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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
For many years, now, even before the pandemic, we have all been scrambling to find a new place in an upended world. Our institutions, from the federal government to the classroom, all seemed to be deteriorating, Our churches, associations, families, marriages feel threatened or unsustainable. More and more young people have begun to live alone, with the workplace as their main place to relate outside their bunker — and even then much of that relating has been consigned to a screen, sometimes in their bedroom.
Booming business for bunkers
Now that Trump has taken the helm, pardoned a slew of criminals and installed billionaires in new thrones (one, at least, giving a Nazi salute for the cameras), half the country is wondering what to do. And from what I hear, one of their solutions is to “go to their tents:” don’t watch the news, hunker down, shore up their family or small group of friends and try to survive. That is understandably defensive. And it is not a new response to a social mess.
But it is not the right time to go back to our tents. It is time to infect the society with truth and love.
The Biblical Trump
When Rehoboam, perhaps the Trump of the Old Testament, became king after his father Solomon died, he had a choice. He could lighten up on his father’s grandiosity or follow in his footsteps. Solomon had built an oversized kingdom on the backs of his people: high taxes and conscripted labor to build a lavish temple and palaces big enough for his many wives, stables and more. The people were tired of it. The king was a one-man 1% collecting all the wealth.
The elders, like the Episcopal bishop, and Catholic Archbishop preaching to Trump last week, asked Rehoboam to lighten up. He told them to come back later and he’d tell them what he planned. Then he went and talked to his cronies who lived with him in his bubble. They advised him to double down. In our context their advice would be, “Tell them they must say the election was stolen. Tell them you’re going to pardon bitcoin criminals. Tell them you want to conquer Greenland.” In Rehoboam’s context it was, “Tell them your pinky has more girth than your dad’s loins. Tell them, ‘If my dad set on you with whips, expect me to set on you with scorpions.’”
The elders did not like his answer. Their response was so legendary the storytellers compiling the history could quote a song about it: “What share have we in David? / We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. / To your tents, O Israel! / Now, see to your own house, O David!” (Today we’d cue up Le Mis). They took the place name “Israel” with them and left Rehoboam with just the tribal area of Judah. The call, “To you tents, O Israel!” is reminiscent of how the tribes organized themselves in the encampments on the way from Egypt. It was like another exodus from an oppressive ruler.
I think a lot of the people I know are unwittingly or deliberately going to their tents. They are leaving Mark Zuckerberg’s predatory social media, boycotting Amazon, not touching anything smelling of Musk, turning their exhausted backs on Trump and the next outrageous thing he says or does. That’s understandably defensive. But I don’t think it is worthy of us.
The vision of an expanding tent
In the 580s BC, King Zedekiah of Judah chose the wrong ally. (Trump might be deciding, “Europe or Russia?” right now). Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and exiled the elite, including the prophet Ezekiel. Other citizens fled to Egypt. The Assyrians had previously done this to the Northern Kingdom in the 720’s BC. A prophet among the exiles in Babylon, speaking in the spirit of Isaiah, prophesied Israel’s return to the place of the ancestral tents. His vision is the antidote we need to the poisonous atomization to which we are tempted to surrender in our own exile.
In Isaiah 54 the prophet has God speaking to a “barren” people whose tents are empty of children. They are desolate, as you may well feel this week. Discouraged. Exhausted. Afraid. Instead of hunkering down in exile, he calls them to respond to a vision of something better, something only God can do.
Enlarge the place of your tent,
And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings;
Do not spare;
Lengthen your cords,
And strengthen your stakes.
For you shall expand to the right and to the left,
And your descendants will inherit the nations,
And make the desolate cities inhabited.
Historically, the prophet is talking about returning to Israel, which the Persian Empire eventually allowed. But I think its broader meaning, a spiritual meaning, calls me to make a bigger tent, not a smaller one, because we need to gather ourselves and build something ancient and new to meet the challenges of the latest tyrants. We need to shore up or re-establish a community where the love of Jesus reigns.
