PBS Short Film Festival

Stay up here, you can be in the picture. (soft pensive music) Well of course it's easy for some people to think it's a good idea if they're living up north, and they don't live here. (soft pensive music) But a wall is probably not the best answer. It's kind of like a neanderthal solution to a 21st century problem. (pensive guitar music) My favorite beer is Lone Star Beer, and my favorite country song is It's All Right to be Little Bitty. There's a bunch of 'em, but I think that's my favorite one. (chuckles) (church bells ringing) (birds chirping) It wasn't an easy road. I mean it wasn't simple or, and it wasn't even crystal clear. But anyway I started studying with the Oblates, and just one step at a time, and here I am. 37 years, 37 years last month. When I came here I had a beautiful old dog named Gunzel who had adopted me when I was teaching in San Isidro. She was a wonderful dog. You guys are good too. I remember one of the sisters saying, "You ought to bring her with you to mass." And I said, "Well I don't know. "I don't wanna be offending anybody." But so she was the first dog guardian angel. (pensive guitar music) And there's something about a dog that really is just good for your heart. And that dog, she pretty much helps kinda break the ice, you know? (pensive guitar music) (crickets chirping) (pensive guitar music) (boat motor whirring) So that's Mexico right there. We're on the edge of Texas right now. In fact, we're just a little bit over. We're on the Mexican side. We're a little bit past the middle. Now across that field there is the La Lomita Chapel. You'll see it, just, there it is right now, see it? (boat motor whirring) I often go to La Lomita to pray. So I went in there with Bandito, it was one night after dark, and Bandito started barking. I said, "What are you barking for? "We came in here to pray. "Be quiet." And then I looked in the back there was five young people who had come across the river, hiding back there in the chapel. And, so of course I got 'em food and water and everything, and they said, "Could you help us get to town?" I said, "Well, I really can't. "I would love to, but if we do and we get caught, "it would be bad for all of us." But eventually when I went back they were gone, and I don't know if they were apprehended or they made their way north or what. But in many, all those cases, those are not vicious outlaws. They're gentle, usually gentle, noble, sweet, sincere, and young. Most of 'em are, I bet most of 'em are younger than 25. (pensive guitar music) (boat motor whirring) (pensive guitar music) Yeah, La Lomita's in danger because Trump's wall, I hope you don't mind me calling it Trump's wall, The Great Wall of Trump, is gonna put La Lomita on the other side. There's homes and ranches and a wildlife refuge, butterfly refuge, all kind of beautiful things there that would be walled off. It's never occurred to anybody in their wildest or most paranoic dreams that we would build a wall and hide behind the wall. I think La Lomita is the only church property all up and down the river that's on the other side of the levee. (pensive music) It's rare right now to be here on a Sunday afternoon that there's not people just, families picnicking and people praying. It's rare to come here and not find people here praying. (pensive music) They've never approached us to tell us, "You know we're fixin' to build a wall "to wall off your chapel from you." Never, they've never invited us to a meeting. Some of these landowners have had some contact with 'em. I don't know if they initiated the contact or if anybody, well you heard the story of the butterfly lady. She just discovered 'em surveying her property without any permission. But the wall, or at least the plan would be, that we know of, the wall would go on the levee. So La Lomita and all the lands of La Lomita, the park and everything would be behind the wall. And this is where I made my final vows in 1980. My mom and my dad and my grandma were all alive. It was a great day in the neighborhood. So if this sweet old chapel could talk, the stories it could tell. Beautiful stories. And you'll see that they'll leave little, they'll leave milagritos, which are little symbols of their prayer. There's probably, they'll leave little notes, and, just around. Christ reminds us to always be humble and kind. And it's easy to get out of touch with that now, even, you notice sometimes religion is very, very pompous, very grandiose, very, almost insinuating arrogance, you know? Like we're so impressed with ourselves, and La Lomita keeps us down to earth, reminds us to be humble and humble and kind. (pensive guitar music) You know we had that beautiful, happy procession down there in August just to say that we, this is, we don't want our church or our neighbors walled off from us. Just to let the powers that be know. The city made a kind of a declaration that opposed the idea of a border wall. City council, the mayor and city council opposed the plan of whatever it will be. That would probably be 99% of the citizens here would say that. (pensive guitar music) We bless our hearts with this holy water from the Rio Grande, which reminds us that His love is in work, in the whole story of our lives, even in the craziest, messiest parts. The almighty God bless us all. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. -

Congregation

Amen. Amen! (congregation applauds and cheers) (pensive guitar music) A lot of country priests thought we'd never get a pope that's so down home. What the Pope was saying is a Christian is more concerned with building bridges than walls. And we want to communicate, help each other, be friends with, reach out and help each other on the journey, not build barriers and walls. When the discussion comes up, the President always insinuates, "As long as I can get my wall, maybe I'll be able "to treat some of these people with respect." So I don't know, I mean that's, I mean that, who knows? There's so much BS involved in all of that, but, so I don't know what the plans really are. We hope that the plans will fizzle. You don't remember probably, but it was about 10 or 12 years ago it came up. And what happened here, there was no wall. Now there is a wall farther down there. And up the river there's kinda those bollards, they call 'em, big ol' posts sticking up, iron posts sticking up out of the ground. So there's some parts of the wall really already exist in the valley. (pensive music) I'm not saying that a country priest knows how to solve all these immigration problems. I know I don't know how to solve. But I do know we have to treat each other like human beings. (pensive guitar music) (crickets chirping)