Category Archives: A life in the Spirit

Signs and Symbols of Holy Week: Pause and turn

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, ,

It is the Holy Week. It will end with the most important day on a Christian’s calendar: Easter, the Resurrection Sunday.

Last Saturday, we led a retreat to help us prepare to walk with Jesus through the whole week, since every day of His last week has significance. Christians all over the world will be walking with us, dying and rising with Jesus. They join the billions throughout history, who have also marked this week with their devotion and disciplines. Holy Week is a “thin place” in the calendar where the spiritual and material dimensions seem especially close.

Our retreat was all about pausing and turning into that closeness, daring to hope we could have a deeper, person-to-person relationship with God. We took a curious look at each day to see where there was a place of connection for us. We wondered, “How can I walk with Jesus, even see through his eyes, even be touched like those he touched? How can I be like those first people who heard his teaching and watched his love come to fruit?”

Can still see the ruts near Baker, OR

I’ve been moving through Holy Weeks with such spiritual intention for many years. Those who have gone before me have left a trail to follow, something like a spiritual Oregon Trail through the prairie, ruts so deep it is hard to miss the way to the “promised land.” They’ve left a lot of stories and markers along the way. Every year they lead me somewhere better.

I decided to give you a small replay of what we did in case you want to start the journey today, or whenever you read this. Let me show you a symbol for each day of the week, give you a snippet of the scripture story, and suggest where you might like to turn to find the deeper connection. Whether you find something new or deeper in the next few minutes is probably not as important as the fact your stopped, you paused, and you turned a hopeful heart in God’s direction. You might find Jesus, or you might be quiet long enough to be found.

The palm

Yesterday was “Palm Sunday.”

As he went along, people spread their cloaks [and palm branches] on the road.

When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” — Luke 19:36-40

Turn into your stoniness. Where you have scar tissue, where hate or fear has made your heart hard, where you feel numb is the kind of place I mean. Jesus is riding into that area right now. You might want to throw your Burberry in the dirt so the donkey hooves don’t get dirty.

The cornerstone

Jesus runs into hard hearts on Monday and all week, especially among the leaders who are afraid of losing power in the zero-sum contest they are having with God.

Jesus claims Jerusalem.

The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone.

“Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” — Luke 20:17-18

Turn into the upside-down kingdom of which Jesus is King. It will take changing your mind. If you’ve been a Christian for a while, this turn will likely be harder than it looks, since you know a lot and changing will feel like betraying who you’ve come to be — or worse, it will feel like you are betraying the image you think people believe you are. You’re not the cornerstone.

The fig tree

Jesus continues to teach publicly and on Tuesday draws his disciples away to lay open the trouble ahead for a world which refuses to follow God incarnate, into a renewed, truthful, love relationship. At our retreat, it was inevitable we would need to talk about Trump.

Then he told [the disciples] a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” Luke 21:29-31

Turn into the “what ifs” that scare you: financial threats, deportation, attacks on your identity, and the uncertainty of the future. Each of us is going to die, the whole world could come to the end of an era or the end of time. Jesus would like to take our chins and lift our heads, nudge us into alertness so we can stand with him in confidence, no matter what.

The alabaster jar

On Wednesday, a woman came to Jesus to anoint him with expensive oil and honor him. Like they did in those days, it was like she was preparing him for his burial. But the broken-open jar, full of precious oil, the out-of-order act of breaking into a dinner party, was like Jesus bursting out of his tomb on Easter, too.

As he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. …And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” — Mark 14

Turn into the wildness. The money is “wasted.” The woman takes center stage. The Lord receives his praise. The future is foretold. This holy week is full of mystery — only it is happening right before our eyes! Where is the wildness in you that is worth remembering, worth daring?

The basin and ewer

At the famous “last supper” on Thursday with his disciples, it begins to become crystal clear how Jesus is going to change the whole world. He turns the bread and wine of dinner into sharing his body and blood — something so profound his inner circle can barely eat it. Then he gets up from the table and washes the disciples’ feet — something so humble they can barely stand it.

You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. — John 12:13-14

Turn into the love. Yes, this directs us to get down on the dirty floor and serve. But before we can stick with such endless giving, we need to receive the love: Jesus handing us his body and blood; Jesus doing anything for us, no matter how beneath his rights.

Later that same night Jesus did what he always did before something big or miraculous was going to happen. He paused. He found a thin place to commune with his Father. This time he went to a garden just outside the walls and prayed. The picture of him doing it is so iconic, ChatGPT had no problem providing a drawing.

I ask not only on behalf of those who believe in me through the word of my disciples that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. — John 17

Turn into aloneness so deep it makes you sweat or cry, into connection with God so deep it fills you with compassion. Hear Jesus praying for you even as he prays for himself. Be one with him as he longs to be one with you. Your oneness with God is a revelation of all the goodness built into the world and an incarnation of mysteries we innately long to experience.

The crown of thorns

Judas is lured into handing Jesus over to the Sanhedrin’s soldiers. Peter cuts off one of their ears. There is a night full of secret trials run by angry, frightened, self-righteous men determined to get Jesus killed. By early Friday morning, the sentence is set and Jesus appears before the crowd stripped, crowned and mocked.

The soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” — John 19:2-5

Turn into the terrible truth. Behold the man.

The torture and execution of Jesus has many meanings. But the meaning it has for you this week can be the most important. Dying and rising is a daily experience for us. We avoid dying and suspect rising; nevertheless, it is the way of life and the way to life. There is an old, less-than-true person in you who was ready to die a long time ago. The fear of that part of you getting nailed to the cross is the suffering Jesus is bearing with you.

The guarded tomb

After Jesus died and was buried, the authorities set a guard on the tomb who stayed through Saturday. They were sure the disciples would steal the body and claimed they did. Some people still believe their big lie.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. — Luke 23:52-3

Turn into the silence, into the waiting. Saturday of Holy Week can be torturous if you’ve been into deliberately walking with Jesus all week. Now you are dead with Jesus. Listen to that. You are waiting for the promise. Feel the longing.

The empty tomb

This is one of the most-told stories in the world. Despite the soldiers, the stone is rolled away from the tomb and Jesus enters the Sunday morning sunshine alive! The women coming to properly prepare his body after the sabbath see the tomb is empty; Mary Magdalene has the first conversation with the risen Jesus; the disciples see him. Hundreds of people witness his resurrection.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” — John 20:18-22

Turn into the wind of the Spirit, into Jesus blowing new life into your nostrils like God creating Adam and Eve. Turn into peace with God and peace in yourself, into the confidence of knowing all will be well and you will rise too. Turn into how much God values you, how Jesus breathes new life into you, and gives you a true purpose within the work of Creation. Anything is possible.

What a week it is going to be! I hope this helped get you started. The Lord knows there are a million things to distract us and plenty of powerful entities and people eager to steer us into attending to them. Just keep pausing and turning. This week is an especially thin place in a world that seems far away from God.

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Here is some more info and encouragement regarding Holy Week from our Transhistorical Body site.

Say “No” now: It won’t get better

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , , , ,

I know my Evangelical friends believe humans are sinful from birth and our main work is to save them from their just deserts. But we are also a very nice species. The vast majority of us hate conflict, we’re easily hurt by slights, and we care about stray animals and lost children to the point of obsession. We can be awful, but most of us are rather polite, and all of us are desperate for love. We are so desperate we have a hard time saying “No,” even when we ought to, if we think it detracts from getting or giving love.

No is often important

Whether we like it or not, though, sometimes saying “No” is very important, and loving. Here is an example of when saying “No” was surprisingly effective. I’ve heard of it happening this way many times:

A mate appeared in the TV room at an unexpected time and turned off the tube. They said, “We need to talk. I can’t keep it in anymore. I want a divorce. You are terrible.” Their partner said, for once, after years of going up and down with their mate, “Well. I guess you’ll have to decide what you need to do.” The mate said, “No. I don’t want to file for divorce; you need to do it.” The partner said, “Well, I am not going to do it” — for once, they said, “No” to their dysregulated mate. They did not get mad and add fuel to the mate’s anxiety-making fire. They did not withdraw and reinforce their fear of abandonment. They calmly said “No.”

The instigator stormed out. It could not be predicted what was going to happen next. It was tempting to go find them and reassure them, or fight with them, or offer a grievance just as powerful as theirs. But the partner did not do it. An hour later, the mate came back and said, “I’m sorry. I should not have said what I said. You are my life. I can’t imagine the future without you.” The “No” actually helped their mate get a handle on what they wanted apart from the fury of their overwhelming feelings.

How to helpfully say “No” is basic training for working with “borderline personalities” (another label which probably needs retiring). I had to learn that the hard way when I was a pastor, since dysregulated people look for love where people will say “Yes” (like in the church), even though their desperate anxiety will usually get them kicked out — the seminal book about them is I Hate you, Don’t Leave Me. I actually invented a few “contracts” that helped people find their way in, safely.

