?”

When we passed the Cathedral of St. Mary’s, I waved up at the statue of Our Lady over the church doors. I told the kids, “Yay, I knew she would be here!”

Eventually it was 8:30 and getting dark. In my experience if anything crazy is going to happen it was going to be after dark. And anyway I had started to feel sick. And we had to get home to our animals and pick up my granddaughter. We had my other daughter go and pick her up from her godmothers because we realized we would never get there on time.

The protest was supposed to end at 8 but I read online that it was still going at 10pm. I thought that was great. So we took an Uber back to our home base. We walked down the street to eat Indian food and talk over the day with hoarse voices. We were proud of our friend for starting some of the chants. He is usually pretty quiet. Who knew he had it in him? We complained about the heat. I remarked about how though there were jubilant parts of the day, this protest had seemed different to me. It seemed more somber than ones we had been to before. I think the overwhelming police presence put a bit of a damper on things of course. But I also think it was those shootings that morning and the clear signs of authoritarianism we are seeing in our country, like people being “disappeared” off the streets by masked men, put it unmarked vans and detained without warrants or due process. And a real grief along with the worry- grief yes, for what we were already losing- the whole idea of our country; its identity and what we have always thought we stood for, the freedom and human rights we were founded on, things we had taken for granted.

I am hoping there is still time to turn the tide and that’s it’s not too late. All three of us felt like this was an historic moment. I’m glad we were a part of it.

June 15, 2025 2

The face of Mary

It is Our Lady of Guadalupe day today. It is the only divine portrait of Mother Mary we have. And she chose to appear as an indigenous young woman, one of the little ones, the poor and oppressed of this world as we tend to forget she actually was in her earthly life. She deeply identifies with the poor and marginalized just as her Son does. And we can find her in all the places he said he would be; among those we tend to reject. Let’s not miss an opportunity to catch a glimpse of her beautiful face when she comes to us with hidden roses. May God imprint her image in our souls.

December 13, 2024 0

Our Lady of Guadalupe at the Walmart Memorial in El Paso

Fifteen or more years ago I had a dream that is still vivid to me now. I was in a small, dimly lit church where the early arrivals were just sitting down before mass. Near the altar there was a large terra cotta colored relief of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was standing in the aisle gazing at this rendering of Our Lady and it started to become beautifully colorful. A man in the pews to my right started complaining about the image and saying there were too many (*racial slur*) around here already and the image should be removed. He continued to complain about dark skinned people being in the church and “taking over.” I was extremely upset of course and started begging him not to say things like that especially in the church. As I continued to try to persuade him, the corner of Mary’s dress began to darken as if it were burning and smoke started rising. I was alarmed as I saw the disfiguring burn spread across the image.

I was in El Paso staying in a migrant shelter, attending what is called “The Border Awareness Experience,” to learn about Immigration issues. Everyone had been in Juarez that morning, we had met at a section of the iron border fence with Border Patrol and now we were getting out of the van at the Walmart in El Paso to visit the memorial for the victims of the shooting that had happened eight weeks before on August 3, 2019.

It was a very hot October afternoon. The sunlight was golden and slanting in beams when we got out of the van.

We had all seen makeshift memorials that spring up after tragic events on the news. I knew this would be a sad experience.

I was not prepared. The emotional impact of being on the spot was immense.

The memorial stretched into probably about three city blocks. There was an army of religious candles stretching as far as I could make out. There were stuffed animals, pictures of the dead, messages to the dead, messages of encouragement to the community, poems, letters, prayers. There were flags from other countries, a big poster of a fused Mexican and American flag that said, “Together against all odds.” There was a letter to the president pleading for understanding, mercy toward immigrants, and change. It was in Spanish so I asked Maria from our group to translate for me.

A big red poster near the middle said,

“PAIN…. but I will not let it turn to hate.”

man wearing blue dress — Photo by Luis Quintero on Pexels.com

There was a large picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, banners with Bible verses, a message of solidarity from the city of San Antonio, more messages, more prayers, toys of the little child who was killed. I remember a most the toy train draped in rosaries. A massive number of flowers and rosaries populated the entire area. There were numerous statues and pictures of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I thought about my dream.

