In 1986 we were marching down State Street in Chicago, singing and chanting our slogans. In front of us was a group with a banner, but I couldn’t see what it said. After many blocks we arrived at our destination, where speeches and peaceful arrests were planned. We got around front of the banner, and I was shocked to see in big letters the name of what I knew to be a terrorist organization. In my research on our issue, I had learned that this group’s response to an unjust but complex situation was ruthless killing of innocent people. All the way down State Street I had been marching behind their banner. We had joked, sang, and chanted together. But what common cause could I have with these people?

A mass rally such as “A Day Without Immigrants” can only succeed by reducing complex issues to simplistic slogans, and cobbling together tentative alliances. That’s tough on an analytical person like me who tries to look at all sides and carve out a nuanced position. It’s also tough on an idealistic person like me, who not only wants a position to atop the moral high ground, but wants to climb there only by means as pure as the driven snow. Who knows what kind of rabble is afoot in a crowd singing “We Shall Overcome” or chanting “Si, se puede”?

The pragmatist in me is also hardly naïve about the nature of political and economic power. A few lobbyists in a cloakroom may hold more sway over immigration policy than tens of thousands of working-class people in the streets, and “a day without immigrants” won’t even register a blip on the economic charts.

So, what was I, a white guy in a Canada shirt with nuanced positions and a weakness for weary cynicism, doing at the Capitol last week with 75,000 chanting people?

First, little reasons: I was curious. I had a new camera to try out. I dig crowds.

Bigger reasons: my journey after my heady days of political activism, which has been in no small part a spiritual journey, has been one of discovery that righteousness and justice (the same New Testament Greek word, by the way) is in fact much more of a messy process than a pure position. If I marched 20 years ago out of a sense of moral purity, I marched last week out of a sense that it might just be worthwhile to wade exuberantly through the moral muck, casting my lot with people who I would rather embrace as neighbors than exclude as aliens.

Biggest reason: That’s it, the exuberant part. Enough with the angst, the analysis, the nuance. (Sure, I’ll get to policy questions in another post, or not.) Wow, what a day in Denver! Clear blue Colorado sky, sunshine gleaming off the gold dome. Whole families—great big extended immigrant families, with grandmas pushing strollers and teenagers holding toddlers. Young men leading cheers, young women waving flags. What a day in America! In Belarus, in Nepal, they can’t…not without getting beaten or shot. Here, si se puede, yes we can, and it is a glorious freedom to assemble, to celebrate, to give windy speeches about lofty ideals, to debate our slogans and signs with the other crowd, to enjoy the flavors brought from other lands, and when it’s over, gather the litter in plastic bags and go to our homes.

It's a party I want in on. And, on a gut level, I know I want more people in on it too. Lots more people. If that's taking a side on the immigration issue, I'm taking it--rallies and all. Si, se puede!