From the Borderlands

Immigration Reimagined with Kate Scott, Artist & Wildlife Conservation Activist, Plus News about the Binational Border Happening II, May 16 & 17, Lochiel, Arizona

Join Kate Scott & Tony Heath [https://substack.com/profile/96133017-kate-scott-and-tony-heath] and many, many other borderlands conservationists, allies, artists, and activists this weekend to wrap the natural world in love and kindness, with prayer, drumming, poetry, music, and dance, to co-create communities of compassion and care and energetically BRING DOWN THE BORDER WALL. It’s about registering our outrage. It’s about looking the workers in the eye. It’s about manifesting the world we would rather live in as we celebrate community and the interconnectedness of the human and natural worlds. Here is all the info you’ll likely need. But if you have any further questions, visit Kate of the Madrean Archipelago Wildlife Center [https://www.mawcenter.org/], which she co-founded with her husband, Tony. Scroll to the bottom of the page for contact details: Thank you to everyone who tuned into my Substack Live with Kate Scott! Please share this link with your friends and followers. I’ll be back in your inbox next week for another Substack Live on the topic of reimagining immigration. In the meantime… * Stay strong and connected because the only way through this is… Together. * Remember the wise words of our dear friend, Magdeleno Rose-Avila (magdeleno.org [http://magdeleno.org/]), who schooled us to “Continue to dream and to do.” We’ll miss you, Leno. Big gratitude for all the jalapeño love. * And don’t miss this wonderful film by Tony Heath. It’ll take you to the first Binational Border Happening, where you’ll experience the beautiful vistas of the San Rafael Valley. Tales of Humanity is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Tales of Humanity at sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe [https://sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Immigration Reimagined, with Dan Kowalski, Esq., Because Reform is No Longer an Option

Thank you, Judith McQuistion [https://open.substack.com/users/241233119-judith-mcquistion?utm_source=mentions], Lisa Seifert [https://open.substack.com/users/31630739-lisa-seifert?utm_source=mentions], and many others, for tuning into my live conversation with Dan Kowalski [https://substack.com/profile/3970154-dan-kowalski]! We discussed, among other things, that: * Immigration is always a net positive for the host nation. * The current statute is something we built, so we can unbuild it in keeping with popular values and current historical context. We are not stuck with it, nor should we be, since it dates to an openly white supremacist past. * Our economy requires people to contribute to it to survive. * Authoritarians are masters at manipulating the limbic brain. But we can overcome fear through raising awareness and creating encounters with our immigration neighbors as well as our immigrant past. * We should be reimagining the system in every corner of the nation now, so that when these dark days are behind us, we’ll be ready to build something more realistic and humane from the ashes. * The focus on law enforcement, expanding the Gestapo, and its for-profit gulag will be our own undoing, bankrupting the nation as more people fall into vulnerability. Join me for my next live video in the app. Tales of Humanity is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Tales of Humanity at sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe [https://sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Shut Down Dilley Family Internment! Prison is No Place for Kids. Tell DHS and Prison Profiteer CoreCivic that Making $$$ off Children's Misery IS NOT OKAY!