A young white supremacist drove 11 hours from Dallas to El Paso to “kill Mexicans.” I can only guess he chose El Paso because of the spirit of friendship and community between the sister cities. Maybe he hated what El Paso represents. Maybe he wanted to do this at the border where people from both sides shop together. I don’t know. His manifesto had talked about “an invasion” referring to migrants and refugees and Hispanics in general I suppose. I had not read it. No need. I had been seeing the results of its ideology for days.
Actually I wasn’t thinking about any of these things at the time. I was overwhelmed with the emotional impact of the place. We all were. It was riveting. It was devastating. I think we were all in shock.

Eventually I sat down near a bank of flowers to pray. In my dream of Our Lady the loud racist man perhaps couldn’t see the destruction of her image he was causing. People get so upset about sacrilege of religious images. I understand that. But what about the people at the Border who are images of God, treated without dignity or compassion, let alone the scores of them who have died because of our indifference? Isn’t that a much more serious desecration? I had seen only some of what our country has done to migrants. I had only been at Casa Vides a couple days and I felt inundated with the suffering and injustice so many people back home justified and even applauded.

In the presence of this great outcry of shock and pain that was this memorial, I could only sit with God and hold my rosary. No words of prayer came to me. It could only be a prayer of presence and solidarity.

person holding brown wooden cross — Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Pexels.com

A woman I thought seemed like recently bereaved family thanked us for coming. I recognized the deep pain in her eyes and that aura of grief around her shoulders like a heavy black shawl that weighed her down.

When we got back into the van some of our group were crying. Nobody wanted to talk.

Chris, our leader during the Border Awareness Experience, a volunteer at the shelter, said he knew we were feeling upset but we were running a little late for our last meeting of the day at Hope Border Institute so we just had a few minutes while we drove to get ourselves regathered. So we tried.

I think seeing this place would have hurt deeply no matter what. But after what we had been learning about Border issues, having met the migrants Casa Vides was serving and having heard their stories, the experience hit us particularly hard. As we pulled away I thought of Jesus saying that when we hate our brothers and sisters, we have already committed murder in our hearts. That scene of physical mass murder was the result of collectively harbored hate, fear and resentment and anti-immigrant sentiment in our country. Something like that shooting was bound to happen. And if we don’t change, it will keep happening.

We pulled up at Hope Border Institute with the Diocese of El Paso. Their work centers around applying Catholic Social teaching to Immigration Issues.

Toward the end of various presentations, one man on staff named Dylan gave us an extemporaneous discourse on what Our Lady of Guadalupe means to migrants. Her image is ubiquitous in El Paso, in every place you go, there she is. I remember him saying that she came for and represented the Spanish and the Indigenous of Mexico, not either/or, herself a bridge between two cultures, similar to the migrants who have had to leave their home countries but don’t yet belong to their new one.

She appeared to St. Juan Diego, an indigenous Catholic convert. She was brown skinned as he was, (probably close to what she looked like during her historical life) and dressed like an Aztec maiden. Specifically, she looked Mestiza, a combination of Spanish and Native. She gave the gift of miraculous Castilian roses for the Spanish Bishop, the roses he missed from home, miraculously growing in the snow when she spoke to St. Juan. She said, “I am the perfect and ever-virgin Mary, Mother of God.” the name Guadalupe itself would have mean something to the Native people and the Spanish. “She who treads on the snake” to the Aztecs and a reference to another image of her in Spain. She wanted to comfort her children and hear their cries in the new church she asked for. Her image appeared instantaneously on the cloak of St. Juan Diego in the Bishop’s presence. Hundreds of years later it is still fresh, new and relevant. A microscope shows that in the pupils of her eyes, a reflection of the people in the room at the time her image appeared. We are all in her sight, she is here with us and she loves us.