Same Cemeteries

Same Cemeteries: A Reflection on the Illusion of Difference

Having come from a small, somewhat obscure city—Fall River, Massachusetts—I used to feel that we were nobody. We rarely, if ever, appeared in the national news. No riots, no glitzy headlines, no red carpets. Sure, a few famous names if you dig deep enough—Emeril Lagasse went to my high school, Lizzie Borden never left town—but for the most part, we lived under the radar.

Now I live in Spokane, Washington, where I’ve spent the last forty-one years. A fine place. Quieter than most. A little snow, a little smoke in fire season. Stuff sometimes happens here—basketball tournaments, presidential drop-ins, an occasional news item—but mostly, we’re the kind of city people confuse with somewhere else. Say “Spokane” back East, and someone will nod and ask how the Space Needle looks this time of year.

But here’s the thing: after living in two cities that most Americans couldn’t point to on a map, I’ve learned something—something quietly obvious but rarely said out loud.

Most of what we think divides us is noise.

We read headlines about political ideologies, racial strife, and cultural division. We hear about the Red States and Blue States, the city and the country, the coastal elites and the heartland faithful. It makes for great television. It sells ad space. It creates categories. But from what I’ve seen—from Fall River to Spokane, and a few places in between—most of it is just that: noise.

Sure, we don’t all pray in the same church. Or pray at all.

We don’t speak the same first language.

We fly different flags.

We cheer for different teams.

We argue about schools and statues and vaccines and the price of gas.

But still:

We wait in the same checkout lines.

We get stuck in the same traffic jams.

We worry in the same doctors’ offices.

We take our parents to the same nursing homes.

We hold our kids the same way when they cry.

And when the day comes, as it always does,

we sleep in the same cemeteries.

It doesn’t matter whether you were baptized or bar mitzvahed, voted left or right, lived in a trailer or a condo—when we bury our dead, the hole’s the same size. And in the end, we all get the same awkward mix of tears, platitudes, and silence.

That truth humbles me.

And it comforts me, too.

Because it reminds me that we are not as divided as we are told. Not really. Yes, our stories differ. Yes, our pain is real. But at the base of it all is a common humanity, quieter than the headlines and more lasting than the latest outrage.

We all come from somewhere that felt like nowhere.

We all want to be seen.

We all fear being forgotten.

We all hope, deep down, to be loved by someone who truly knows us.

Fall River and Spokane—fraternal twins, different accents, same bones.

And me, one of many who has lived in both, straddling coasts and codes and calendars, slowly learning that people are mostly the same wherever they live.

If we listened more in the checkout line than on cable news,

if we trusted the voice of our neighbors more than the noise of our feeds,

we might just remember what we already know:

That we are not strangers.

We are each other.

And in the end, when we rest—quiet, equal, and anonymous beneath the earth—

we’ll find ourselves among familiar company.

Same sky.

Same stone.

Same cemetery.

Old Body, Young Soul

There's no denying that 71 years in a "human suit" is a long time. The suit is a little worn and threadbare. The stuffing in the scarecrow is getting moldy. Thank the Lord He has seen fit allow my mind to remain sharp and "young" with a touch of wisdom. 

Oh, I am not entirely interested in what the "young suit model" think is "the cat's meow" or "cool" or whatever they're "verbifying". these days. Though, I can conjure new words with the best of them. Truly, when I stay away from the mirror, and don't expect the stamina of my teenager body to suddenly return, I am ageless. Of course when my sister who is 11 years my senior tells me that I am indeed "old" , I think she is just projecting. Another anniversary of my original Earthfall, and hope for  joy and purpose as I circumnavigate Old Sol to the next one. 

The Open Door: On Immigration, Fear, and the American Conscience

The Open Door: On Immigration, Fear, and the American Conscience

We are a vast and wealthy nation.

Our land stretches from ocean to ocean, from tundra to tropics, abundant in food, fuel, intellect, and innovation. We are rich not only in money but in infrastructure, in institutions, in cultural heritage, in technological marvels. We speak of ourselves as a beacon of liberty, a promised land, a refuge of opportunity.

And yet — at the sound of footsteps at our southern border,

we tremble.

We are told to fear the migrant.

We are warned that our country is full.

That we are under siege.

That we are being replaced.

And so the gates close. The rhetoric hardens. The laws tighten.

And children sleep on concrete in detention centers.

What Are We So Afraid Of?

Not resource depletion — we waste more food than we distribute.

Not job loss — immigrants grow our economy, start businesses, take risks.

Not crime — immigrants are statistically less likely to commit it.

Not cultural decline — unless you believe culture must be static, preserved in amber rather than evolving with grace.

No — what we fear is change.

What we fear is difference.

What we fear is the mirror that immigration holds up to us.

For immigrants, more than anything, reveal our hypocrisy.

We speak of freedom and opportunity — and deny both.

We speak of Christian charity — and turn away families in need.

We speak of hard work — and then despise the hands that build our homes, clean our hospitals, pick our fruit.

The Myth of Burden

Immigrants are not a burden. They are the backbone.

They do not drain our wealth — they expand it.

They do not threaten our values — they remind us of them.

They do not dilute our culture — they enrich it.

Every major study confirms this. Economists have shown that immigration raises productivity. Demographers warn that without new arrivals, our population will age and shrink. Business leaders acknowledge that immigrants fuel innovation.

And yet we persist in the fantasy that welcoming others means losing something ourselves — as if decency were a zero-sum game.

Who Benefits From the Fear?

It is worth asking — who profits from the fear of immigration?

• Politicians benefit, especially those who traffic in nationalism and grievance. They distract the public from broken health systems, corporate greed, and environmental catastrophe by conjuring images of a caravan invasion.
• Media outlets benefit, especially those that monetize fear. Every headline screaming about “surges” or “waves” reinforces a story of scarcity.
• Corporations benefit — paradoxically — from the presence of undocumented workers, whose legal vulnerability makes them easier to exploit, harder to organize, and cheaper to pay.

And in all this, the ordinary citizen is asked to believe a lie:

That our neighbor is our rival.

That the poor man crossing the border is the cause of our troubles.

That solidarity is weakness.

The Moral Cost of the Closed Door

The cost of this fear is not just economic. It is spiritual.

A nation that refuses the stranger becomes a nation that forgets its own story.

Unless we are Native American, our ancestors came from elsewhere. Some came fleeing famine, others fleeing pogroms, war, poverty, or persecution. Some came in chains. All came with hope.

To deny that same hope to others is not self-preservation. It is moral amnesia.

And when we close the door, we don’t just shut out the world.

We shut out the best part of ourselves.

What Would a Just Nation Do?

A just nation would not confuse order with cruelty.

It would not pretend that a wall is a policy.

It would not weaponize legality to dehumanize.

A just nation would ask not “How do we keep them out?”

But “How can we welcome them well?”

It would recognize the migrant not as a threat, but as a fellow traveler in search of the same peace, the same dignity, the same chance that we once sought.

Conclusion: The Nation We Claim to Be

If we truly are the nation we claim to be —

A land of liberty.

A haven for the tired and poor.

A shining city on a hill —

Then the question is not whether we can afford to welcome others.

The question is whether we can afford not to.

For a nation’s greatness is not measured by its GDP, its armies, or its walls —

But by how it treats the stranger at the door.