Today, April 16, 2026, I join Moms4Good [https://www.instagram.com/moms4good/], MomsforTexas [https://www.instagram.com/momsfortexas/], Mother Forward [https://www.instagram.com/motherforward/], and the Blue Bunny Brigade [https://www.instagram.com/bluebunnybrigade/], who have organized to get 10,000 of us moms across the country — and world, if you count me over in London — to make our national and state lawmakers face the brutal inhumanity of locking up children, and to turn up the heat until they #ShutDownDilley, #CloseTheCamps, and #ReuniteFamilies. To do that, we’re counting on you to call your state and federal elected officials today. Demand the immediate end to family internment in the USA, and the shutdown of the concentration camp in Dilley, Texas, operated by prison profiteer CoreCivic, by Mother’s Day. Find the toolkit here [https://www.canva.com/design/DAHGGvRug34/ULjgJV2LWycThLK8M8FblQ/view?utm_content=DAHGGvRug34&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h66d7bc2566#7]. Read on to learn more… It’s called the South Texas Family Residential Center. But don’t be fooled by the name. It’s a jail. A jail run by jailers. A jail that locks up immigrant children and youth FOR PROFIT, including Minnesota resident Liam Conejo Ramos, making a mockery of the party in power’s professed “belief” in family values and the sanctity of life. They are continuing an unacknowledged US pastime dating back to Bush 43… They are Locking Up Family Values. And they are making BANK doing it. Already convinced? Call your state and federal elected officials today! Tell them that locking up children and separating families is Not Okay! Demand that they tell Department of Homeland “Security” Secretary Markwayne Mullin to #ShutDownDilley, #CloseTheCamps, and #ReuniteFamilies by Mother’s Day! To learn more about CoreCivic, its heinous Dilley ‘Baby Jail,’ and the unacknowledged US pastime of locking up family values, please read on… I’ve been inside several facilities of the for-profit US immigrant Gulag. I’ve seen with my own eyes the punishing effects such confinement has on people. Fine people. People who are innocent of any real crime. I’m in touch with many who would make incredible contributions to our society were they not locked up and left to languish, sometimes for years, in daily contemplation about how to end their own lives. I can state, therefore, that the so-called “detention” and “processing” centers of the US immigrant Gulag are exactly as described in the testimonies of the directly impacted: “Torture chambers.” “Hell on Earth.” Places “built to break us. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/27/immigrants-california-detention-facility]” “I don’t think they should grab immigrants who are innocent,like instead of grabbing criminals…they lock up children.” Ender, a 12-year-old kidnapped from Austin, Texas, more than 60 days ago When the first edition of http://www.sarahtowle.comCrossing the Line [http://www.sarahtowle.com] came out in June 2024, 80% of of the then-roughly 200-facility ICE Gulag was run by private prison profiteers, with the lion’s share of contracts going to GEO Group, formerly The Wackenhut Corporation, and CoreCivic, once operating as Corrections Corporation of America. Just seven months later, according to a February 21, 2025, analysis by Syracuse University’s Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse [https://tracreports.org/reports/753/] (TRAC), 90% of newcomers and asylum seekers to the US were trapped inside prisons run for-profit. They are black sites, where the mental health and well-being of everyone held hostage inside are being compromised forever. They are crowded congregant settings, aka concentration camps, where people, good people, are disappeared, and are now dying at a rate of one every six days, according to ICE researcher Austin Kocher [https://substack.com/profile/20912231-austin-kocher]. “I haven’t been happy since I got here. The officers have bad manner of speaking to residents…the workers treat the residents inhumanely…I want to tell you guys how I feel and is hell like…so much sadness and depression of not being able to leave…” Gaby, a 14-year-old kidnapped from Houston, Texas, more than 20 days ago The Trump regime is on track to build an infrastructure capable of locking up more than 100,000 people on any given day — people who have largely committed no crime. Most shamefully, this includes children and youth: innocents who should be in school, not threatened with time in the SHU, the notorious “Special Housing Unit,” aka solitary confinement; innocents who should be allowed to play and run and draw and read, not be forced to remain quiet for 24 hours a day without books or toys or laughter or education. The so-called Pro-Life party, what’s more, is right