To be honest, Trump Christians believe he is the new Cyrus returning them from exile and making a place for their tribe to again rule God’s chosen nation, the United States. I think that is a ruinous delusion; you can decide for yourself. I don’t think Trump or the U.S. is exceptional or chosen, just a decent port in the choppy ocean of history. We don’t need to fight for the control of the nation as much as we need to salt it with the grace we enact within and from our tent.
Jesus tabernacling
The ultimate guide for our ongoing exodus is Jesus, who is pictured as an expansive tent. The key verse in John uses an ancient image that calls us away from our division and isolation and empowers us to not only envision but practically extend our tent pegs in expectation of an ingathering.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:14
The more literal translations accurately trade “dwelt” for “tabernacled.” I agree it was John’s intent to reference the big tent, the “tabernacle of meeting” the Israelites set up during their sojourn where God met them. Jesus is the tabernacle where the world meets God face to face. Jesus is the tabernacle from where the people-God-calls-out of the world gather to meet in truth and love.
Now is not the time to isolate, avoid, wait or play defense. At least that is not Jesus’ strategy for the good life. Now is the time to relate: to God and to one another. The antidote to every disaster is to stick with God and love one another in practical ways. Many people know this and are making it happen, but you and I need to do it, too.
During the pandemic and because of the Evangelical/Catholic delusion about Trump, the church took a hit. You may still be out of church. You may have turned your back on Jesus altogether and explored the many alternatives cropping up. But many of my readers wish they could find some place to be the church with integrity and action. Exhausted as you may feel, now is the time to find it or build it.
We need the church now, as much as ever
Thirty years ago we planted a great church for the “next generation.” Little did I know what would hit us during the pandemic, and I thought Trump was just a brief, worst nightmare. It was a great sojourn for me and hundreds of other people. Seeds of that work are still ripening even now.
Even though many churches have taken a hit, there are plenty of revived or reviving churches to join. My friend just joined a new church in Baltimore. If I were in Southwest Philly I’d sojourn with Salt and Light. If I were in Northeast Philly I’d probably be with Oxford Circle Mennonite. In my neighborhood near St. Joseph U., I’m part of the newly-expansive St. Asaph’s. I dare say most churches are not fully on the Trump bandwagon and certainly are not in favor of scaring undocumented people to death or tormenting trans folk. I think most believers know dominating others, lying, or having a devotion to violence and greed will never be OK. They want real stuff.
Jesus is still tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth. We need to meet him personally and meet with him together with others for our mental and spiritual health, in order to experience our deepest loves and desires, and to keep the world from falling off the cliff of its own self-destruction. Maybe more than ever, we need to gather around Him, share our spiritual gifts and natural strengths, do our part in making the love that will not only benefit us but make a better future.
God bless you as you do the good you do in the school, workplace or neighborhood association. But “me against the world” will never be enough. It is likely to make you a minion of TikTok. The people of God need to be with God and each other in their basic tent of dwelling, their portable, flexible, developing homeplace, not only in their hearts, but in their face-to-face relationships and joint action. There is no time to lose by lamenting and laying low.
I rejoined the church two Lents ago. I started a new small group, and we are about to start another. I decided to give what I have to a local expression of the Body. It feels right. I feel a bit hopeful. And even in my uncertainty, I feel like I’m in the tent where I belong. What is God giving you to be and do to meet the challenge of this wild time in history? I doubt the call is, “Go to you tent.”
Faith feels kind of fragile. This is a message from 2016, but I think it still works for this year, when passion is blunted and fear is high.
Don’t struggle with prayer
Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. — Colossians 4:12
Epaphras struggled in prayer, wrestled. It was hard. If we do not learn to pray, our faith dies. In every era of life, the struggle is different. When we suffer, it is especially hard to pray and especially fruitful.
So how do we learn how to pray? A father from the Desert was asked by a novice “Abba, how do I pray?” The father answered, “Pray and the prayer will teach you everything.”
That’s a good piece of direction. Here are some more specific hints.
Establish a minimal daily routine.Reaching consistency is the most important goal.
Get warmed up to pray. Use a book or an app, maybe. Look over your notes from Sunday. Read the Bible or the writings of great guides – they whet your appetite for prayer.
Create a praying atmosphere. Use icons, candles, incense, prayer beads. They all contribute to decreasing distraction and increasing Holy Spirit awareness.
