Tag: immigration

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the sick & homeless – WWJD

YES MAGAZINE

This referenced article in YES MAGAZINE details how immigrants to our southern border are “disinfected” to prevent the spread of vermin and disease.  I shudder remembering what I have read about the arrival of Jews to the concentration camps and the subsequent disinfecting process.

The article describes the methods used in these ‘holding camps’, the pain, humiliation,  and suffering being caused.  But, the nagging question which bothers me and which we all need to answer is this: are they less valuable, are they less human, are they less loved simply because they are not American, because they are refugees seeking asylum and a better life for themselves and their families?  What if the asylum seeker was me and the family huddling around me was my family?

Initially when this current governmental regime assumed power, it was a fight against drug dealers, thugs and rapists crossing the border that we were warned against.  Today it is the same people approaching our border but, with a different MO.  They are, whether intentionally or unintentionally, spreading covid-19 and other diseases in our midst.  They are causing a health crisis.  Incredibly, listening to government authorities, we should believe that they will sell drugs to our kids, steal our possessions, rape our women and boys, and now infect us with a deadly virus.

Really?  Seems to me that we, as a leaderless nation, have done a fine job of creating our own moral and health crisis – don’t need any help from immigrants.  Those who refuse to mask up, refuse to practice social distancing, refuse to see this pandemic as the killer which it is and then ridicule and threaten others who take covid-19 seriously…..those others are the prevailing threat about which we need to worry.

How much are we willing to believe from a government which has lied repeatedly over the course of history?  How long must America suffer the delusional mindset that because of race, nationality, creed, or alliances, it is superior to the rest of mankind who share this earth under a merciful and gracious Higher Power?  How long?

diversity

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Mayor Pete

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Let’s give a shout-out to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the host city for the Democratic National Convention, July 13-16, 2020, at Fiserv Forum.  Particularly in today’s heated and volatile political climate, it behooves us to know our candidates’ platforms.

Pete Buttigieg – PBS.org

CLIMATE CHANGE

He believes climate change is a national security threat. Supporting “Green New Deal” proposals, candidate Pete is one of 407 U.S. mayors who signed a pact to adhere to the Paris climate accord after Trump pulled out of the international agreement in 2017.

ECONOMY/TRADE

Strongly supporting labor and union groups, he believes the NAFTA trade agreement caused irreplaceable job losses across the industrial Midwest saying that Democrats must work harder to advocate for working people.

GUNS

Mayor Pete is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group that advocates for gun control legislation at the state and federal level.  A supporter of universal background checks, he opposes guns in schools and “Stand Your Ground” self-defense laws.

FOREIGN POLICY

Pete, having served as a Naval intelligence officer in Afghanistan, like other Democratic candidates has criticized Trump for conducting foreign policy by tweet.  He would withdraw troops from Afghanistan, but believes troops should remain in Syria and considers Iran to be the greatest threat to Israel in the Middle East.

HEALTH CARE

Buttigieg says he’s all for a single-payer health care system but would not immediately jump to that system from the current system.  Instead he would first implement an all-payer rate setting which would not eliminate private insurance companies.

IMMIGRATION

Mayor Pete supports a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, DACA, and opposes Trump’s aggressive deportation policies.

SOCIAL ISSUES

He favors passing the Federal Equality Act, an amendment to existing civil rights legislation that would give federal  non-discrimination protections to LGBTQ people.  He opposes Trump’s transgender ban in the military and supports gender reassignment surgery for transgender people in prison.

For links to greater detail go this PBS link – Pete Buttigieg platform

Peter Paul Buttigieg is a former military officer, now in the Naval Reserves, and combat veteran who has served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, since 2012.  Born January 19, 1992 in South Bend, he was married to Chasten Buttigieg in 2018.  He is a graduate of Pembroke College in Oxford, University of Oxford and Harvard University.  He is a Rhodes scholar who speaks 8 languages: English, Norwegian, French, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Arabic and Dari.

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PRIDE7

 

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paying final respects

From her solitary island abode
we believe she spoke assuredly of the people passing before her,

“They will never abandon me,
because I am offering them freedom.
They will never reject me
because I am showing them kindness.

They will never revile me
because I open my arms to all of them –
the Jews, the Catholics, the Germans,
the Irish, the Italians, then the Muslims,
blacks, browns, Asians and Hindu –
none are excluded.

They will never persecute me
because I extend  mercy to all.
They will never despise me
because in their time of need I welcome them equally.

They will never forget me because they stand before me
as the abandoned, rejected, reviled, persecuted, despised
refugee and immigrant refuse from other shores.”

Sadly many years have passed, America’s people have forgotten
from whence they arrived.
Generations have prospered and they, today’s empowered ones,
today’s angry and disillusioned,
today’s wealthy and privileged
look upon our Lady with scorn and derision.
They dishonor the words which have accompanied forever
her island’s welcoming message.