Saying “No!” is crucial when responding to anyone who is acting irrationally or contrary to their own best interests. If someone presents to us and we are drawn into their mania or anger or despair or any unconscious reaction, we should probably say, “No. I don’t want to do that with you,” before we jump in, get hurt, and start hurting others.

Right now we all could use a refresher course on saying “No.” Our surprisingly irrational, megalomaniacal new government keeps turning off our TV and saying something dreadful. Fortunately, we are not married to our leaders. But the need remains. Before we get enmeshed in the dysregulated, abusive pattern being presented, we need to say and act “No.”

Say no to psychopaths

The president is not a normal person. Right now we he is challenging all of us to think about our boundaries, or whether we even have any (“officers” are driving up in unmarked vans, in hoods, to snatch people off the streets these days, after all). And A.I. is collecting what I write — maybe monitoring what you are reading; who knows what can be done with that when the president is so capricious! If he were your houseguest (which is unlikely due to his germ phobia) he’d rearrange your rooms to suit himself and dare you to say “No.” You probably wouldn’t say “No!” because you care, and because dealing with a person who brazenly does not care is hard. But we need to say “No!!”

This week’s brazenness has School Boards and Universities all over the country wrestling  with whether to say no to the regime’s attempt to roll back anything that looks like preferential treatment to people of color, including the ancestors of slaves. Some programs I love and support are now causing problems with Universities charged with getting rid of them. Here are people near Nashville having the problem:

People are worried that something resembling a “DEI expenditure” will be in the budget somewhere and potentially noticed by some new bureaucrat rooting out diversity, equity and inclusion and rooting in uniformity, inequity and exclusion (as Pete Buttigieg aptly points out). Are we going to say “No” to uniformity, inequity and exclusion or not? Or will we rush to ChatGPT and ask it to scrub our statements? Again, what would Jesus do?

There is no real process for losing the funds, of course, yet. We’re still just under the onslaught of dubious presidential decrees and illegal impoundments. But schools are conforming because they fear they’ll lose some funds, get outed on Truth Social, or infuriate donors – they can only imagine what might happen. And they do imagine it and act on their fear. That’s the authoritarian playbook in action.

Many states have hopped on the bandwagon and begun to pass bills to eradicate DEI. Here’s a list of bills and what they mean [link]. In my opinion, they mostly just demand we stop saying “No” to racism and pretend white supremacy is equality. But you can decide for yourself.

@diddlyfrickinsquat

the cherry on top of this is that my undergrad is in history… I’m so numb at this point #cabaretmusical #thoughtdaugher #returntotiktok #dearcolleagueletter

♬ only politics – dani 🎭

It got started with the “dear colleague” letter

It is unnerving when you wake up one day and a previously-unknown bureaucrat gives you an order. Educators got a letter designed to undo decades of assistance to students who bear the weight of systemic racism. Last week many of them finally read the “Dear Colleague” decree from the soon-to-be-dismantled Department of Education issued on Valentine’s Day under the authority of Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.  You should read it. It is a breathtaking sea change.  I’ll give you some highlights that show you why people are wondering who they invited to spend the weekend. I highlighted my highlights:

  • Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon “systemic and structural racism” and advanced discriminatory policies and practices. Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them—particularly during the last four years—under the banner of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (“DEI”), smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline.
  • Nebulous concepts like racial balancing and diversity are not compelling interests. As the Court explained in [the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard], “an individual’s race may never be used against him” and “may not operate as a stereotype” in governmental decision-making.
  • Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly. At its core, the test is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law. Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.
  • Other programs discriminate in less direct, but equally insidious, ways. DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not. Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes. Consequently, they deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school.
  • All educational institutions are advised to: (1) ensure that their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights law; (2) cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends; and (3) cease all reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or aggregators that are being used by institutions in an effort to circumvent prohibited uses of race. Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding. Anyone who believes that a covered entity has unlawfully discriminated may file a complaint with OCR. Information about filing a complaint with OCR, including a link to the online complaint form, is available here.

Anti-racism is now racism. Animal Farm and 1984 will soon be banned from schools, I suppose, since we’re supposed to unlearn what Orwell taught us. I will let you dialogue with Trainor’s claims, since an argument can be made. But I find his thinking a short step away from a slave being told, “You should be happy you have a Christian master.” Regardless, the main message that came to me and educators I know was, “There is a new sheriff in town. Change your mind and change your ways, or you won’t get your share of the tax money.”

If I lose money as a consequence, will I still say “No?” Will the institution fire me if I suggest resistance? Will I stick out, in contrast to compliant people, and my family will wonder what I’m doing to them?

Again, what would Jesus do?

Since Jesus was a teacher without an institution and a psychologist without a license or guild, I guess it is kind of obvious what he would do. He found it quite easy to say “No” to all sorts of dysregulated regulators — people who actually believed the Son of God was going to ruin their world!  He’s never been too tied to the present homeostasis.

I don’t think Jesus cares much about the latest status quo, he has deeper things to do. When he says from the cross, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing,” that is his most loving “No.” Your borderline loved one does not really know what they are doing, either. Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not really care what they are doing to you as long as they rule you. Jesus on the cross is a big “No” to that, and big “No!” to whatever destroys love and peace. The cross is a big “No!” to sin and death, right? The resurrection is a big promise that you will flourish, one way or another, later if not now, if you say “No” with Him.

April 5, 2025 – Hands Off protest in DC

I am going to try to keep saying “No!” in direct and loving ways, as needed. The easiest way to do that is, in the case of Trump/Musk, to get out on the street with a sign and 5000 friends. (You see my latest sign above from April 5 in DC).

The hardest way to say “No” is when I have to say it to a co-worker who wants to advance a truth that is not true like, “Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism.’” Or you have to speak to your mate and say, “No. I do not want to do that with you. I’d rather relate to your true self. I’d rather both of us relate to God right now.”

I think one of the messages of the Gospel is “Say ‘No’ now. Things will not get better or just stay the same.” If you go along with the powers you might “gain the world and lose your soul.” Paul says it clearly:

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power; put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day and, having prevailed against everything, to stand firm. — Ephesians 6:10-13

I know, Master Trump says DEI is the devil and Venezuelans are demons, and that uniformity, inequity and exclusion is the law now. Yes, I am saying “No” to that and “Yes” to freedom, forgiveness and fellowship. And I think we all need to say “No” now, because it may soon be too late to say anything at all.

The rulers without rules: What would Jesus do?

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, The Mission, , , , , , ,

Christians are scrambling to reorient their thinking, now that Trump and his rulers have upended their experience of the Empire. The church has had a rather large comfort zone in society for the last 50 years. As a result, we had the freedom to “mail it in” rather than showing up in faith. Now there is crisis every day, our wealth is dropping, government services are diminishing, and the world is no longer functioning under Pax Americana. It is back to every MAN for himself.

When you ask “WWJD?,” you’re asking within a new context.

Jeffrey Goldberg outs our rulers

The recent Pete Hegseth debacle is a good example of the new context, as we see the faulty new rulers acting faulty. Hegseth and the major players in national defense actions (except the President and the General in charge!) were making decisions about bombing a Yemeni apartment house via Signal this month. The fact they brazenly did that (maybe to hide what they were saying), and now that the whole world knows what they said, lets everyone know that truth and law-following are fundamentally NOT central to the new regime. I think the Signalers firmly believe whatever they say is the truth because they said it. I think they might be narcissistic (or psychopathic) enough to think they are like Allah speaking the Koran to whoever has a pen.

This problem, in a long series of problems, goes like this. A national security advisor, Mike Waltz, included Jeffrey Goldberg, a reporter and editor for The Atlantic, in the group chat on Signal. The very chat they had to know was easily monitored by Russia and the China was also being delivered to someone who should never have been in their group chat. Goldberg did not have clearances, of course, and one would suspect he just might broadcast what they were trying to keep secret. When Goldberg made it known he had listened in, the liars doubled down, as the liars who run the country do. They tried to create their own media reality, or at least tried to produce enough fog so no one would remember what’s what after the news cycle was over.

Using the communication platform was wrong and what they were planning on it is probably a war crime. But instead of admitting that (God forbid!), the president said nothing they did was illegal or classified. The Trumpspeak was: “The attack was totally successful. It was, I guess, from what I understand, took place during. And it wasn’t classified information. So this was not classified.” The story goes on. Goldberg has already published the screenshots of the conversation belying what Trump asserted.

That story depicts the new context in which we live in a nutshell. What is a U.S. Christian to do?

We’ll sort it out on Reddit

For years a great number of Christians, following what they called a “literal” understanding of the Bible extracted Romans 13:1-7 as plain-speaking instructions for how to relate to the government: one should submit because the rulers are God’s servants and you’ll be judged if you don’t. So they teach we need to submit to Trump; he’s the ruler.

In relation to something I posted in Reddit about Elon Musk, a person engaged me in a little chat about that passage last week.

Person: What do you think about the Romans 13 doctrine of government?

Me: If you start it off with the last verse of Romans 12: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And end it with 13:8: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” I think it can make sense. I usually say I need to tell the government what to do because it is as faulty as I am. But most of the time, I let God handle it.

