duties for putting together a panel. The members of the steering committee include Eunjoo Kim of Iliff School of Theology, Alyce McKenzie and Wesley Allen of Perkins School of Theology, Karoline Lewis and Joy J. Moore of Luther Seminary, Carolyn J. Sharp of Yale Divinity School, Ruthanna Hooke of Virginia Theological Seminary, and the aforementioned David Jacobsen. We offer our appreciation for all that you did to make this book a reality.
We likewise want to thank Pickwick Publications and our editors, Daniel Lanning and George Callihan, for providing the opportunity and the guidance for us to publish this work.
J. Dwayne Howell Charles L. Aaron
Campbellsville, KY Dallas, TX
Easter 2020 Easter 2020
Contributors
Charles L. Aaron, Jr., coeditor
Codirector of the Intern Program
Perkins School of Theology
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX
Sarah Ellen Eads Adkins
Executive Director
Neighbors Immigration Clinic
Lexington, KY
Jason Crosby
Copastor
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, KY
Miguel A. De La Torre
Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies
Iliff School of Theology
Denver, CO
Becky David Hensley
PhD Student, Joint Doctoral Program in the Study of Religion
University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology
Denver, CO
Robert Hoch
Pastor
First and Franklin Presbyterian Church
Baltimore, MD
Melanie A. Howard
Assistant Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies
Fresno Pacific University
Fresno, CA
J. Dwayne Howell, coeditor
Professor Emeritus of Old Testament and Hebrew Campbellsville University
Campbellsville, KY
Gerald C. Liu
Assistant Professor of Worship & Preaching
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, NJ
Heidi Neumark
Pastor
Trinity Lutheran Church/Iglesia Luterana Trinidada
New York, NY
Harold J. Recinos
Professor of Church and Society
Perkins School of Theology,
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX
Owen K. Ross
Director of Church Development
North Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church
Rhonda Thompson
Director, The Nehemiah Center
First Baptist Church, Montgomery
Montgomery, AL
Lis Valle
Assistant Professor of Homiletics
McCormick Theological Seminary
Chicago, IL
Michael Waters
Pastor
Joy Tabernacle AME Church
Dallas, TX
They Cross the Border
Harold J. Recinos
they travel with homes stuffed
into small bags, sleep in fields,
on hard dirt floors, bus station
benches, on tractor trains, beside
the rivers that have for centuries
rounded hills, and beneath distant
stars hanging like lanterns in an
ancient sky. along the underground
railroad on the long walk toward the
border, light on the walls of Spanish
speaking shacks open their eyes to
the simple frailty of life, the voices
fled in grief, the choking feeling in
the company of other women and
children walking away from endless
poverty and violence that they will
be changed and their children by the
year’s end no longer recognized. in
lucid moments they stare at evening
stars blinking stories of hate waiting
to include them at the border, offering
quiet prayers to God who hides in the
black patches between dots of celestial
light forgetting to comfort them. they
have ambled Sunday shoes dark in less
than forty days, El Norte drawing near
with each brown step, children insisting
with