now forcing teenage girls, some potentially impregnated by their US-citizens captors, to bring babies into the world without the benefit of prenatal care. No one should be locked up in places where they are denied medical attention, adequate nutrition, functional toilets, soap, and water worthy of drinking. No one should be provided only enough food to be kept from starvation; be made to withstand freezing temperatures day in and day out; and be forced to sleep under lights that blaze bright 24/7. No one should suffer retribution if they protest these inhumane conditions, file grievances against their captors, or attempt to speak to members of Congress or the press [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/ice-dilley-family-detention-center-texas-punished-protest-media-toothache-santa-claus/]. But these are the daily realities in the US immigration Gulag. It is no place for anyone. It’s certainly no place for kids. “Since I got to this Center all I feel is sadness and depression…Not a lot of people know what is happening in the Centers where immigrants are placed…I have been in this country for 7 years…I have never been separated from my siblings…Since the day my mom and I got detained in Manhattan, NY, my life was instantly paused… All kids are being damaged mentally.” Ariana, a 14-year-old, formerly of Hicksville, New York,kidnapped at an ICE check-in more than 45 days ago “It’s unethical. It’s irresponsible. It’s unkind [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/27/immigrants-california-detention-facility].” It is also well-documented that Children and youth experience confinement as torture. When they are traumatized this way, their bodies and brains stop functioning, a phenomenon known as toxic stress, which leads to life-long negative physical, emotional, and psychological outcomes. One present offender in the national pastime of terrorizing future generations also happens to be one of the world’s two largest private prison entities: Nashville, Tennessee-based CoreCivic. CoreCivic is profiting from the pain of school-aged children and babies. “Being locked up against my will is quite overwhelming, also I feel down about the idea that I couldn’t finish my school year.” Scarlett, a 17-year-old kidnapped from El Paso, Texas, time imprisoned unknown CoreCivic owns and operates more than 70 prisons and jails capable of enslaving more than 66,000 people, including immigrant non-offenders held in concentration camps that rely on inmate labor [https://investigate.afsc.org/company/corecivic] and denial of basic needs, like food and medical care, as a means of maintaining its highly profitable bottom line. Based on the company’s latest financial disclosures for 2025 and 2026, its annual revenue has doubled since the inauguration of the second Trump regime [https://prospect.org/2025/08/08/2025-08-08-private-prisons-cash-in-trumps-mass-deportations/]. Board members receive annual compensation packages ranging from $220,000 to $380,000, in cash retainers, meeting fees, and significant awards fueled by a stock buyback spree. “We’ve had a tremendous, tremendous second quarter,” stated CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger during the latest earnings call, touting financial increases of over 100 percent compared to the same period last year. “We’re gonna have a very strong year,” he concluded, upon disclsing executive intentions to “lean way far forward” in support of Trump & Co’s ethnic-cleansing campaign. For CoreCivic, mass expulsion, no matter the human right violations, is good for business. They plan to invest five times what they have in the past to build out a transportation fleet of buses and vans to aid local law enforcement working in collaboration with the ICE and Border Patrol Gestapos to “quickly” move those kidnapped from their workplaces and out of their homes into the expanding immigrant Gulag. Indeed, plied with government contracts aimed at supporting shadow president Stephen Miller’s goal of expelling one million newcomers to the US every year for the next 10-15 years, CoreCivic and its chief rival, GEO Group, are laughing all the way to the bank. They are being enriched with taxpayer money made possible by the 2025 MAGA Murder Mandate — the Big legislative Betrayal the current occupant of the White House calls “beautiful” — which allocated $45 billion to boost bed capacity in the ICE Gulag to incarcerate more than 100,000 people at a time — people who’ve largely committed no crime. That includes children and youth. That’s an 800% increase [https://immigrationforum.org/article/one-big-beautiful-bill-act-immigration-provisions/] in ICE’s budget from FY2024 for facilities alone. “ICE used me to catch my mom and now I am in jail [for 113 days] and I am sad and I have fainted 2 