I would not call Romans 13 a “doctrine.” It is missional advice for church planters and survival tips for the persecuted.

Person: you wouldn’t consider the first six verses of Romans 13 to be doctrine of government?

Me: I think people turned it into doctrine. I don’t think Paul was writing doctrine. He was being practical about how to live in the world as God’s people. He obviously teaches “theological” truths. But if you put Romans 13:1-7 in context, as I noted, it really should not be extracted as if Paul were writing a treatise.

Obviously, plenty of people base their doctrine of government on those verses. If they chose to extract John 18:36-9 the doctrine would be quite different, I think. If they decided the Sermon on the Mount was a blueprint for government, the world would be transformed.

Person: how do we know if someone is intending to write doctrine?

Me: The word “doctrine” came to have its present meaning in Middle English.

I think there’s a good chance Paul did not intend to write the kind of “doctrine” we argue about these days. Paul’s writing in Romans 13, when put in the context of what he says before and after it, is a classic example of his two-tiered thinking, which I assert here.

In essence, I think would agree he’s saying, “Jesus is the Lamb on the Throne, the Way the Truth and the Life. His law of love rules the citizens of heaven; by following him we fulfill the Law. Our submission to the authorities is based on our submission to Jesus, first.”

What is “due” to whom?

I certainly do not feel I “owe” respect to Pete Hegseth because barely half the Senate confirmed him and he is now “in authority!” I don’t think Paul lives in unqualified submission to the Roman or local governments, even to the town synagogue!  There are actually quite a few qualifications in the Romans 13:1-7, which the Constantinians made a “doctrine” of government.

  • The whole section begins with “Let ,” which I take as Paul including us in his strategy. “Let’s keep submitting ourselves to the authorities, who God raises up and deposes according the same mysterious working we accept when we consider everyone coming before the judgment seat.”
  • I think his teaching is quite practical, not an abstract theory. In essence he says, “It is smart to keep your nose clean when it comes to the rulers; we have bigger fish to fry than subverting or running away from the prevailing law. The authorities are supposed to be doing good for us. Let them.” That being said, I think it would be ludicrous to say Paul thinks governments are going to do him good, be just, or act godly. He has already noted in his letter that the Roman Christians are facing persecution (chap. 8) and the government is not doing them any good. Quite the opposite of doing him good for doing good, the authorities have been misleading or chasing Paul ever since his name appeared in the New Testament!
  • Then in verse 7 he says, “Give to everyone what you owe them” (in the NIV). This is a misleading translation. I think Paul is talking about paying what is due. He’s saying, “Keep yourself on the right side of the tax collectors and tariff officials; don’t go underground or smuggle. Tip your hat and make friends with the enemy. To those to whom honor is due, bless them. Give honor as it has been given to you; they are as undeserving as you are.”  That’s how the subjects of the Lamb are subject to the authorities.

I wish the powermongers who wrote doctrine to justify their hegemony would have been more honest. Had it been as unsafe to be themselves as it was for Paul, maybe they would have written a different way. We are certainly going to find out what we write, now that millions of us are undermined or persecuted by the powers-that be!

Christ Before Pilate — Mihaly Munkacsy (1881)

Introducing Romans 13:1, the NIV heading reads: “Submission to Governing Authorities.” But we all know the editors of the NIV made the titles, not Paul, right? The supposed summary of submission to the authorities should include vv. 8-10

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 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.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

A Jesus follower submits to the authorities in grace and truth, discerning the spirits. You owe them nothing and can afford to give them everything. They have no authority unless God gives it. If they do not fulfill the law of love they receive the submission they are due. We are fulfilling a Law to which the government is ultimately subject, too. They are only the “law” provisionally.

Unlike our present rulers in the U.S. executive, Paul says Jesus followers don’t commit adultery, kill, steal, lie or covet. We love God with our heart, soul mind and strength in Christ and love our neighbor as ourselves. As such people, we salt our society with truth and love, with energy and compassion. We will not invite the wrath of the authorities unnecessarily. We will do our best with the leaders we have. But we will never give up the rule of Jesus for anyone.

I think our terrible rulers might end up doing the corrupted U.S. church a favor. If you are praying for a revival, Trump would be a good cause for it. In the past, our strength of character and our purposeful living regularly saved the country from its worst instincts. But an aggressive minority of “Christians” in the 21st century have lusted to claim their self-ordained right to be rulers. Project 2025 is their manifesto. The abjectly corrupt Trump is honored by them as he implements it, even though most of them admit he scorns the commandments Paul uses as markers above.

I believe their project will come to a bad end, as Elon Musk and Pete Hegseth so ably demonstrate. But I hope the church, in general, as it is starting to do in many places, will get out from under its faulty submission doctrine and follow Jesus, to whom every knee will bow. We can’t mail it in anymore — especially since Elon Musk is likely to destroy the postal service any day now.

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Today is John Donne Day! Visit the poet turned preacher at our Transhistorical Body blog.

The One Tree

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

One of the words I kept hearing at the CAPS Conference this past week was “presence.” The message I took away was: “In the middle of Trump turmoil, stay present to God.” Like anxious clients need to hear, “Feel your feet on the ground and sense the air moving in and out of your body as you breathe deeply.” In doing so, we return to our awareness of our life in Christ and rest in the presence of God.

Returning

If you are anything like me, most days I get “messed up.” People and situations disturb my equilibrium, and my capacity to think and feel are an invitation to be disrupted from the inside, too, even if I stay holed-up in my house.  I need to get up every morning and turn into my source of life.

Psalm 65 is a useful tool for returning. I meditate with it using three long, slow, deep breaths, one for each stanza:

You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds,
    God our Savior,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
    and of the farthest seas,

who formed the mountains by your power,
    having armed yourself with strength,
who stilled the roaring of the seas,
    the roaring of their waves,
    and the turmoil of the nations.

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
    where morning dawns, where evening fades,
    you call forth songs of joy.

After three sets of three breaths, I think anyone might be more able to face the day.

Now is the time

The springtime of Lent is a perfect time to turn.

The other day I wrote my own psalm like Psalm 65 but in my own time and my own place. I did not write it in the name of great art. But you might relate to it and find it useful for your own process. The Lord stills the “turmoil of the nations.” Yesterday, I was stilled by the dawning of creation on the leafing trees outside my window. In the middle of my mess, God called forth “songs of joy.”

Lord,
there is that one tree —
just the top of it I see
through the legs of my desk
as I look toward the sky,
in the Spring morning looking,
looking for light, looking
to see if the chilling wind I fear
is moving in the tallest branches
and locking me in some defensive coat
as I venture out into the sun
after a chilly winter, one chilled
with trouble and the grief
of letting go and letting in.

As I start to write, the tree,
that signal tree, roots me
yet reaches into uncertainty.
We’re completely still.
Serene. Blessed. Surprised
by the joy of the morning.
Nestled. Snug with the other trees
blessing the park with their community,
a home for us wanderers longing to rest.

Now, as I turn my head and heart,
I see the faintest touch of breezing start.
Breeze winds its way through the tallest twigs,
teasing the huddling branches apart.
My tree raises hands and gently claps
in the rhythm of creation as old as time,
in the glow of day breaking with new unknowns,
assured, as one who knows Spring personally
and feels rain like friendship.

In the chill, I would have huddled
in reassurance, longing to cuddle
some wished-for insurance
against the cold, some imminent gale.
But the season has lifted.
My roots tingle with the whispering
of ancient voices tendriling in the park
with a message as fresh as Mystery.

Your love is a hard truth and scary,
and a beam of sunlit hope to carry,
hope gently pushing me like what launched
the tuft of spring’s first dandelion,
a seed launched into the way of brother wind,
now looking for a place to root and bloom
at the foot of our wizened Oak
in the freshness of a Spirit-blown day.

You might want to hear me read it here. 

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Today is Oscar Romero Day! If you want to know how to respond to authoritarian regimes, he’s your spiritual guide. Commune with him at The Transhistorical Body. 

Empathy: Love in the crossfire of political warfare

Doing Theology, Psychological growth, , , , , , ,

While I was ignoring podcasts, a rebellion against empathy was bubbling in them. Post-WW2, Eurocentric, therapeutic moralism was under attack! I was not completely ignorant of these rumblings, since Rush Limbaugh was like a non-resident member of my Central PA Church, and Trump has been getting away with various forms of grabbing for years. But I was still shocked when Elon Musk, who does not lie and dissemble as well as Donald Trump, parroted a line of reasoning that seems to be taking hold.

Elon on Joe Rogan

Musk spoke out on the Joe Rogan Experience. Young men who listen to Rogan, among others, are being taught they are fearful empathy-robots who will lose their country if they don’t grow a pair. I thought that must be an out-of-context exaggeration when I heard about it. But then I found a person who makes transcripts of Joe Rogan episodes (!). I had already reacted on hearsay when I wrote my congressman. Then I found out he actually taught it!

