Praying with My Feet: The Arizona Migrant Trail, 2025

From May 25, Memorial Day, until June 1, my FMS compañera Kim Wagner and I joined 42 other pilgrims in walking 75 miles through the Sonoran Desert on the Arizona Migrant Trail. This annual walk, organized entirely by volunteers, is itself a memorial to the thousands of lives lost in the desert, as once-hopeful migrants succumb to its harsh conditions and our nation’s cruel policies unaided. It was an experience like no other – physically, spiritually, and emotionally. 

“The precarious reality of our borderlands calls us to walk,” says the Trail mission statement. “We bear witness to the tragedy … and the inhumanity in our midst. … We walk as a community, in defiance of the borders that attempt to divide us, committed to working together for the human dignity of all peoples.” 

To effectively bear witness, organizers planned press conferences for the opening and closing Sundays. Solemn rituals also book-ended the walk. Days began with circle rituals. On the Trail, each of us carried a white wooden cross marked either with a name, if the person’s remains were found with identification, or with Desconcido/a, Unknown. Mine bore the name of a 12-year-old boy, Luis Arturo Martinez Lovezaba. As we approached each stop for water or food we called the names reverently, one at a time, to the response Presente. When we laid them down in Tucson at the end of the walk, we felt we had symbolically completed the journey they were unable to complete.

Community marked every step. Scores of partner organizations and individuals have been involved since the first walk in 2004, and more than a dozen provided the delicious vegetarian meals that greeted us at major stops. Walkers opted to join one of six teams that managed safety; traveling logistics, including pop-ups for shade at stops; water, coffee, breakfasts and snacks (my team); vehicle support; porta-potties; and health care, which included cushioning blisters and trying, for the most part successfully, to keep us all sun-screened and hydrated. Work teams met daily and became our core communities within the whole. 

Diversity was another hallmark of the experience. A Franciscan friar walked in full habit with three student friars. The trail is on the land of the Tohono O’odham, whose traditional prayer ties and rituals added to the solemnity of the walk. For one section of the trail I was privileged to carry the ties at the head of the procession. Each small cotton bundle represents one of the 154 people whose remains have been found in the area since last summer’s trail walk. Palestinian native Mohyeddin Abdulaziz was walking for the 13th time, and his was not the only keffiyeh in evidence. The Presentes concluded with a call for the lives lost in that nation.

Most days, we covered 12 – 15 miles with temperatures in the high ’90s, but we came prepared, chatted and laughed when we weren’t walking in silence, slept well when it wasn’t our turn for night watch, and took excellent care of ourselves and each other. 
Two guitars and several fine voices made the evening breaks delightful, and phenomenal juggling was just one of the highlights at the Friday-night talent show. We were all keenly aware that we experienced only a taste of what migrants endure, and determined to bring it home with us in every possible way. 

To avoid the worst of the heat, we set out as early as 4 in the mornings. The memory I treasure above the rest is walking in silence, in the dark, then into the sunrise, thinking of young Luis and his family, hearing the steady crunch of stones and gravel, and knowing I was praying with my feet. I pray for an end to dehumanization, to othering and the hardening of hearts, to war and savage capitalism and climate change denial and all the other forms of violence that force migration, and for a massive upwelling of practical compassion for the endangered who are already in our midst.  I recommit my hands, head, heart, and feet to upholding human dignity in the face of all that opposes it. So help me God, by every name. 

Question for Reflection: When have you taken a journey where you “prayed with your feet?”

*Please visit the Arizona Migrant Trail website, https://azmigranttrail.com, to learn more about the walk and perhaps plan to participate.
Also see past FMS missioner and Program Missioner Julia Pinto’s reflection on her 2024 Trail experience.
To learn still more, peruse this comprehensive list of resources. https://azmigranttrail.com/resources/