times here inside. When I arrived every night I cried and now I don’t sleep well, I felt like being here was my fault and I only wanted to be on vacation like a normal family.” Maria Antonia, a 9-year-old, traveling alone on a valid tourist visa, kidnapped at an international airport on arrival for a visit with her mom more than 113 days ago Texas has long been a willing contributor to — and benefactor of — the ICE immigrant Gulag. Seventy miles south of San Antonio, at CoreCivic’s Dilley Immigration Processing Center, 5,600 safety seekers [https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/human-rights-first-and-raices-release-new-report-exposing-systemic-due-process-violations-and-cruelty-at-dilley-ice-family-prison/], more than half of them children, have been imprisoned since it reopened in early 2025. Euphemistically referred to as the South Texas Family Residential Center, it is currently the nation’s only lock-up for immigrant families. But don’t be fooled by the name. Dilley is a jail. A jail run by jailers. A jail that locks up families, making a mockery of so-called family values. “I have been here for 70 days in this place. I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to school. I miss my grandparents. I miss my friends. I miss my uncles.” Mia Valentina, a 9-year-old kidnapped from Austin, Texas, more than 90 days ago What goes on behind Dilley’s concertina-laden fencing? That is the topic of Chapter 19 of Crossing the Line [http://sarahtowle.com], Locking Up Family Values. Click the PLAY button above to give it a listen. ☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼 Then circle back to find out about coming resistance actionsand how YOU can get involved… “Seeing how people like me, immigrants are treated changes my perspective about the U.S. My mom and I came to The U.S. for a good and safe place to live.” Susej, a 9-year-old kidnapped from Houston, Texas, more than 50 days ago Coming Resistance Actions… If you are in or can get to Texas… On Saturday, April 18: All Aboard! Caravans of Moms will converge at the Dilley concentration camp to demand the release of children held there. We meet at noon. Join here [https://www.canva.com/design/DAHGGvRug34/ULjgJV2LWycThLK8M8FblQ/view?utm_content=DAHGGvRug34&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h66d7bc2566#7]. Saturday, April 25: Communities Not Cages National Day of Action to Stop ICE Warehouse Detention, organized by Detention Watch Network. Find out more and propose an action here [https://www.instagram.com/p/DWmW7B5j1gf/?img_index=1&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email]. Friday, May 1: May Day Strong! No work, no school, no shopping. Sign the pledge and find or host an action at maydaystrong.org [https://substack.com/redirect/2af0f415-2e13-4f91-ac7d-ede32cc1b24a?j=eyJ1IjoiNDY0cGQifQ.JCMKNMPqnD8bz5YwQdsSXgjoIxoTFT3fPiNbK60dQ6I]. Sunday, May 24: Divest from the Immigration Prison Industrial Complex! Join me, Dora Rodriguez [https://substack.com/profile/104004669-dora-rodriguez], and other members of the Hope Knows No Borders Network for a creative brainstorm and workshop on all the many ways we, the people, can disrupt the ill-gotten gains of CoreCivic and GEO Group through boycotts and divestment. More info and registration link to follow. Until then… Be persistent. Be nonviolent. Bear Witness. Call your state and federal elected officials today! Tell them that locking up children and separating families is Not Okay! Demand that they tell Department of Homeland “Security” Secretary Markwayne Mullin to #ShutDownDilley, #CloseTheCamps, and #ReuniteFamilies by Mother’s Day! Stay strong, everybody. The only way through this is…Together, In solidarity,✊🏼 SarahAnat Shenker-Osorio [https://substack.com/profile/671652-anat-shenker-osorio] Michael Podhorzer [https://substack.com/profile/1683920-michael-podhorzer] Andrew Free [https://substack.com/profile/89825979-andrew-free] Pablo Manríquez [https://substack.com/profile/21387176-pablo-manriquez] #seeyouatdilley [https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/seeyouatdilley/] #destinationdilley [https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/destinationdilley/] #dillpill [https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/dillpill/] #iceout [https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/iceout/] Tales of Humanity is a reader-supported publication. It will always remain free because not enough people understand our horrible, no good, really deadly immigration system. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Tales of Humanity at sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe [https://sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

From Crosses that Kill to Crosses that Condemn... Have We Learned Nothing?