Since I work on connecting to people empathetically all day and hope they feel safe enough to explore who they are and who they want to be, I was understandably alarmed. So I wrote the 20 congresspeople on my list, as follows:

Elon Musk got on the anti-empathy bandwagon with Joe Rogan last week. In his own autistic way, he justified why he cares more for humanity (which he thinks Tesla and SpaceX will save) than for the people right next to him. This is consistent with his neurodivergence. He thinks his heartless capitalism will save us from overspending our love on nonsense – and he will decide what is nonsense.

He said, “We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.” He slightly qualified that with “I believe in empathy, I think you should care about people. But you need to have empathy for civilization as a whole, and not commit civilizational suicide.” After repeating multiple falsehoods about immigrants, he claimed it was empathy that had allowed immigrants to become a threat to the United States. “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit—they’re exploiting a bug in western civilization, which is the empathy response.” In truth, empathy is a “bug” that threatens his lust for power. He needs our resentments to outweigh our regard for other people, and ourselves.

Senator, please help us oppose him. Help us focus on our connectedness and our shared regard for the people being harmed by DOGE, Musk, and Trump. Please keep this administration’s victims front and center in your narrative. Uplift the stories of people whose lives are being lost, endangered or undone. Please help us build a narrative around our shared humanity, rather than grounding our politics in contempt. Form a more perfect union. “Love as I have loved you” is not the downfall of civilization.

I hadn’t explored the Rogan podcast yet, or I might have mentioned that Musk goes on in the conversation to lament if he walked the streets of San Francisco in his MAGA hat, he would get harassed and maybe beat up. I thought, “Oh, so you would like some empathy instead of being bullied!” He yearns for empathy as those empty of it usually do.

The anti-empathy movement

I missed the anti-empathy movement as it was percolating. But it was prevalent enough for Paul Bloom to write a book about it and get a review stored by the NIH. In the review, Trevor Thompson checks out the binary argument the author conducts, beginning with his title: Against Empathy. The Case for Rational Compassion. The book takes a strong line against empathy, arguing that it is not only not useful, but positively detrimental to human progress. Bloom says empathy leads to biased, shorted-sighted, and practically useless action. What Musk might call “civilizational suicide.”

Bloom is working with a reduced definition of a very large and varied human experience. We are all wired for empathy and express it on a broad spectrum. Even autistic people experience empathy on all sorts of levels and have all sorts of neurodivergent struggles with it, in just a different way than neurotypical people do. Yet Bloom says empathy is merely the “act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does.” — as if it were just Bill Clinton performing “I feel your pain.” He seems to think most people are just unconsidered reactions to their mirror neurons — irrationally sending useless children’s gifts to the scenes of mass shootings.

Simplistic and debatable, but gives a whole picture

Researchers also name “cognitive empathy,” which Musk could have called “rational compassion.” The label states the obvious: we don’t just feel empathy, we think about it, too. People can react with any of their faculties to the empathy they feel, and generally do. When we feel the pain of another, we may also understand their experience, or respond viscerally, automatically to it, or care about it. Or we may metabolize the pain spiritually and suffer it. We might ignore it or mock it. No one is a robot (yet).

There is a noisy, Christianity-claiming faction with a lust for power dominating the government. Members of it are mounting an argument that love – especially love for strangers – is a distraction, the Bible notwithstanding.

The bandwagon seems to be bulging with new adherents. Last year Allie Beth Stuckey, a Christian podcaster wrote a popular book called Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. Lately, Joe Rigney, a Minnesota pastor and theologian, published The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits (for which, he laments, he gets no empathy). He  redefines empathy as self-immolation: “If someone’s drowning, empathy wants to jump in with both feet and get swept away. Empathy jumps in. Whereas compassion says, I’m going to throw you a life preserver. I’m going to even step in with it and grab you with one arm, but I’m remaining tethered to the shore.”

Of course people do foolish things and get exploited. Their empathy might make them a sitting duck for people like Elon Musk if they stop mentalizing. But I think most of us know that humans created civilization with empathy. It is one of our most basic and best instincts. We can be trusted to work out the daily decisions we have to make about it and not get killed. It is not always that easy, since the U.S. government has relied on empathy to get Marines to kill and sacrifice themselves. Even if we don’t want to protect loved ones from “the enemy,” the soldiers want to take care of their comrades in the unit, who pulse together like a common set of neurons.

Jesus will not destroy civilization

When Elon Musk gets ahold of empathy, you know it is being used for something except empathy. He’s not pondering how to best help people or how to alleviate suffering. He’s hard at work finding ways to de-prioritize alleviating that suffering – all the while assuring us he is rooting out the waste in the budget, saving those hard-earned dollars previously thrown away on people who don’t deserve help or should help themselves or might be trans. He’s muting the voices of the dispossessed — it has always been a slave economy, after all. Musk notwithstanding, I find hope in the fact that few people, including the Pope – would accept that the interests of power should be prioritized and the least powerful forgotten.

Jesus does not forget the powerless. Here is a bit of what the Bible actually says about empathy:

  • “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
  • “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17)
  • “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
  • “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13).
  • Jesus wept (Luke 19:41).

In building his robots and longing for Mars, has Musk forgotten what it is to be human? Has he forgotten that history shows how empathy knits societies together? Has he missed how empathy leads people to volunteer, which then boosts their mental health? Hasn’t he heard that kids who have low empathy are more likely to bully?

Have all these bullies missed learning what happens when we ignore pain and mute the cries of the suffering? Maybe. It happens.

Any post featuring Elon Musk gravitates toward Nazis. So let me end with this warning. Psychologist Gustave Gilbert, interviewed Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg trials and wrote a book about it. He said, after all his work examining the psyches of those who committed the most horrendous acts of World War II, he had come close to finding a definition of the nature of evil: “It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants,” he said, “a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

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Today is Patrick of Ireland Day! Get to know him better at The Transhistorical Body.

Just a little pause, even a slight turn stokes spiritual healing

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, , ,

Not long ago, I was listening to a dear person trying to get started on a spiritually aware life. They described themselves as “stuck in their head.”

“I want to feel God,” they said. Then they paused and said, “I guess I just want to feel, period.” A few minutes later they said, “I’m afraid to feel, because it will all come up.”

Their awareness all started with a pause, or two, and a turn – a turn into their true self and toward the spiritual horizon beyond their present place along the way of Jesus.

It takes more effort to stay stuck than be free

They saw themselves as stuck. But they were hardly inactive. They had been working rather hard to keep “what might come up” stuck somewhere out of their consciousness. But as soon as they came to rest, did a little mentalizing, and did some listening with their “spiritual ears,” they began to consciously know what they already unconsciously sensed about themselves.

I admit I was kind of stuck on the fact they felt stuck. They looked at me with a look that meant, to me at least, “What am I going to do about this?”  I had no idea, so I told them what I do about it.

Usually, as soon as I get up, I go to my big brown chair and listen. I give thanks for the glories of the previous day. I list the times I saw signs of the Spirit at work and Love. I consider where I followed my false self around. Sometimes I caress my Episcopal prayer beads. Sometimes I investigate my icon wall. Sometimes I use my kneeler. Sometimes I read. But at some moment, maybe more, something will stir in me and I will pause, I may have to turn, to listen. And I feel myself in the presence of God. It is joy.

My accoutrement of prayer is very useful, but I don’t really need it all. I pause when I’m watching a show on TV. I turn into sunsets. I stand in awe of the work of God in others. I have heard one person tell of a series of visions, lately, and I stay very still for those epiphanies. I sing.

Practice the pause

It helps that I just finished a book called Practice the Pause: Jesus’ Contemplative Practice, New Brain Science, and What It Means to Be Fully Human, by Carolyn Oates.  It is a chatty, dissertation-like teaching organized around the author’s discovery of her personal relationship with God. It is a review of spiritual practices and a tale about how she found them when she scratched the surface of her superficial faith community.

She says: “The spiritual journey begins with a pause, a centering-in-God pause, and over time becomes a constant and ceaseless prayer, an honoring of and a connection with the Divine in you that awakens your essential self.”

She also says a lot about how recent brain science verifies that contemplation is life-giving.

“By returning to inner silence, solitude, and stillness in these few minutes a day, your amygdala will be smaller. We know now you will be much less reactive and forgetful. We know you will have a larger insula, more gray matter, and overall much smoother connections to your very human pre-frontal cortex. You will have greater awareness and insight and focus and even compassion.”

Jesus was a pauser. His disciples noticed the pattern of His life and emulated it. Before Jesus does his greatest and most-remembered works, he most likely has returned from some lonely place where he reconnected in the center of his being with who he was.

Oates says,

“This returning to our center again and again is a kind of in-and-out, in and out movement, like breathing: breathing in, we gather strength and calm, maybe an insight, maybe a sense of an injustice needing to be righted, and then breathing out, we go back out into the world to live into what we’ve been given and what we’ve received.”

Lent is the pause in the Christian calendar

I know some people come up against Lent and groan, ”Ugh! 40 days to feel stuck,“ or maybe, “40 days not to experience what others do.” It hurts me to mention that. But I know it is true for some people and they end up ratcheting down their desires and hopes until it seems like their insides will burst.

