Imagine this: a house built on a shaky foundation, right on top of an earthquake fault line. Then the big earthquake comes. Not a mild 3.3 tremor, which a Californian would calmly ride out while finishing their work, but a 7.0 quake, a dangerous one. And instead of ducking under a table, or helping children and elders do the same, you walk toward the walls, taping the cracks as they appear in an attempt to stop the house from falling.
The United States is going through a 7.0 earthquake right now.
Back in June 2025, when unconstitutional, military-style raids by masked, unidentified men began targeting Latino/a workers in the Los Angeles area, I experienced a small crisis—both as an attorney and as a human being. My community was being targeted not for their legal status, but for the color of their skin, the language they spoke, and the type of work they did. I never expected to see this in constitutional republic with a representative democratic system. I had heard of such abuses in other countries, in dictatorships.
In January 2025, I posted an adaptation of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem, “First They Came.” “First they came for undocumented people, and I did not speak out, because I was not undocumented,” the adapted poem begins. It continues to name assaults on women’s reproductive health care, trans people, and other LGBTQ+ people, before concluding, “Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Today, more than a year later, I would also include the poor, whose grocery prices continue to climb, and the Black community, who have been caught in the crosshairs of so-called “immigration enforcement.”
So yes, I had a bit of a crisis in June. I’ve always considered myself resilient—someone whose best quality is adaptation. Since childhood, I’ve adapted through difficult life changes and kept moving forward with hope, strength, and intelligence. Change never frightened me.
But this time, I found myself taping cracks on the walls. “This cannot be happening in this country,” I told myself again and again, in utter disbelief. I began thinking of all the ways I could hold on to the remnants of the American Dream. And then I realized—for the first time in my life—I was afraid of change. I was craving stability. Fear was clouding my vision.
Before his crucifixion, Jesus reassured his disciples not to be afraid, promising them a peace in the midst of injustice and hurt—a peace unlike what a world of violent dominance offers, the peace that comes from standing with the marginalized: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
When I remembered these words, my eyes opened, I began to see what I had missed: people helping one another. Neighbors patrolling their streets. Volunteers organizing rapid-response hotlines. Strangers helping locate those taken away, caring for parentless children left behind in cars or empty homes, feeding pets left behind, donating to nonprofits, comforting one another in grief. Communities peacefully but prophetically protesting, standing with one another.
To love like Jesus is not to preserve the structures of power that harm the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized just because they’re “traditional.” Loving like Jesus means standing together as those structures crumble—shielding one another from harm, tending to both immediate and long-term needs, and letting the light enter through the cracks.
We must let the cracks show, for through the cracks, the light enters. Through the cracks, we see the shaky foundation and the fault lines on which this nation was built: racism, colonialism, an obsession with power that displaced, killed, abused, and enslaved—all in the name of Jesus. And through those cracks, we see how that same foundation continues to produce corruption, income inequality, impunity for the rich, and the abuse of women: anti-gospel values masked as white Christian nationalism.
So what should we do while the earthquake passes? Continue to be prophetic, like Jesus. Continue to shine light on the cracks. Continue standing by one another—for harm to one is harm to all. Continue caring for each the most vulnerable. And if the house must fall, let it fall.
The Holy Spirit will show us how to rebuild. When the earthquake passes, we will rebuild on solidarity, kindness, intersectionality, and love.
An abbreviated form of this article also appears in the February 2026 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 91, No. 2, page 9). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Image: Unsplash/Belinda Fewings
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