Apropos of the final days of Holy Week 2026, the darkest moments in the Christian calendar — that still and scary time just before dawn — I wanted to share this piece from the archives: Alvaro Enciso’s Desert Monument to the Dead. I was back in Arizona on my latest speaking tour. I went for the Tucson Festival of Books — a guest of Rita Cantu [https://substack.com/profile/26472022-rita-cantu] and the Border Community Alliance [https://bordercommunityalliance.org/]. While there, I rode south into the desert three times: * To bear witness to the destruction of the San Rafael Valley by the last several miles of Trump’s boondoggle border wall, * To aid Humane Borders with a water drop run to Warsaw Canyon, * To plant crosses with Alvaro Enciso, Peter, and David, the same team featured in the archival podcast episode you access above — the same story that would become the concluding chapter of Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands [http://www.sarahtowle.com], Buried Dreams. We were joined by a new member to the team, also named David, who was, completely coincidentally, one of my Binghamton, New York, hosts while on tour last fall. My reunion with Alvaro and his team, and their ceaseless attempt to memorialize the suffering of the great unknown, compelled me to dig up and listen to our audio collaboration, published more than four years ago. As I listened, I was taken with how eerily, hauntingly current it feels. And how appropriate to the season this statement is: “The cross is also a historical marker that was used by the Roman Empire to kill people. Remember, they used to hang them on crosses — false prophets, enemies of the empire. And they hung them out there for days in the sun without any water until they died, for everyone to see. “That’s exactly what’s happening here. People die from being exposed to the sun, without any water, on purpose.” —Alvaro Enciso, 2021 Since 1994, rather than reimagine a US immigration system that respects human rights, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have openly leaned on the theory of Prevention through Deterrence, which I prefer to call Deterrence through Cruelty, because all it has ever done is to exact tremendous misery and harm, and to kill. Untold numbers of peace-seeking people, as well as innocent wildlife, have died or disappeared because of it. The policy epitomizes what happens when walls are erected around nations: They go up around human hearts as well. Though originally published in January 2022, the only updates to make to this audio-tale are the numbers contained within: * At least 12,000 people have now died an excruciating death in the Sonoran Desert (up from 10,000), based on the conservative estimate of one person dead per day since the strategy began. * Alvaro, Peter, and David have now planted 2,300 crosses, up from 1,200 at the time this podcast interview was published four years ago. * The then-already explosive FY2021 budget of $17.7 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — part of a $48 billion allocation for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the Biden administration — mushroomed following Trump & Co’s July 2025 passage of the Big Brutal Bill (what I call the MAGA Murder Mandate), which handed DHS $170.7 billion for border militarization and people trafficking, aka immigrant incarceration and expulsion, through September 30, 2029, bequeathing to DHS a purse larger than most national militaries, with * $51.6 billion earmarked for border wall construction, surveillance systems, and Border Patrol prisons; * $45 billion for expanding ICE concentration camp capacity; and * $29.9 billion for kidnapping, imprisoning, and expelling our neighbors, colleagues, family, and friends. What started for Alvaro as a dream “to reveal to the world the US government’s responsibility for turning the Sonoran Desert into a graveyard” has resulted in his transforming the desert into a cemetery, an art installation, and a memorial to the needless suffering of the unknown. It’s a work of monumental art, exposing government-sanctioned crimes against humanity. It’s art intended to lift the memory of those tragically and unnecessarily lost, while informing the living of the atrocities being quietly carried out in our names. It is art without end, apparently, as it parallels the same cruelty exercised by the Romans approximately 1,993 years ago, when one who preached the gospel of love and caring, of welcome and kindness, was forced to wear a crown of thorns that pierced his head and to carry the implement of his coming torture: a cross. Have we really learned nothing, people? Alvaro and I agree: Prevention through Deterrence, aka Deterrence through Cruelty, is exacting a quiet genocide. It is an expression of all that we should not be as a people and a nation. When these dark days are finally behind us, and we have the opportunity to build something new from Trump & Co’s ashes, we must end the policy of Prevention through Deterrence, as we tear down the structures that created it, particularly the Department of Homeland “Security,” which isn’t keeping any of us secure at all. Stay strong, my friends. The only way through this is… Together.✊🏼 Sarah Don’t forget to tap the ♡ to like this podcast, and the 🔄 to share it. Tx! Tales of Humanity will always remain free because not enough people understand the human costs of an immigration system that privileges cruelty over kindness and “security” over human rights. If you like what I’m offering here — stories about radical care and mutual aid at a time of increasing fearmongering and hate — please consider becoming a paid subscriber. My gratitude in advance 🙏🏼. Get full access to Tales of Humanity at sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe [https://sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

"Alone, We Are Defenseless. Together, We Are Sacred."