But I have to bring it up. The spiritual awareness we can all experience is in the pause. Lent is like a pause in the year. Sitting down to pray is a pause in the day. Going to a church meeting is a pause in the week. If you really turn into it, saying thanks before you eat your sandwich pauses all sorts of automatic behavior that could make your stuck.

The other day in worship, we sang a bunch of songs I didn’t really know, and I felt disappointed, because singing is a big awareness time for me. I was feeling, but when it came to church, I was not feeling it. My dear pastor was speaking and I was kind of looking like I was listening but I was turned away. I was too sleepy not to be moody and resistant. But he said something about glory and it hit me. The word kind of popped the cork of my bottled up desires.

I did not start listening, but I did start daydreaming about a song I led at my best friend’s funeral a long time ago, an unforgettable time in my life. I never liked the words of the song much, but I loved the way it brought about 800 of us together in the hushed and loving presence of God. And it was one of my dear friend’s favorites, so I loved it by association. The new words I daydreamed gave me the feeling of the old song with my own sensibilities worked in. If you want to sing it, here’s a version of the tune.

See the glory. Feel the glory. Be the glory come round.
In His name, love constrains us.
See the glory come round. Feel the glory come round.

I did feel the glory. Why wouldn’t I? I paused the week to be in worship. I paused my resistance to listen to a word. And I still feel the joy of it.

“In his glory” by Yongsung Kim (tap to by a print)

I immediately thought this would be a good little song to sing when our new small group meets. We’re building community with desperate hope in a turbulent time – a time when we need to pause, and see, and feel a glorious sense of oneness with God — and we need to be a place of rest for the world, too. Jesus says,

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mathew 11:28)

I’m not as alive, not as human as Jesus, if I am not in his rest. If I am not there, I’ll be trying to get unyoked from my burdens or trying to pretend I’m not yoked, but I won’t be led into the true life I need. If Lent seems like a lot of responsibility or useless trouble, pause and listen to what Jesus is teaching above. Pause with him, be gentled and humbled and find rest. Turn into it. It was in that place of oneness Jesus was  recharged with joy and courage and it was from that place he changed the world, and still does.

It’s a replay of Belshazzar’s feast of the billionaires

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, Spiritual direction, The Mission, , , , , ,

The feast of the billionaires is playing on our screens day after day. It is an age-old story:

King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them.  While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. (Daniel 5:1-4)

Didn’t we just have a present-day version of Belshazzar’s feast playing out in the TV series Billions for seven(!) seasons? I think so. I even watched a couple of the sordid seasons.

One of the series creators, Brian Koppelman, talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the series finale in 2023. The interviewer wondered if the ending were not a strangely happy one for rather dark story. While the main character took a real hit, most of the players ended up a lot richer. Koppelman explained:

Any director, any actor, writer, any cinematographer and editor. We would always say: The thing you need to understand about these people is they only feel alive, or the most alive, when they’re engaged in battles that to them feel existential and very difficult. So it’s funny, that when you say “happy,” I understand what you mean by “happy,” in that it’s not tragic. But if you think about it, Bobby Axelrod ends at a table, and all he’s really learned, after all the time he’s been behind his desk, as he looks at the hungry faces of the pigeons that want to get fed, he says, “Let’s make some fucking money.”

Bobby has no doubt he can make it all back. It is what he does. Don’t you suspect that same story, with the same assumption, is being played out in the U.S. government’s executive branch right now? For example, Elon Musk, the richest guy in the world, now mucking around in our data –if he loses 100 billion in the pursuit of absolute power, don’t you think he assumes he can make it back? It is what he does.

While there are undoubtedly some ideologues in our government presently, and some religious people, too, it is mostly a feast of the billionaires we are witnessing. They were hungry to get to the table and do something, to engage in a battle that feels existential and very difficult. They yearn to have a battle.  They have “praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone” which are the money-making machines of their own design. But their gods demand more and they demand more of their gods. It’s an old story.

But the handwriting is on the wall

You know you’ve told a good story when the most dramatic part becomes iconic. Like Rhett saying, “Frankly my darling, I don’t give a damn.” Or Captain Kirk saying “Beam me up Scotty” (which he never actually said, exactly). Or, in my house, the Wicked Witch saying, “What a world! What a world!” In the story of Belshazzar and Daniel, which is full of iconic images, a main one is this strange hand:

Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his legs became weak and his knees were knocking. (Daniel 5:5-6)

I think we have to admit that the men at the U.S. billionaires feast might ignore a human hand writing on a wall. They are drenched in A.I. after all, and own it. And they are surrounded by deceivers, so their senses are probably a bit blunted. They are also, generally, bullies, so they are used to making someone else’s knees knock.

I think they will need something else to get the message. I hope what they get is about 50 million human feet on the streets and 100 million boycotters to relentlessly deliver it. We really need that to happen before there are a thousand dead children, millions of lost jobs and a world thrown into meltdown because of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their minions.

No one can read it.

The way Christians and most people use the phrase: “the handwriting is on the wall,” is to lament how someone got the word, how the truth was out there for anyone to see, how the circumstances were telling them the obvious, but they could not read it. They could not understand the language of truth. Or as Jesus might say, “They did not have eyes to see.”

My parents would use the phrase to predict dire things to come. They would see me acting out and warn, “It this keeps up…Well, the handwriting’s on the wall.” I think that’s a direct quote. I did not know what was coming, and my knees knocked a few times. “We’re not stupid, but you might be,” was the gist.

Belshazzar summons his “enchanters, astrologers and diviners” (Daniel 5:7-8) to figure out the mysterious message the hand has written. None of them can figure it out. Trump summons Steve Bannon, Paula White, the latest far right TV media personality or whoever wrote Project 2025 and none of them can read the handwriting on the wall.

In our case, our feast of billionaires (maybe that is what one calls a herd of them) not only don’t procure eyes to see, they famously “double down” on their lies, their invisible ink. After Trump got skewered for saying he could imagine Gaza as another Riviera he posted this video on Truth Social:

His doubling down on lies was countered by SNL:

It may end badly for the billionaires

Belshazzar’s wife hears about what is going on and reminds him there is an actual wise man in the empire who interpreted a dream for his dad. They go find Daniel and the king tells the seer what is going on.

Daniel finds it easy to tell him the truth. First he tells him the story of his father, who did evil and did not follow God and ended up like an insensible animal eating grass out in the weather. He frankly tells Belshazzar he hasn’t learned a thing from his father’s fate and is presently repeating his folly.

My father, Goldwater conservative that he was, would be a Daniel if he went to  the present billionaires party, reading the handwriting on the wall. He would have said, “Americans overthrew their king to begin with, and then we beat Hitler, Hirohito, and every other tyrant we faced 80 years ago in the war.” Daniel was confrontive like that:

But you, Belshazzar, his son, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription.

“This is the inscription that was written: mene, mene, tekel, parsin (numbered, numbered, weighted, divided in Aramaic)

“Here is what these words mean:

Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” (Daniel 5:22-28)

It used to be that stories about billionaires parties in the U.S. ended with the rich guys losing to scrappy people from the lower classes who rely on goodness. It’s a Wonderful Life comes to mind, of course (1946), and Elysium, back in in 2013. But one of the Oscar nominees, Anora (possibly the least redemptive movie I have ever seen) shows oligarch Russians successfully exercising absolute power, while a woman stuck in prostitution and a man forced to be a henchman are left with an ambivalent, barely flickering moment of hope.

Billionaires are looking normal these days. Everyone knows what an “oligarch” is. Right now, we are in the middle of a billionaires party and it seems plausible for Trump to be scheming to get Ukraine’s rare earth minerals for a song. It does not seem outrageous for Elon Musk to go to the first Cabinet meeting and then say he means to cut 4 billion dollars a day in government spending from now to September [link].

Some Christians are serving Trump like he has a divine right to rule. There was a prayer by the HUD Secretary, Scott Turner, at the Cabinet meeting the other day (Trump called it “grace”). But I think he was praying from an imperial point of view. He thanked God for the anointing they have to serve as the cabinet, among other things. I don’t think his sense of privilege is unusual. Unfortunately, I think a of of Christians, especially in the U.S., read Daniel 5 from Belshazzar’s viewpoint like Secretary Turner must. They are Constantine-descended Christians exercising their Roman-Empire-infected, slaveholder religion. They pray, “Lord, who is going to get the kingdom; how will it be divided; shall I bet my  future on the Medes and Persians?”

There are always wise people

The funniest part of Daniel 5 is when Belshazzar tries to get Daniel to dress up and sit down at his ludicrous feast.

“I have heard that you are able to give interpretations and to solve difficult problems. If you can read this writing and tell me what it means, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”

Then Daniel answered the king, “You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means.” (Daniel 5:16-17).

“You can keep your gifts” is a good Philly response. Or maybe it is like Zelenskyy saying, “I’m not playing cards.”

