Happy Fathers Day

It's Fathers day and I'm trying to imagine my feelings as a father if I had fled my homeland to escape pervasive gang-violence and rampant corruption, bringing my daughter hundreds of miles across grueling and sometimes dangerous country-side, so I could apply for asylum and safety in a country that I knew had a policy of welcoming people in my, our, situation.

I'm trying to imagine how I would  feel if, when we arrived  at the border station, we were treated as criminals and my daughter was forcibly taken from me and I had no idea where she was and with whom.

Happy Fathers day.

Our Country's Shame

About this business of separating children from their parents at our southern border:

1. Stop talking about the law. Separating families is not prescribed by law; it's based on a policy the Trump administration put into effect to discourage families from illegally entering the country (pay attention to "illegally," it's important).

2. The policy is not just being applied to  families trying to sneak across the southern border, it's being applied to families who are openly approaching border stations and requesting asylum.

3. Families and children who request asylum are within their legal rights to do so, based on a law proposed by the George W. Bush administration and passed overwhelmingly by Congress and based on principles of international law the US has subscribed to for decades.

4. By separating families in the absence of laws passed by congress, the administration is placing itself in opposition to laws Congress has passed. Congress can stop this now if they will stand up to Trump and Sessions. Americans of conscience should insist that Congress and the courts move, immediately, to end this shame Trump brings on our country.

Lies and Liars

In the Spring of 1995, I was driving home from work listening to news on my car radio. The main story was the very recent bombing in Oklahoma City, followed by a revelations about the terrorist cult Aum Shinrykio and its leader, which had  conducted a Sarin attack in the Tokyo Subway a month earlier. I had one of those moments when I couldn't listen to it any longer (Oklahoma City was a raw wound and I'd been following the Tokyo  subway story in my job). I switched the station to a legacy rock station just in time to catch the beginning of Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. My first thought was "well, that's creepy," but then--really for the first time I think--I listened to the lyrics.

Mick Jagger's and Keith Richards' Devil is in keeping with Milton's Lucifer and C.S. Lewis's Screwtape. He is vain and prideful, announcing repeatedly he is "a man of wealth and taste." The vanity is oppressive as is his demand that his "achievements" and "wealth and taste" be recognized, honored actually:

"So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste"

And, remember the Prince of Lies?

"Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint"

Truth means nothing to those who traffic in lies. As M. Scott Peck put it in his book, People of the Lie,  those who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures, they cause havoc in the lives of those around them. Most recently, I posted a comment about Michael Hayden's and James Clapper's books, in which they contend the goal of Russia in interfering in our political process is to shred our sense of truth as something that rests on facts and is knowable. Once that is successful, the loudest, most audacious lie will win.

About those verses from Romans...

Since Jeff Sessions and Sarah Sanders are touting Romans 13 to justify ripping families apart (although no law requires such action), it might be interesting to read  the entire letter from St Paul; and consider what it would mean for the rest of the Trump example and administration:

Romans 13:1–14
Submission to Governing Authorities

The first section (1 - 5) is the part Sessions and others are referring to and it has been cited, often, to justify compliance with authority, any authority. Jesus makes the same case in his reply to the Pharisees "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's. The passages are not a writ to trample on peoples' rights, dignity and personhood. The point is that even flawed government that maintains order and allows people to thrive is better than anarchy. Paul takes the same point but also applies it to the growing communities of Christians scattered about the Eastern Mediterranean and tells them to quit squabbling and work with their communities' leaders.

"1. Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

"2. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

"3. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.

"4. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

"5. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience."

Now this part gets interesting.The "good" of maintaining order in a community costs money. So governments  collect money to pay for themselves. Something else to consider, please; those who benefit most from an orderly society ate those whose lives (private and commercial) are most complex. The merchant in Jerusalem, who prospered because Rome built highways and swept the sea clean of pirates, gained far more than the fisherman in Galilee. Shouldn't the merchant pay more than the fisherman? Should a corporation or CEO today be able to avoid or minimize their taxes through loopholes purchased from legislators? What would Paul, or Jesus think of tax legislation that lends weight of law to the wealthy avoiding taxes (think about the rich man, Dives, and God's judgement on him)?

Verse 8 is a doozy if you're a real estate magnate who has made stiffing your contractors and ripping off charities part of your business plan.

"8. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law."

In verse 9, Paul references the the commandments about adultery, murder, coveting, and theft. Adultery speaks for itself. But what they all have in common is the admonition against placing yourself and your gratification above all else and everyone else. Seriously, isn't that the pattern of Trump's life and the example he and his family set for the nation?

"9. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

For the remainder of the verses (10-14), ask yourselves if tearing families apart, not as enforcing the law, but as acting on an Executive whim, is acting in love of fellow human beings. And ask yourself what would Jesus--who said "what you do to the least of these, you do to me" and of those who would harm children, "better a millstone be tied around their neck and they be cast into the sea" --do?

"10. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."

"11. And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber,  because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

"12. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armorg of light.

"13. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

"14. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."

It's easy to snatch a phrase here and there. Sessions and Sanders would like to speak, I'm sure, with the voices of angels, but their lack of love (i.e. their hatred) ensures they are but clanging cymbals.