Artsy prayer corner
Involve both the spirit and the body. Kneel or stand, bow your head, raise your hands, lay prostrate.
Set reasonable expectations. In a society that enjoys instant gratification every day, one can abandon prayer after a couple of “failed” attempts. Prayer takes patience.
Don’t obsess on mystical experiences. It is important to discern among the spirits. Visions and experiences need to sit and prove themselves. Our pride can deceive us. We can turn prayer into an achievement or a competition
Remember that prayer is more than your “quiet time.”It is linked with repentance, humility, charity and fasting, etc. It happens in community. It is being in the presence of God all day and staying in dialogue.
Prayer is an encounter with God, is building up a personal relationship that needs nurturing and perseverance. The more we communicate the closer we become to any person and to the person of God. The conversation becomes more rewarding every time.
You have already been doing some evaluation by going through the list above. Make a plan to implement the element of the list that moved you the most — or maybe the one that seems to be the greatest struggle.
Let your sharing erode
We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. Instead, we were like young children among you.
Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. – 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8
The Thessalonians have a tight community and they are experiencing the kinds of things people in community fear. Some people take advantage. Other people hold back. A few people try to hold things together and end up feeling burned out. There is always a pull towards isolation and tepidity. We’re made for that by sin. If we let our sharing erode our faith could die.
Paul writes his letter so that the new life of his church plant won’t get wrecked by the unconscious erosion of their sharing – not just of money (although that is a big thing in Thessaloniki) but of love and the kind of covenant keeping that makes family out of strangers.
He uses his own sharing as an example. When he came to town, he was purposely dependent on them. He could have been in power, but he was like a child. Likewise, they were dependent on him. He was like a mother and they were defenseless children. Why? It was love. Love moved him to share the good news of Jesus which is all about God’s love moving Jesus to share eternal life. What’s more, love moved Paul, just like God, to share this life personally. Paul’s message wasn’t about love, it was love in the flesh.
After a while, sharing money or sharing life in community can feel wearing if they lose connection with passionate love – a love so deliberate it comes from heaven in Jesus or walks from Syria to Greece in Paul. When is the last time you shared in an extraordinary way? How long has it been since you checked to see if your passion is fairly represented in how you share your money? Celebrate the joys, if they reflect your answer. Pray for courage and confidence if the answer presents a challenge.
Be threatened into silence
“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” – Acts 4:16-20
It is interesting to wonder what is going on with Peter. When confronted in the courtyard the night of Jesus’ trial, he denied he was a Jesus follower three times! After he received the Holy Spirit, he performed a miracle and refused to stop talking about it when the same court that condemned Jesus ordered him to do so. Not long after, however, when he travelled to Antioch, to Paul’s church of Gentiles and Jews, he “began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group” (see Galatians 2:11-21). Even the boldest among us can be threatened into silence. It neuters our faith. We become hypocrites who supposedly have a faith with public principles, yet we are afraid of the consequences of being public.
These days, people are afraid to say something on Facebook because they might look like the kind of person who would say something on Facebook! If they talk about Jesus or their church, they are afraid someone will judge them for being too into themselves, or too aggressive, or too something, so they are shamed by the very thought of being shamed by the latest judge.
But if you can’t talk about Jesus like you talk about your latest vacation, or your family, or the various causes that heighten your passion, hasn’t your faith become of no consequence? What does it mean if the Lord is not the most consequential person alive from the dead?
Pray: Give me boldness to speak about what I have seen and heard of You.
Maybe you should imagine frightening situations — like telling your parents you are a Christian, or telling some significant person about what you now believe. You might rehearse talking about it in front of the mirror – that might lessen the terror when you actually encounter the real-life situation. Sharing your fears with others might help, too. Talk to them about what you felt and decided when you read today’s reading.
Write down your story of faith so you can really see it. Then you won’t need to invent it on the spot when you feel like you have an antagonist looking at you skeptically. Hold up your story to God as an offering and say, like Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Stop making new friends
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. – Matthew 5:23-4
In the long run, worship and prayer easily become very singular, personal, private. You are probably reading this alone and it never crosses your mind to share the experience with others. The U.S. is so steeped in individualism, you probably rarely think or asking for help or sharing personal things. The reading for today speaks into such a situation – the Jewish people having a long, insular faith devoted to staying free from outside influences.