Even in the dysfunctional, short-sighted kingdom of Belshazzar, there was a wise person available. I think God has people stationed all over the world who keep salting it with love and truth. I don’t think I can imagine what it would be like if they were not there.

Jesus followers read the Belshazzar story from Daniel’s viewpoint.

  • We’re not authoritarian. Although Daniel’s character, spirituality and compassion caused him to rise to a leadership position in the empire, he had no illusion that he was ultimately in charge. Creation belongs to God and we should get used to mystery. We’ve been bought with a price, saved by grace, welcomed into a joy that does not come by our own striving; it is a gift. We don’t earn our place in the world by following the latest usurper of God’s prerogatives. Jesus sits on the throne as a wounded lamb.
  • We read the handwriting on the wall. We develop the skills needed to exercise our spiritual awareness. We listen to God and don’t live squashed by an “immanent frame.” Ultimately, as freed people who live Spirit to spirit with God, the Body of Christ IS the handwriting on the wall.
  • We tell the truth, even if the powers-that-be might make us suffer. Belshazzar decked out Daniel in the finery he promised, even though he didn’t want it, and even though his interpretation was that the king was going to lose his empire. It appears Belshazzar not only could not read the handwriting, he could not hear the interpretation and expected the next day to be just like this one. It was something like Trump saying he won the election in 2020 and made telling that lie a prerequisite for receiving the privilege of following him into disaster. Or like Pilate publicly washing his hands, as if that would absolve him, as the blind crowd, led by blind guides, shouted “We have no king but Caesar.” In the face of such nonsense, even backed by violence, we can’t help telling it like we are in Christ.

The feast of the billionaires is an age-old story, redundant. It would be boring if it were not so deadly. It is astounding that someone will go ahead and play it out again when history is replete with so many ways it does not work out well. The folly of the present cabal of oligarchs has only become more evident as they have emerged from their protective bubbles and into public view, feasting on the spoils of the American Empire, led by the loopy Elon Musk.

They can’t read the handwriting on the wall, even though the populace is already in the streets after only one month of official chicanery. It never ends well.  If you don’t believe the Bible is history, there are a lot of other books to tell you the story. But know this, there are always wise people popping up from nowhere, it seems. The first protest I went to via 50501 was organized by two young women who had never organized a protest. The journalists who deserted their coopted news media are finding ways to create a new news media, which is very exciting [link] [link] [link]. Even Facebook is alive with examples of wise people speaking up.

Let me emphasize the wise people emerging in the church as I close.  A lot of them may be slow to pop up, since their institutions are very old and riddled with corruption, poor leadership and a terrible reputation. Yet the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is hard to repress, just like Daniel demonstrated in the last days of the rapacious Babylonian Empire. Last week I was moved to be with a small group of mostly twentysomethings ready to start a new church within the walls of our Episcopal Church. They had little awareness of church planting, but they knew it was time. They want spiritual reality, authentic community, and a chance to make a difference. Doesn’t everyone? No amount of oppression ever thwarts that desire. And Jesus is among us to make it come to fruit.

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Yesterday (March 2) was John Wesley Day! Get some lessons from the relentless mouthpiece and organizer for the gospel. A true world changer.  Visit him at The Transhistorical Body. 

Sanctuary: The government wants to approve our altars

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Church member can’t find sanctuary in their own sanctuaries. It is still a rare occurrence, but as soon as Trump’s mass deportation plans unleashed the dogs Biden had on a leash, ICE went to church. Some denominations (including Episcopalians and Mennonites, where I connect), recently sued the government for violating their religious freedom. They cited this particular story of ICE coming to the church’s door.

In 2022 Wilson Velasquez fled the gangs in Honduras with his family and entered the U.S. illegally. They presented themselves to U.S. Authorities requesting asylum and he was outfitted with a GPS ankle bracelet. (You can buy one for your kids!). When they got to Atlanta to stay with relatives, the first thing the family did  was find a church. Wilson got a work permit and a job at a nearby tire shop. After a year, they decided to help a church planter start Iglesia Fuente de Vida in Norcross. They led with the music team.

According to Christianity Today:

Media accounts largely agree about the day’s events: At roughly a quarter past noon [on January 26], an usher standing in the church entrance saw a group of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents outside and locked the doors. Wilson was listening to the sermon when his phone rang with an unknown number. When he silenced it, his ankle bracelet—known in Spanish as a grillete, or shackle—began buzzing. His phone rang a second time, and Wilson rose, flustered, slipping out the back of the sanctuary. The usher met him and said there were agents in the parking lot, asking for Wilson by name.

Moments later, Kenia’s phone flashed with a message from her husband: Come outside.

Running into the daylight, Kenia found him handcuffed in the back of a law enforcement vehicle. “What’s happening to my husband?” she asked the agents. Her mind raced to make sense of the scene. Wilson had made all his required check-ins at an Atlanta ICE office. He had the government’s permission to work and had an appointment on a court docket. He was deported once nearly 20 years ago—a significant strike on an immigrant’s record—but otherwise had no criminal record.

The agents told Kenia they were looking for people with ankle bracelets, then they drove Wilson away.

The denominations are saying their right to practice their religion is infringed upon when the government stops a fundamental act of worship: to welcome the stranger.

Jesus said, “If you welcome the stranger, you welcome me.” With deep conviction and joy, we are trust that we exiles have a home with Jesus, who welcomes us into the presence of God.

Protests in St. Louis against Donald Trump’s January 2017 executive order on immigration. Wikimedia Commons

Experiencing and being sanctuary is basic: “Love one another as I have loved you,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”

So the denominations argue that in the U.S. system:

  • Houses of worship should have the same right to safety as individuals have in their homes.
  • The government should not establish a particular religion (like the cult of Trump).
  • Individuals and groups can practice their own religion so long as the practice does not run afoul of “public morals” or a “compelling” governmental interest.

It is true, compassion may be losing ground as public morality. And it is true, ICE may wantonly decide snatching a church member during worship somehow satisfies a compelling interest. But we make noise when that happens, like hikers in the back country scaring bears before they get too close.

Practicing our faith regardless of coercion has always been a Christian virtue — and sheltering strangers is a main way we live our faith.

The anti-sanctuary government

The theology of sanctuary developed over centuries, from Biblical times to the present.

The story of the Exodus is about captives of an oppressive government in Egypt who are miraculously freed. They flee for their lives and look for a place they can flourish in a land God promises them. The new law of Moses, which identifies them as a nation and keeps them together and healthy, repeatedly refers to Egypt when it addresses how to care for strangers:  “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).

J.D. Vance, who schools Germans on Fascism, also sought to school the Pope on Catholicism. The Catholic convert said we should Google “ordis amoris” to see how he justified telling the faithful watching Fox News it was God’s order to love in concentric circles. He said, if you properly love your family and those near to you, you might have enough love left over to get to strangers a thousand miles away. Regardless, it is family then America first. In a rare show of meddling, Pope Francis wrote a letter to U.S. Bishops condemning the Trump administration for “mass deportations” and even indirectly criticized Vance’s for improperly using ordo amoris to defend Trumpist nationalism (see The New Republic).

The MAGA crowd are catechized with alternative facts that go against the Bible and tradition. Walter Masterson got some TikTok views by interviewing MAGA rally attendees about whether Jesus would be welcomed if he arrived in the U.S. as a refugee (see YouTube @ 18:42). Their answer: “If he had the right papers.”

The Emperor’s Darth Vader, Stephen Miller, deployed his America First Legal Foundation to teach various governments how the authorities would be coming after them for preserving the due process of the undocumented. In a Dec. 23 letter, San Diego Supervisors were told: “We have identified San Diego County as a sanctuary jurisdiction that is violating federal law.”

The legal shock troops of MAGA announced they had identified 249 elected officials in sanctuary jurisdictions who, they said, could face “legal consequences” over immigration policies. The California Attorney General’s office and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass were notified [link]. In January. the Oregon Governor Tina Kotek also said she would stand by the state’s sanctuary law despite threats from Miller.

Our history of wrangling

Churches in the United States have a long history of getting into good trouble with immigration enforcement. In the 1980s, hundreds of churches formed networks to protect migrants fleeing political violence in Central America. The Sanctuary Movement, as it called itself, drew the ire of the Reagan administration. Immigration authorities, then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, never arrested migrants inside houses of worship. But they did send paid informants to spy on churches sheltering migrants.

The government arrested dozens of church leaders in Texas and Arizona, ultimately convicting eight of them for “criminal harboring.” The trials sparked protests outside INS offices across the country and made for bad optics. Since then, the Department of Justice has not prosecuted any churches for providing sanctuary.

During the Obama administration and the first Trump administration, more than 1,000 churches pledged to join the New Sanctuary Movement and offer shelter to migrants facing deportation. No one knows exactly how many immigrants took advantage of the offer, but stories abound. In 2019, ICE threatened some immigrants taking refuge in churches with fines of up to half a million dollars (it eventually backed off on the fines).

