the River keeps finding a way

On kindness, advocacy, and the people who help love get through

Yesterday my friend Nate Samudzi went in to meet with ICE.

He had been asked to come in so they could review his case.

And then they detained him again.

There are moments when you hear news like that and something inside you just sinks.

Again?

After all of this?

After he had already been taken once. After so many people had rallied around him. After a legal team had worked so hard to get him released.

Again.

But then something else happened.

The team went to work.

Lawyers. Advocates. Friends. People who know the system. People who know the courts. People making calls, filing papers, asking questions, refusing to let someone simply disappear into the machinery.

And now there is hope that Nate will be released again, and that he may finally be able to remain free while his case is heard in the courts.

Watching all of this reminded me of an image from the theologian Leslie Weatherhead.

Weatherhead remembered being a boy after a rainstorm, playing along a dirt road where little streams of water would begin running downhill. Like children do, he would gather rocks and sticks and mud and try to dam up the water.

And for a little while it would work.

The water would collect behind the little dam.

But then it would begin searching.

A trickle would slip around one side.

Another would find a crack.

Soon the water would make a new path and keep moving.

Weatherhead came to imagine the love of God that way.

A river.

We can block it.

We can obstruct it.

We can pile all kinds of things in its way.

But love keeps looking for another path.

I think I saw that yesterday.

There are things in this world that block tenderness and mercy, justice and simple human kindness.

Sometimes they are laws.

Sometimes systems.

Sometimes fear.

Sometimes cruelty.

Sometimes it is simply that terrible human habit of turning another person into a problem instead of a person.

And I don’t want to pretend those things are small.

Dams can do real damage.

People can be frightened. Families can be separated. Human beings can be detained, exhausted, and hurt.

But I am increasingly grateful for all the people who have decided that when the water is blocked, they will help it find another way.

The lawyers who know which papers to file.

The advocates who know whom to call.

The people who show up.

The people who raise money.

The people who translate.

The people who bring food.

The people who sit with frightened families while they wait.

The people who say, again and again:

You are not going through this alone.

Maybe this is what faithfulness looks like sometimes.

Not standing on a hill shouting about how powerful the river is.

But kneeling down beside it and moving a stone.

Opening a channel.

Digging a little trench.

Helping love get through.

Recently I wrote about the people whose lives are devoted to what I called tender, gentle kindness—the dentist leaning over someone who is afraid, the nurse easing pain, the caregiver offering a hand, the ordinary people whose work each day is to make suffering a little less.

Today I find myself grateful for another group of people.

The people whose work is to stand beside vulnerable human beings when powerful systems threaten to overwhelm them.

The legal teams.

The advocates.

The neighbors.

The quiet, determined people who keep saying:

There has to be a way through.

There is generosity in this world.

There is kindness in this world.

And sometimes kindness has a law degree.

Sometimes compassion carries a stack of court papers.

Sometimes love sits up late reading case law.

Sometimes mercy makes another phone call.

Sometimes justice is someone refusing to give up on a person they may barely know.

Sometimes the river of God looks like a room full of tired people who simply refuse to stop working.

Maybe this is what the prophets were trying to tell us all along.

Micah said:

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly.

And Amos imagined justice itself as water:

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Perhaps the river of God is not something we merely admire.

Perhaps it is something we help make room for.

When mercy is blocked, we clear a path.

When justice is dammed up, we move a stone.

When someone is caught in the machinery, we gather around them.

I don’t know yet how Nate’s story will turn out.

But I know what I saw yesterday.

Someone tried to dam the river.

And almost immediately, all around that dam, the water began searching for a way through.

Lawyers began working.

Friends began calling.

Advocates began organizing.

People began showing up.

The river keeps finding a way.

And our work is to help it through.