Jesus suggests the worshiper leave the scene of the sacrifice as it is being enacted when he or she realizes the real impurity must be expiated relationally. They remember how they have wronged someone and must make it right. The work of the altar is about reconciliation. And that is not just healing a breech between a person and God, but healing the breech in a divided heart so prone to ignoring sins against love.
Our faith is neutered when we stop making friends with new people because we busy at our altars – doing church, satisfied in prayer, happy for therapy, stabilized enough to make money and buy insulating comforts. Whole churches effectively close their doors because they are busily grooming the relationships they have already domesticated. None of the New Testament writers recommend anything but pushing into new relationship territory. Jesus would have us love our enemies – just because we can.
Pray: Remind me Lord when I come to prayer and ignore my sins against love.
Obviously, when Jesus says “be reconciled” he is talking about people who have something legitimately against us, not just that they are upset and we should feel responsible. We are to be free to love with abandon, we are not abandoned to repairing every breech.
Dare to think beyond the security of your present life with God and the people of God. Who should become your new friend? Where should you go looking for a new friend?
While we are at it, let’s look at our church as a whole. Are we allowing people to become our friends? Do we think of them, even as we are worshiping, or would that seem like a violation of our space?
Put the church on the other side of a boundary
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness….
[E]ven if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. – Philippians 2:5-7…17-18
Who is God? Look at Jesus and you can see. There He is making himself nothing, finding a way to express self-giving love in the most redemptive way possible. Who am I in Christ? Paul often says “Look at me. I am the chief of sinners being used by God. Here I am emptying myself, pouring myself out like Jesus.” Both Jesus and Paul are demonstrating the joy of knowing and expressing their true selves. Even though Jesus is making himself a slave and Paul is in prison for his faith, they rejoice.
People who have grown up with this message often hear it upside down, as if this selflessness was a demand, not a promise. They have been so required, they have never chosen, and have a grown up faith that is full of boundaries. They are still pouring themselves out of their false self, not out of the inexhaustible joy in the Spirit. God and God’s people end up threats who will steal life, not give it.
These generalities don’t fit every person, since people are not standard. But the idea is worth pondering. If you are putting the church and its work on the other side of a boundary, if you have to “set a boundary” so you will feel comfortable or safe, what does that mean? Could your faith be more a reaction than an action? Isn’t it being neutered if the very thing that should give it life seems to be stealing it? Jesus and Paul don’t seem to be losing the promise and holding back even though their circumstances are dire.
Pray: Help me to get out of myself and into the Body.
Consider what script is running in your head about the church, in particular. Note your resentments and fears, your disappointments and resistance. It does not matter if they are legitimate or not. But they could be neutering your faith.
Try crossing your boundary. Volunteer to give your spiritual gift in a practical way. Go to the Sunday meeting four times in a row with the intention of pouring yourself into them, “on the sacrifice and service of someone’s faith.” Or do that thing you have been intending to do as a representative of God’s people and don’t tell a soul, just do it whether anyone notices or is there to judge it or not.
These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
One of the things that neuters faith, hope and love the quickest is imposing a new holiness code. Paul is against it. He respects the Law of Moses and the interpretations that grew up around it. But Jesus shows it to be the mere tutor it was, not the standard it pretends to be. Likewise, he tries to undermine the latest teachings of the latest lawgivers who find a reading in the stars or a vision by which to order everyone according to their new rules of purity. He calls is “delighting in false humility” and being “puffed up with idle notions.”
There are so many good things that are, in essence, disconnected from the head, who is Christ, but are very connected to the latest political theory or scientific realities. We can look “liberal” like we are into the latest thing, while we are very conservative, practicing the oldest of deceptions. Wearing nonexploitive clothes, drinking the right coffee, eating farm direct produce, biking, practicing the right kind of yoga, not vaccinating your child, being fit, not bathing, having a beard, voting Green, not voting, protesting a lack of diversity, judging inappropriate speech – the younger one is, the more rules there seem to be! There is a new holiness code, but Jesus did not make it up!