Alexia Salvatierra, a professor of missions and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary who cofounded the New Sanctuary Movement acknowledges that many undocumented immigrants have no legal right to residency. The Movement aims to buy time for people being denied due process to resolve what may be legitimate claims. The “Dreamers,” for instance, who were brought to the US as minors, have been in legislative limbo since 2001. “There were certain people who had a deportation order, but there would be a legal remedy for them if they could get deferred deportation and fight their case over time,” Salvatierra says. “For some of those people, it made sense for them to live in churches or to live with families that were connected to the church to allow them the time to be able to fight through this broken system.”

Sanctuary is a core Christian distinctive

Like I said, the theology of a “sanctuary church” regarding refugees is deeply rooted in how the Bible and tradition teach Jesus followers to provide refuge to the vulnerable, to see all people as created in God’s image, and to act on our moral responsibility to protect those fleeing persecution. “Welcoming the stranger” is a core Christian distinctive. Churches are natural shelters and advocates for refugees or they are unnaturalized churches. The Body of Christ and our buildings  provide a sacred space where those in need can find safety and support.

The ELCA laid out the argument about why they are a sanctuary denomination and it may help us all figure out how to express our faith these days:

  • It’s in the Bible

The Bible contains numerous stories and teachings that exemplify the concept of sanctuary. In the Old Testament if a person accused of manslaughter grasped the “horns of the altar” they were supposed to find temporary refuge (see 1 Kings 1 and 2 for Adonijah and Joab). “Cities of refuge” were designated where such a person could flee for permanent asylum. There are repeated calls in both the Old Testament and New to care for the stranger and the marginalized: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” is now folk wisdom from Heb. 13:2.

  • Everyone is made in the image of God

Refugees, regardless of their legal status, deserve dignity and compassion. They are Jesus in his distressing disguise.

  • Compassion and justice are fundamental

We need to act with compassion towards those suffering from persecution and advocate for just immigration policies that protect refugees.

  • Telling the truth regardless of the cost is crucial

Churches have a prophetic duty to speak out against injustice and challenge oppressive systems that force people to flee their homes. Violence and cruelty are not the answer.

  • We must salt the society with truth and love

Jesus is everyone’s refuge. The sanctuary in which we live extends beyond our individual lives and beyond the physical spaces of the Church.  That’s why we actively support refugees through advocacy, providing resources, and fostering community integration, even when we are threatened and even when we find common cause with advocacy groups who do not share our faith.

  • Offering sanctuary is worship

We do not just hear the Word, we do it. Having a mindset contrary to much of the world but aligned with the mind of Christ is normal. It may seem strange in the eyes of others to welcome the stranger the same way God has welcomed us into eternity, but we do it. Making and giving sanctuary is a demonstration of the heart of the gospel. Walking alongside immigrants and refugees is worship. It is not merely a political statement; in essence, it is an act of faith. It does not matter if the government approves of our altars, or not.

Can we listen to the Truth in Trumpland? We are so easily deceived!

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The prophets have been speaking. We should listen. In September of 2024 the Scientific American (of all things!) published an article titled “Meet the New Autocrats Who Dismantle Democracies from Within.” This was just before our billionaire oligarchs started to boldly dismantle the U.S. government.

I hear some people say, “Why isn’t anyone listening to the warnings everyone is shouting?” I think I’ve said that myself since Ronald Reagan was president. There are a LOT of great books, movies, articles and podcasts whose prophecies of doom are being fulfilled as we speak. Doesn’t anyone have an ear to hear?

It might be a little late, but I think people are beginning to listen. I keep hearing about it everyday.

Listening issues

To be honest, in general, most of us are not very good listeners. We’re kind of into ourselves and we are rather isolated these days.  Those realities are compounded by the fact we get fooled. We buy dumb stuff off TikTok. We can’t believe our eyes when things are appalling or out of order – “Did I just see Elon Musk’s four-year-old tell Donald Trump to shut up?” We wait and see. We are strangely trusting for being so cynical. We don’t have the energy to dig through the deceptions powerful people throw up to defend their designs for power. Proverbs has to tell us to attend to the obvious:

Enemies disguise themselves with their lips,
but in their hearts they harbor deceit.
Though their speech is charming, do not believe them,
for seven abominations fill their hearts.
Their malice may be concealed by deception,
but their wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. (Proverbs 26:24-26)

So the researchers of Scientific American came up with a study to prove the same old wisdom. Here’s a bit:

Rather than eradicating democratic institutions as leaders like Chile’s Augusto Pinochet or Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko did in the past, today’s established and emergent autocrats (as is the case of Maduro or Orbán, for instance) corrupt the courts, sabotage elections and distort information to attain and remain in power. They are elected through ostensibly free elections and connect with a public already primed to be fearful of a fabricated enemy. Critically, they use these democratic tools to attain power; once there, they dismantle those processes. Autocratic tactics creep into the political life of a country slowly and embed themselves deeply in the democratic apparatus they corrupt. Modern autocracy, one may say, is a tyranny of gaslighting.

We gathered a group of scholars who have looked at successful and failed autocracies worldwide in a special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist, to identify common denominators of autocratic rulers worldwide. This research shows that modern autocrats uniformly apply key building blocks to cement their illiberal agenda and undermine democracies before taking them over. Those include manipulating the legal system, rewriting electoral laws and constitutions, and dividing the population into “us” versus “them” blocs. Autocrats routinely present themselves as the only presumed savior of the country while silencing, criminalizing and disparaging critics or any oppositional voice. They distort information and fabricate “facts” through the media, claim fraud if they lose an election, persuade the population that they can “cleanse” the country of crime and, finally, empower a repressive nationalistic diaspora and fund satellite political movements and hate groups that amplify the autocrats’ illiberal agenda to distort democracy.

We give into these people because we aren’t sure what is going to happen to us if we don’t. Look at the Senate who gave us Tulsi Gabbard last week! They know better, I presume. Only God knows their heart, but they can’t possibly believe Trump’s cabinet is good for the country! Maybe they are all evil, but I doubt it. They must be scared. They might be deceived.

They might be exhausted, too. Elon Musk is counting on us being exhausted as he marches through the “deep state” like Sherman destroying Georgia. We need to get some strength from God, every day, so the liars don’t destroy every sense of goodness in our communities.

A Hegseth is hard for us to resist

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signs a memorandum reversing the name of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg while flying in a C-17 operated by the 300th Airlift Squadron en route to Stuttgart, Germany, Feb. 10, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

I admit I was a bit exhausted. I could not believe my eyes. But I decided to highlight the Under-dictator of Defense, the unqualified Pete Hegseth’s immediate action upon being  seated on his throne. He renamed Fort Liberty, the former Fort Bragg in North Carolina, as Fort Bragg.

I wrote on Facebook:

The United Daughters of the Confederacy were responsible for many of the monuments to confederate soldiers erected in the 1920’s, when Fort Bragg was built. Now Hegseth is re-writing the unwriting of the rewritten history of the Lost Cause, the misinformation campaign of the Jim Crow era. I’m sticking with Fort Liberty and the Gulf of Mexico. We can at least not conform to the intellectual fog machine.

He’s acting like they are naming the base after a decorated WW2 private (wink) which only compounds the nonsense. …Come on, Senate! Are you really going to subject the country to a slew of petty, racist dictators?

I also wrote a version of my post to my senators and representative, as well as Senators Young, Kennedy and Lankford.

Did anyone listen to me? I didn’t get 5000 likes. But I’d say, “Sure they listened. Because the Spirit of God, Jesus the Truth, is praying for us in ways too deep for words.” We are notably deludable, but we also have a way of spotting lies, even if it takes a while. The psychological skill of spotting lies can be improved, and the spiritual ability is built in and Spirit-nudged. You can usually tell when you are lying, after all.

In the case of gaslighting about Fort Liberty, the 2021 defense budget directed that nine military bases that honored Confederate rebels would be renamed after review by a commission of retired senior military officers and civilians.

The commission said in a 2022 report that it purposefully did not choose different honorees with the same last name as the Confederate figures. Mr. Hegseth’s decision did the opposite, swapping out Braxton Bragg in favor of Roland L. Bragg. (Although the caption from the DOD site above belies that switch).

The 2022 report noted that Braxton Bragg had a plantation stocked with slaves and is considered to be “one of the worst generals of the Civil War.” Roland Bragg was a private who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and won several medals.  But the main thing about him, for Hegseth’s purposes, is his name was Bragg.

This is what the liars, do. They make a statement which is obviously a lie they can deny is a lie and tell everyone to swallow it. I’m going to remember the name is Fort Liberty.

Relanguaging

Meanwhile, after listening in on Tulsi Gabbard territory at the NSA, Judd Legum got on X to report on a memo: “The administration has continued its efforts to eliminate, and maybe eventually outlaw, ‘woke’ language….it is working to remove 27 disfavored words from all agency websites and documents. The 27 dirty words are:

  • Anti-Racism
  • Racism
  • Allyship
  • Bias
  • DEI
  • Diversity
  • Diverse
  • Confirmation Bias
  • Equity
  • Equitableness
  • Feminism
  • Gender
  • Gender Identity
  • Inclusion
  • Inclusive
  • All-Inclusive
  • Inclusivity
  • Injustice
  • Intersectionality
  • Prejudice
  • Privilege
  • Racial Identity
  • Sexuality
  • Stereotypes
  • Pronouns
  • Transgender
  • Equality”

My friend Lou said “I suggest they remove Christlikeness also so as not to confuse their intentions.”

