The Disappeared
A Meditation by Rev. Cameron Trimble
“The opposite of faith is not doubt, but indifference.”— Elie Wiesel
Advent is the season of holy darkness, the time when truth hides in shadow and asks if we’re willing to look. Each year it returns, not to redeem the world but to remind us that light is always being born through us, again and again.
Sarah Stillman’s reporting in The New Yorker1 exposes one of those shadows: immigrants vanished by our own government—people taken from their homes, shackled, flown in the night to foreign prisons or dangerous borderlands in countries they have never known. They are not abstractions. They are mothers, students, grandfathers, musicians, seekers of safety. They have names: Jim, Miriam, Orville.
At the heart of these deportations is a moral collapse: the decision to make certain people unseeable. They are disappeared not just from geography but from moral imagination. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas once said, “The face of the other is the beginning of all ethics.”2 When we erase those faces—behind deportation orders, military flights, and shadow dockets—we erase the possibility of goodness itself.
When George Washington toasted, “I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong,”3 ships were already docking in Charleston, heavy with enslaved Africans whose names were stripped away. America was conceived as sanctuary and as prison simultaneously, a contradiction that still shapes our collective soul.
Advent does not let us look away. It insists that we sit with the world as it is—messy, interdependent, aching for justice. The story of the Christ child begins with a refugee family fleeing state violence, carrying divine hope across a border at night. To practice Advent is to stand with every mother and father who still does the same.
There is a darkness God inhabits—not the darkness of cruelty, but the womb-like darkness of becoming, where truth begins to stir. We must enter that darkness now. Theologian Dorothee Sölle once wrote that “God has no other hands than ours.” If that’s true, then the work of Advent is not only to wait for light but to become it, to bear witness, to intervene, to name what empire disappears.
Still, I struggle to know how to act in the face of this atrocity. I want to stop these deportations, as I know you do too. There is no “solution” that fits neatly within the current political schema. But there are invitations, acts that stretch toward the world that could yet be born:
Witnessing: not just in empathy but in embodied memory—refusing erasure. Remembering these people as people and telling their stories again and again.
Reframing belonging: advocating for ways of belonging that do not depend on documentation, borders, or detachment from relational context.
Denouncing extraction: calling out the logic that treats human beings as movable objects, as commodities.
Centering relational safety: insisting that care is infrastructural, that protection, sanctuary, and access to justice belong to the commons, not to privilege.
Weaving solidarity: building alliances between immigrants and communities that uphold the value of relational life over bureaucratic abstraction.
Howard Thurman said, “There must be always remaining in every man’s life some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathless and beautiful.” The singing of angels this Advent will not drown out the cries from Bundase Camp or the forests of Togo. But it can accompany them, reminding us that beauty and justice are not opposites. They are the same song, sung from opposite sides of the veil.
This Advent, may we refuse indifference. May we see the disappeared not as strangers but as Christ among us—exiled, handcuffed, and still carrying light.
We are in this together,
Cameron
Reflection Questions
What stories or faces has our culture trained you not to see?
What does Advent’s darkness invite you to confront—not to fix, but to witness?
How might seeing become an act of resistance?
A Prayer for the Day
A Prayer for Those the World Tries To Erase
Holy Presence, You who move through every living thing, teach us to feel the ache of absence. Hold close the disappeared, those carried away in the night, those whose names are whispered only in fear. Awaken in us the courage to remember— to see what power hides, to mend what cruelty unravels, to become the light we await. Let our waiting be work, our compassion a protest, our tenderness a form of truth. Amen.
Spiritual Practice
Vigil in the Dark
Tonight, sit in darkness for ten minutes. No screens, no noise. Imagine the unseen—those detained, deported, or erased.
Picture threads of light connecting you to them, luminous and real.
Then, light a candle. As its flame rises, say aloud:
Nothing is separate. Nothing is lost. Everyone and everything belongs.
Let that be your Advent creed.
Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…
January 6, 13, 20, 2026 - Protest and Action Chaplaincy Training with Rev. Anna Galladay. This live, online training offers a framework for providing compassionate, grounded spiritual care during protests, advocacy gatherings, and social movements. Learn more here.
January 15, 2026, 7-8pm EST - FREE Online Webinar: When the Internet Hurts: The Hidden Online Dangers Facing Our Teens and How Faith Communities Can Respond, Join me in conversation with Sharon Winkler, survivor parent and nationally respected youth online-safety advocate. Sharon’s son, Alex, died at age 17 after experiencing cyberbullying and algorithmically targeted pro-suicide content. Since then, Sharon has dedicated her life to helping parents, educators, and faith leaders recognize online dangers and build safer communities for young people. Register here.
February 11th and 25, 2026 - Join Our “Building a Culture of Leadership Within Congregations” Cohort facilitated by Rabbi Benjamin Ross and me! A two-session course for ministers and faith leaders ready to strengthen how their congregations and ministries identify, develop, and support leaders. Learn more here.
July 19-24, 2026 - Join me and amazing co-facilitator, Victoria, on retreat in the back-country of beautiful Wyoming. The Art of Wilding is a 5-Day Expedition for Women Leaders. We will spend the week reconnecting to nature, exploring our inner landscapes for change, and engage the wisdom of spiritual teachings. Click here to learn more.
I drafted a Strategic Framework for Congregations as we move into the coming years of increased authoritarianism around the world. If interested, you can download it here.
If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.
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An essential, powerful, and loving shaking and stirring of our souls. Thank you.