On March 22, 2026, the fifth Sunday of the Lenten season, aka Passion Sunday, I had the great honor of addressing the incomparable St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a parish renowned for its progressive stance and its focus on social justice. These folks rose ready, together, in the face of Trump & Co’s domestic terror campaign, “Operation Metro Surge,” to defend and safeguard the human and constitutional rights of their neighbors. For this lapsed Catholic, the daughter of a devout Twin Cities Minnesotan, who was en route to the priesthood when he met my mom, it was the perfect place to be welcomed back into the fold. Speaking on this topic during the sacred Lenten season of grief and giving, of reflection and renewal — the time of the passion, when we are called upon to express compassion — could not have felt more auspicious, more vital, or more urgent in today’s political climate. The story of Lent is mirrored in real life, right now. We are in that still and scary time just before the light of a new dawn, when folks just living their sweet lives are vilified, declared terrorists, arrested, shackled, imprisoned, denied food and water, and forced to participate in their own destruction, just as one who preached the gospel of love and caring, of welcome and kindness, was forced to wear a crown of thorns that pierced his head and to carry the implement of his coming torture. This is happening again every minute of every single day, inside the US’s deterrence to detention to deportation pipeline. And the cruelty is not okay. In the aftermath of ICE’s brutal and criminal tearing apart of more than 3,700 Minnesota families to date [https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/03/31/3700-immigrants-arrested-during-operation-metro-surge/] that we know of, according to the Deportation Data Project, under Trump & Co’s ethnic cleansing campaign for which they are developing a holocaust-style infrastructure of concentration camps, complete with transportation network, the community of St. Joan of Arc has been engaged in a spiritual centering down. Guided by the wise words of writer Sherman Alexie [https://substack.com/profile/1727692-sherman-alexie], as well as Christian theologian, educator, and civil rights leader, Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, they have been preparing their heads, hands, and hearts for the ongoing struggle for social justice, that they may rise ready, together, when called upon again to do so. I am one more citizen marching against hatred.Alone, we are defenseless. Collected, we are sacred.We will march by the millions. We will tremble and grieve.We will praise and weep and laugh. We will believe.We will be courageous with our love. We will risk dangerAs we sing and sing and sing to welcome strangers. Sherman Alexie, 2017 The community asked that I focus my remarks on where I find strength in these deeply dark and challenging times; about how I quiet my soul and my mind when there is so much to do and so many needs to meet, Every. Single. Moment. of. Every. Single. Day. About how I center down. But I had to admit that I am none too good at the practice myself. Indeed, I had to learn the hard way that working to straighten the bent arc of justice is not a marathon. It’s not even a sprint. It’s a relay. That’s why it’s so important to know who your allies are, and to hold them dear, because we all need to pass the baton at times, to step back and center down so that we may again lead. In fact, in the most tragic moments of last winter’s occupation, I was looking to folks like my St Joan of Arc hosts for answers. When under siege, when the worst of humanity’s worst impulses were unleashed upon them, it was Minnesotans such as these, like Chicagoans and Angelenos and Portlanders before them, who showed us that… When we live together as brothers and sisters, we rise together, too. Minnesota showed us that we can create a more inclusive world, where the stranger is welcomed and embraced, rather than shackled and expelled. And that we would be a much better people and nation for it. They are to be thanked for standing against government violence and for everyone’s human right to dignity, safety, and due process under the law, for being the light in our collective hour of darkness. And for giving me my mojo back! In this Easter and Passover season, and with Ramadan just behind us, I hope you appreciate my pre-Mass remarks offered to the St Joan of Arc Catholic Community on March 22, 2026. Please, listen to the audio or watch the video above, then circle back to let us know, in the comments below, where you find hope when an ethnic cleansing, a genocide, is unfolding right in front of your eyes? Don’t forget to tap the ♡ if you like this video, and the 🔄 to share it. Until next time, stay strong, my friends. The only way through this is…Together.✊🏼 Sarah How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by! The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic; Our spirits resound with clashing, with noisy silences, While something deep within hungers and thirstsfor the still moment and the resting lull. With full intensity we seek, ere thicket passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;A direction, a strong sure purpose that will structure our confusion and bring meaning in our chaos. We look at ourselves in this waiting moment — the kinds of people we are. The questions persist: What are we doing with our lives? What are the motives that order our days? What is the end of our doings? Where are we trying to go? Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused? For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life? What do I hate most in life and to what am I true? Over and over the questions beat upon the waiting moment.As we listen, floating up through all of the jangling echoes of our turbulence,there is a sound of another kind —A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are answered,Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily roundWith the peace of the Eternal in our step.How good it is to center down! Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, 1999 Tales of Humanity is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Tales of Humanity at sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe [https://sarahtowle.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]