Rev. McKinley L. Sims, M.Div.

I was 13. I can still feel the excitement in the air. I can smell the expectation. I can taste the adrenaline-fueled energy of the Frank Irwin Center in Austin, TX. It’s a slightly chilly day in March, but the inside of the basketball stadium is a furnace thanks to the 30,000+ people jammed into the building affectionately known as, “The Drum.”

I’m sitting next to my brother, and we are as close to heaven as you can get. Two boys with nothing on our to-do lists except to watch basketball and eat fried food. We are surrounded by other junkies, each one just as joyous and giddy as we are. The atmosphere is so charged with emotion, I imagine that at any moment someone might spontaneously combust.

The Texas State Boys Basketball tournament is easily my favorite secular holiday, and the atmosphere is not unlike what I felt in our city as Thanksgiving gave way to Advent, Hanukkah, Christmas and Yule season. There’s a mix of anticipation and excitement that borders on chaos if we’re not careful. We’re always at a tipping point, it feels like. It’s exhilarating, but also exhausting.

The news this week of children and peaceful asylum seekers being met with violence and tear gas at our southern border is heartbreaking, and it runs right into that excitement and joy I felt as Christmas season got underway. I’m struck at the hypocrisy of people claiming to celebrate the birth of a migrant baby born into poverty by rejecting those who are just like he and his family, proclaiming there is no room at the inn….even though we have more room than any other nation in history. It’s terribly frustrating.

I remember the looks on the faces of the families of the high school boys who drove to Austin to see their small town team play basketball, only to lose at the last moment. The pain was real there…and it has to be so many times worse for our siblings from Central America desperately seeking, not a silly trophy, but a safe home and haven from violence our country helped create.

But I also remember the feeling of anticipating that last minute of a close game. In that moment, as if by invisible command, the stadium collectively rises to its feet, accompanied by the roar of a jumbo-jet of expectant energy. We spectators become one in that moment. Amidst all the taut nerves and exhausted feet, we are waiting. Waiting expectantly. Waiting for someone to make a play. Waiting for something to happen…..Willing something to happen.

The holidays are a time of waiting…and willing. We are waiting on days and nights, presents and promises, but we are also able to will something to happen while we wait. We can act. We can pray. We can donate. In this season of waiting, I encourage you to join the crowd who do both.

To help asylum seekers: https://www.uusc.org/

For those in ICE custody: https://www.fianzafund.org/home.html

For more info: UUA info