Of all the looming ecological crises, from climate change to loss of biodiversity to air pollution, perhaps this one, our disconnectedness from Creation, is both the most basic and the most dangerous.

As the unraveling financial crisis has shown this week, for all the walls we may attempt to build, our borders are far more porous than we ever could have imagined. What happens here reverberates far beyond, not only from Wall Street to the proverbial Main Street, but to Italy and Germany and India and Peru.

Millions of individuals and families are living here in the U.S. in violation of U.S. immigration laws. But as a Christian, I firmly believe we have to take a more penetrating look at the situation because we believe we are all subject to a Higher Law.