Pray: Help me see beyond the shadows to Christ.
Good intentions are the shadows of the real good to come, which is connected to the head, from whom the whole body grows as God causes it to grow. Take a moment to be freely and securely connected to the head as part of the body of Christ, free of any false criteria that condemns you.
Take a brief inventory of (not a condemning look at) your “identity.” What parts of your “lifestyle” are really based on the rules of people? Can you name a few rules you can safely live without in the light of Jesus? Get rid of some “shoulds” that could lock you up.
“Trust” the leaders instead of being responsible
I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple.
You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant. – 2 Timothy 4:1-5 (The Message)
Timothy was Paul’s apprentice. He was young, but he was put in charge of leading one of the churches. He faced a lot of things that make many people his age run from responsibility: hard work, opposition, people without a stomach for the truth. The main thing that neuters faith might be that people want their leaders to have faith for them, even force it on them, provide them a weekly mirage of it, be a larger than life example of it to enjoy vicariously.
A church should be devoted to apprenticing responsible leaders. There should be about one in every ten people. That means if sixty groups or missions got started this year, the ten founders in each one would all need a leaders the church produced. The generative capacity of the whole church will be neutered if we are not able to do that.
You might not need to be a group or mission leader, but you do need to be responsible to give what you have been given. It is not the leaders’ church. You do not attend “Rod’s church” (someone called it that). It is the Lord’s church. And, as Paul warned Timothy, “God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch.” We would like this judgment to somehow be non-threatening, but it is a threat. We don’t get to live someone else’s life; we are responsible for the one we have. We can’t “trust our leaders” and let them decide everything and do everything; we need to be our part of the team.
Pray: Help me keep my eye on what I’m; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.
Maybe you do not have the stomach for this “solid teaching.” Or maybe you are surrounded by people whole have weak stomachs, so you feel kind of embarrassed to eat a rich diet. It doesn’t matter; we need to eat the bread of life and not turn away when Jesus offers us his body and blood. We are called and honored with good work to do. We must not make the mistake of being untrustworthy.
Are there any responsibilities you have been given as part of the body that you are shirking and letting one of the leaders do?
During my four years In college, I was in a choral practice every day, Monday through Friday. I think I loved every day — at least I do now, as I look back on it. I learned a lot about much more than music, but it is the music that keeps rising up to bless me.
On Friday, the music was there to meet me as soon as I woke up. I was startled awake because of a dream. I won’t tell you all of it, but the part that woke me up was about being on a straight road going very fast and then realizing I had fallen asleep. When I jolted awake, I did not know where I was. I eventually found out I had gone to Maryland in my dreams!
I know how this actually feels because I did fall asleep once when we were driving to San Francisco for the weekend from So Cal – back in the day when all-night things were pretty normal. I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up just as I was about to enter an overpass curving over a railroad track. I still remember the feeling of shock and terror, then relief.
I definitely felt protected by God in my dream and in my experience.
Does God protect us?
In my dream, though, I felt a bit ambivalent. Was I protected? Honestly, my unconscious was having an ongoing intellectual discussion just before I woke up.
But even before I opened my eyes, a song came to mind. It was a solo I sang in college. We performed Honegger’s King David, which is a rather difficult, not-too-melodic drama. I did not really get it. But my director often gave his ignorant protégé solos which were over his head and labored to help me perfect them. He had one good reason to deploy me: I actually felt what was behind the sacred music. We were in a secular setting and he was surrounded by music majors who cared more about Honegger’s technique than his motivation. I never got the technique that well — my mentor had to mark my scores with endless instructions. But I did get the faith.
I realized years later that the little solo he gave me in King David was really half a solo. A new, older tenor had joined the choir who read music like I read the newspaper, and he wanted a solo in the piece. My director did not want to disappoint him, so he gave him the first half, which was more like an intro to my second half, which might be the most melodic measures in the whole work.
My one line was a soaring moment of assurance God gave David in his old age. Essentially, it was, “You’ll be OK even though Absalom has upended your kingdom.” Whether Psalm 121 is really about that, who knows? I didn’t even think about it. I just sang,
He will not suffer thy foot to be mov-ed, for he is on high, watching above. The Lord who is thy keeper neither slumbers nor sleeps.