Dominating communication, right down to what can and cannot be said Is the deceiver’s playbook.

How do we do the truth?

I seem to be quoting James a lot these days: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (1:22)

If we are bad at listening and easily deceived, if we even deceive ourselves, we might be even worse at doing the truth in love! But it is certainly time to try again.

The U.S. government is not the arbiter of God’s will. Jesus does not require it to save the world. It is a dispensable tool, whoever uses it. Right now, however, it is filled with false prophets asserting they are Christians called by God to take over the seats of power so true righteousness can be installed. It takes about five minutes of thought to suspect they are deceivers. For instance, Elon Musk is working to eliminate the agencies that were investigating his companies and likely finding a way to sell armored cybertrucks to the State Department. His minions fired the people who oversee the U.S. nuclear arsenal the other day and had to call them back.

In the face of the Corinthian superapostles Paul boldly wrote his truth.

I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. (2 Corinthians 11:12-15)

I’m going to keep doing what I am doing too. I feel moved to build a community in Christ full of truth and love. And I will be at City Hall at noon today to demonstrate I can see the deception and demand change.

And I am going to keep listening. The Spirit of God is moving in the world right now. The logjam of Evangelical nonsense is being exposed and is about to break. I can’t predict a great American economy once it gives Ukrainian territory to Russia, or whatever Trump does. But I think I can predict a renewed church finding its courage and voice and providing an alternative. Many of you are probably the reasons I have such hope. God bless you.

War is burned into the U.S. culture: A warning 

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The greatest skill the United States of America has is making war. My veteran dad was proud of that. His pride helped propel me into a meaningful life. Ever since I decided to follow Jesus, proactive peacemaking has been an everyday aspiration. One of the reasons I felt called to stay in the United States, even though I thought it could harm my children, is this: the U.S. A. is a major mission field for the Prince of Peace.

Joint Task Force – Bravo website: Nov. 24, 2024
NGOs retrieve 180,000 pounds humanitarian aid from Soto Cano Air Base (Honduras)

The country where I became a citizen by birth, is history’s largest war machine, by far. Presently, it has 800+ military bases around the world. It rules the air, land, sea, space and, probably for at least a few months, prevails in technowar. It spends more for “defense” than the next twelve largest militaries in the world put together. China is a distant 2nd and Russia is 3rd.

So I am not writing to debate my title; the truth of it is rather obvious. I just want to demonstrate the truth of it, once again. You did not need the last paragraph’s stats to agree that war is burned into the U.S. psyche. You just have to watch our movies, play our video games, look at our national sport, and listen to our language of “shock and awe” to verify the fact that our societal amygdala is wounded.

Researchers say about 20 million U.S. Americans a year demonstrate PTSD symptoms. For many people the symptoms are transitory. But we therapists who listen to a lot of people know that the vestiges of trauma are hard to dislodge. When you live in a country where violence is foundational, where war is considered essential, where the most honored people are the winners of conflicts, and where our political life has degenerated into opposing encampments, most of us expect some projectile to hit us any moment, one way or another. Many of us haven’t slept well for years and even endless screen scrolling can’t distract us enough from the fear that’s built into our lives.

The War on Drugs

The war on drugs is a prime example of our bellicose assumptions.

When Richard Nixon, Trump’s grandfather, was president, he called for a major assault on drug use. People called it his “war on drugs.” The description stuck. It is exactly the way one would expect the U.S. to approach a problem — and not solve it, as is evident all around us. In fact, the war on drugs created a worse problem, including the cartels stationed on the southern border, for whom Trump promises, you guessed it, a war.

However, Nixon did not invent the war on drugs. In Johann Hari’s book, Chasing the Scream: The First And Last Days of The War on Drugs (2015 with a 2018 afterword) he reveals the real instigator: Harry Anslinger of Altoona PA, married to the favorite niece of Andrew Mellon, the richest man in the country. I’m a little late to Hari’s book but the internet is full of articles and blogs where parts of it are lifted wholesale and presented as fact without reference. It is still popular.

Anslinger served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, beginning with the administration of Herbert Hoover, then under Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy – an unprecedented 32 years. He zealously advocated for and pursued harsh drug penalties, in particular regarding cannabis, which he got included with regulated drugs like morphine. As a propagandist for the war on drugs, he focused on demonizing racial and immigrant groups. And he used the power and influence of the U.S. after WW2 to force the whole world to fight drugs the American way. Hari notes when the Swiss and Portuguese decided to stop the war in their countries, they still had to face international treaties that enshrined a compassionless approach.

I could see the war at work but I, like Johann Hari,  never knew about this well-connected bureaucrat who found a way to make his little department into the DEA. Hari tells his story with verve. Anslinger apparently said in a radio speech:

“Parents beware! Your children…are being introduced to a new danger in the form of a drugged cigarette, marijuana. Young [people] are slaves to this narcotic, continuing addiction until they deteriorate mentally, become insane, [and] turn to violent crime and murder.”

The infamous 1936 film Reefer Madness referenced one of the murders Anslinger falsely attributed to marijuana and which the yellow journalists of the Hearst newspaper chain falsely asserted as fact.

Just four months after the passage of the Marihuana [sic] Tax Act of 1937, which made selling pot illegal if not registered and taxed, Anslinger wrote an article in the FBI Law Bulletin, linking marijuana to instances of rape, assault, murder, and madness. He called it a more dangerous drug than heroin or cocaine when viewed with regards to causing crime and insanity (article).  In 1948 he told a congressional hearing, “Marijuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.”

This story should not astonish me. It is the American way. But I am still flabbergasted.

Now a war on the USAID

Musk and Trump with their war of words

In the footsteps of Anslinger and Nixon, young jackboots have been let loose in the “deep state” to root out corruption and anything that seems “woke.” The Nazi-tinged Elon Musk promotes the war like Harry Anslinger on Ex-Twitter, telling mostly outright lies in order to grab the power to gnaw the meat off the bones of the institutional carcass.

Ron Kraybill, a respected voice from the Mennonite branch of the family with worldwide experience, wrote about Musk’s assault on the USAID on Facebook last week:

You may think [our military might] makes us secure and safe. But a military presence that vast, often heedless to local populations who see no benefits to themselves, also earns us plenty of resentments, even when our warriors are not in combat. When our bombs, missiles, and shells kill people who see themselves as defenders of their freedom and homeland, or innocent civilians – well, how would you react if you were in the shoes of their families and communities?

One of the few things we bring to the world for the stated purpose of assisting the well-being of others is assistance channeled through USAID. In 2023 we spent $43.6 billion on USAID. For the military, $820 billion. That’s a ratio of about twenty to one in favor of weapons. Now Trump/Musk are ending even that tiny investment in the social and economic thriving of our neighbors on the basis of falsehoods. And we would like the world to appreciate us more?

As people later found out, Harry Anslinger didn’t even believe marijuana was as dangerous as he advertised — as he had been repeatedly told by researchers. But he did believe people of color were dangerous and he thought wielding power over the world from his important office was crucial. I suspect Musk and friends are much the same.

Marco Rubio said “foreign aid” was the least popular thing the federal government does when justifying Musk’s attack. It is true, the supremely capitalist country is wildly self-interested, so giving anybody anything seems illogical. In truth, the whole point of USAID is also about securing American interests. But at least it helps some people and shares the wealth a little bit. Among the many things the government does which I find immoral and detrimental, the USAID stands out as something a Christian could easily defend, even subject to the God-free Constitution, as it is.

War has a way of killing the winner

This post is another warning, in case you need one, to never surrender to powermongers, liars and the rich drunk with their wealth. They are the ancient enemies of goodness and charity. Proverbs 26:18-19 is picturing Trump:

Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows,
so is one who deceives a neighbor
and says, “I am only joking!”

In the U.S. the maniac has a vast arsenal of “firebrands and arrows.” He presides over a society imprinted with war and traumatized by the use and abuse of power. Lying is his native language and he deludes a host of followers who believe all his lies as a matter of faith — he’s a true wolf in sheep’s clothing, a devil disguised as an angel of light. The War on Drugs is followed by the War on Terror, the War on the Borderlands, and now the war on the government, which may soon be a war on us all, starting with the most vulnerable.

The vulnerable is who I hope to attend to in this troubled time. I hope the vulnerable find community in the church, where the Lamb of God sits on the throne, where love, even of enemies, heals war-torn hearts, and where truth reinforced by the Truth, himself, gives us courage to take our daily stand for goodness and charity. Like the resurrection demonstrates, the wins of murderous have a brief shelf-life.  Like Jesus says, the meek will inherit the earth.