That one line of music has stuck with me my entire adulthood. It pops up at just the right time, over and over.
To hear the pro sing it, you’ll have to scroll to section #21 “Psaume” at about 54:00
I’m not sure I can promise what you want
Again, and again in my life, especially when I feel threatened, that one line of Psalm 121 comes to me in a song. I’m thinking about it today, but I normally don’t. It just happens.
In my dream, God protected me. He kept me. God is my keeper, even in Maryland.
Intellectually, I would not defend that God can be relied on to keep me from flying off an overpass and into Bakersfield. But in my dream, I definitely felt God had protected me when I woke up in Maryland. I told God as we pondered together, “I don’t believe you constantly protect me,” because my experience tells me otherwise, and I cannot justify why God would not protect everyone who is abused by more than I have been. But I also said, “I do believe you watch over me and suffer with me,” since inexplicable grace happens and I feel God suffering with me and comforting me, heart, soul, mind and strength.
Practically, the fact is, I risk and imagine further risks almost every day under the assumption I am protected, that my future is in God’s hands. I prayed, “Your lack of slumber is the eternity in which I wake and sleep and defy death.” God being with me and me being with God is what is safe, not being kept unharmed. Escaping harm is exciting and comforting, too, but it is kind of the surface of things. One day I will, in fact, die. I will then only defy death because I am with God and God is with me. God will not keep me from the “harm” of dying. When I finally die, Jesus will take my hand and lead me into the fullness of eternity.
Feeling the confidence to live the risky life we all live is better than avoiding the troubles I fear. I think the world has so much trouble right now there will never be enough avoidance to deal with it!
But I can promise grace will happen
I have had the blessing of faith my whole life which has allowed me not to worry too much about my safety. But I have many clients, especially those who have been traumatized, who struggle every day with how God did not save them and how they can’t save themselves. They’ve flown off the bridge from which I was saved.
I can’t make a promise God will keep them, like the psalm appears to promise. (But let’s be clear, Absalom had already raped his father’s concubines in public, so David’s foot was mov-ed a lot!). Even so, I do have evidence that gives me hope that even the more damaged, distressed people can find security.
Grace happens all the time. It is as hard to explain as waking up just before you were going to fly over a guard rail. For instance, once a client had a vision in which a significant spiritual figure met them while they were meditating. The person saw themselves crouching in the dark, and the spiritual figure put a hand on their shoulder and said, “You are not a loser,” among other things. When I heard that, I did not reply with a therapeutic “That’s interesting.” I yelped with glee. I welcomed that extraordinary experience and was shocked at the same time. I saw it coming about as much as I expected to fall asleep at the wheel.
God comes to meet us all the time. Jesus knows we need the immediacy. We need the ongoing incarnation of his truth and love. He said, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” As sure as the angels instructed the shepherds, God watches over us.
Having trouble believing angels talk to shepherds? Look up in the air, more. Look beyond the limits you have imposed on the sky’s boundary. Help is on the way. If you don’t see it, it may already be here. At least I know God is here.
On the first day of Advent a bunch of stuff descended on me. Some of it was a bit difficult, like preparing to move in a month or so, and fulfilling a new assignment from my pastor. Most of it was just seasonal fun: having a party, scheduling concerts, buying gifts. And, as you know, I follow the news which also seems to be descending on everyone I meet.
I had intended to sit down and have some extended time with God and make my way into Advent: Jesus prophesied, Jesus incarnate, Jesus present with me, Jesus coming again. But it just was not working. I finally decided this Advent was going a different direction than usual. Instead of considering how I would enter into Advent with Jesus, I decided to consider how Jesus was entering into Advent with me.
Here was and is my prayer: You are incarnate in life as it is. I welcome that.
It has felt good to investigate how I use Advent.
Originally, the season of Advent was supposed to be like Lent: a somewhat sober preparation to open up to the coming of Jesus. Christmas was the beginning of the celebration, not the end (as in “the twelve days”). But when the end became getting a gift on Christmas, the spiritual discipline was upended. So the incarnation might be the most neglected spiritual foundation for postmodern Christianity.
Instead of marveling at our self-giving God during Advent, who deigns to be a human, in all our corruption and pain, we idealize the baby and tidy up the stable. I was late getting Christmas cards this year, so I had to drive clear over to Manoa to the Hallmark store. They are nice. The manger scene has almost no hint of war, ignorance or suffering.
I also managed to put up my very tidy, artificial tree. It is quite beautiful. It reminds me it is “Christmas.” But it is more full of magic than majesty. It probably has more to do with whimsy than worship. I do have a lobster ornament and a dancing hippo, after all, not to mention a plump mermaid and a hand-blown pig. I think it is charming and hospitable, but it is part of an aesthetic and somewhat anesthetic.
I learned how to pair my I-phone with my blue tooth speaker and started playing my Christmas playlist. As a person who sings along with muzak in the store, the playlist can really dominate. I collect all the voices that please me and set an atmosphere; it can function as a musical bubble. I included Respighi’s “Laud to the Nativity” we sang in college. As I listened to the pro sing my tenor solo, I criticized how bad I performed it. I missed the Nativity and the laud as I critiqued the performance.
The aura of Christmas has, for centuries, been refined to the hilt: peaceful (snow on snow), candlelit or firelit (chestnuts roasting), calm and bright (wax burning your hand as you sing on Christmas Eve). We pull out the stops to denude it of most trappings of the original event. We may have colluded with each other to buffer the reality of God with us. Really, those of us who have birthed babies know very well the Christ child was not sleeping in “heavenly peace” with his stressed-out parents in a barn.
I don’t need a buffered relationship
As I was praying, I was distressed that I was messing up my Advent ritual! I was not even praying right. Hmm. Holiday capitalism and our godless perfectionism gets in the way of Advent. All our excessive, ritual buffering (like our favorite sign off, “Stay safe!”) subverts a prayerful Advent. Jesus is like Doris Day getting shot through a filter.
Doris Day was a famous singer in the 1940’s who became a romantic-comedy movie star in the 50’s and 60’s. She’s on my “pop” playlist a few times. She did not like her freckles so she would tell the cameramen, “Gauze me baby” so she could sing Que Sera Sera. The operators applied Vaseline to the lens or used a very sheer piece of silk or plastic to soften her appearance on screen and later mask her wrinkles. She glowed.
Wouldn’t you say that Jesus is effectively gauzed during Advent? Aren’t we seeing him through a controlling lens? I don’t need that. Syria is transforming and Trump is sitting with Macron in Notre Dame. Come, Lord Jesus. Do not stay locked up in that Christmas card!
Christ the Savior is born, again
My prayer became, “I dare not let you get cleaned up. I need you down in the dirt, in the stable with me.” I didn’t say, “Down in the shit,” since that would be unseemly. But no one knows the shit of humanity better than Jesus, right?
Much more than complaining about society and humanity, I want the Spirit of God unleashed by Jesus in me, so I am not only born again but I give birth to him in significant ways.
Ronald Rolheiser has encouraged me to do this birthing many times. For him, Mary is a model to imitate not a maiden to admire. From her we get the pattern of incarnation in our lives, hopefully ignited by Advent:
Let the word of God take root and make you pregnant
Gestate that by giving it the nourishing sustenance of your own life
Submit to the pain that is demanded for it to be born to the outside
Spend years coaxing it from infancy to adulthood
Do some pondering, accept the pain of not understanding and of letting go.
I guess I am old enough to do some pondering. I don’t make complete sense and neither does Advent or the whole weird world. I think I can let go of the temptation to jump into controlling all that. If I resist, I will be able to welcome Jesus to do what He does: become incarnate in my messy existence. In like manner, I will be much more likely to give birth to the work of the Spirit in me, right in the middle of the turmoil of a world in great need of the true Savior.
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.
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. 
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.”
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.
Doris Day was a famous singer in the 1940’s who became a romantic-comedy movie star in the 50’s and 60’s. She’s on my “pop” playlist a few times. She did not like her freckles so she would tell the cameramen, “Gauze me baby” so she could sing 