Thus they reject Lady Liberty standing forlorn on her island in the harbor:

“We disown you because you are not today’s American spirit.
Our nation is full, we have no more room.
Your comforting words to immigrants and refugees
are not meant for those on our borders today,
your justice is no longer revered,
your welcome is no longer our voice.
Your words are dead,
cold,
a vestige of an America which has passed.
We no longer need nor want you as our beacon.”

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She sinks into the harbor – just a memory to those of us who have loved and cherished her beacon of hope, her burning torch, welcoming all people regardless of race, creed or nationality.  But, she is not flesh or blood like us, she is spirit and she will resurrect when America’s people once again deserve her charity and blessing.

Until then, may a gracious God find reason to redeem a thankless people.

 

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

EMMA LAZARUS

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the arrogant Christian

ARROGANCE – conceit, haughtiness, egotism, superiority, pride, overconfidence, superciliousness, self-importance, condescension

HUMILITY – the cure for arrogance

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Which will it be?  Which am I?  Arrogant or humble in my faith walk?  How about you?

Here’s the quiz:

  1. Do I pridefully share my unsolicited testimony with strangers?
  2. Do I believe my concept of God is the only valid belief and that only those like me are ‘saved’?
  3. Do I deride other religions?
  4. Do I believe only those who profess the New Testament ‘road to salvation’ will know an eternity?
  5. Do I believe Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindi, even Christian sects other than mine are ‘lost’ and will burn in hell?
  6. Do I believe it is my duty to defend the God which I understand even to the point of warfare and murder?
  7. Do I believe it is righteous to murder those providing abortion or those receiving abortion knowing by heart the 10 Commandments and “thou shalt not kill”?
  8. Do I believe my government ought to be governed by Christian principles?
  9. Do I believe the Judeo-Christian scriptures are infallible and inerrant?
  10. Do I interpret every verse and passage of those scriptures literally?
  11. Do I believe non-believers deserve my scorn and derision?
  12. Would I help a destitute refugee of another creed, faith, or race?

LASTLY

Would I recognize Jesus, the Christ, if He were standing in front of me in the guise of  a starving child from Yemen, a 14 year-old Honduran girl pregnant by rape, a young family fleeing persecution in Syria, a ghetto black man from Chicago addicted to drugs, a homeless woman living in the nearby woods?

Would I?  Would you?  The Christian world celebrates the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth this week.  What’s hanging on my personal cross, on yours?  Arrogance, maybe?  Will we resurrect into the man or woman whom the universal God of all mankind designed us to be?

(There is only one correct answer to the questions in the above quiz – humility)

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ROOTS

Just another traveler on life’s highway hanging out in the slow lane.  It’s quiet.  It’s peaceful.  Beyond the horizon is rest calling my name.  Green pastures, still waters, my cup is overflowing.

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Do you know your roots?  In 1976 I began a project which lasted several years researching the family tree.  Fortunately, my family had lived in the region comprising Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, since before the Revolutionary War.  Equally fortunate was the fact that all the old county records were stored at the courthouse in the basement which in colonial times served as the county jail.  Nothing yet was transferred to digital and we amateur genealogists were allowed into the dungeon to do our research from the written transcripts.  It was dank and musty down there in the numerous jail cells and it was not difficult to imagine prisoners scurrying about amongst the multitude of books containing wills, land deeds and orphan’s court records.  For treasure hunters like myself the time spent there was an adventure through days long past.

I don’t believe I fully appreciated the convenience of all my family history being in one courthouse and one library within 30 miles of my home.  My maternal Snyder side of the family changed the spelling from Schneider in the 1860s to 1880s.  The Browns migrated from Europe as Brauns in the late 1700s.  Himmel’s Church in Rebuck, Pennsylvania, is the resting place of my forefathers, Schneiders and Brauns, with headstones among the very first of the burial plots in the church cemetery.  Himmel’s was founded in 1773.

Our Germanic community lived in relative isolation in the Schwaben Creek Valley of central Pennsylvania having settled there from Berks County, Pennsylvania, in the mid 1700s.  The Pennsylvania Dutch which was spoken was called “low German” in contrast to written German which was referred to as “high German”.  There are similarities, but centuries of geographic separation from the mother country made it difficult to read the Bibles which were written in high or “hoch” German.  Many of the words were vastly unrecognizable.  My grandparents did not learn English until entering school.  I was not encouraged to learn the Dutch dialect as it was considered too common, but I understood when family members and neighbors spoke in Dutch.

Further stories of an early migration to America in the 1600s by my people is interesting but I was never able to verify the accounts written in volumes by local historians.  We knew for certain that my ancestors escaped religious and social persecution in lands that are now Germany, that they fled to England and from there indentured themselves to landowners in the ‘new world’.

My people did not immigrate to America because they were weary of the wonderful life they  were having in their native lands.   They did not come here to take advantage of native inhabitants.  They came here because they had nothing and were willing to sacrifice their nothingness for hope in a new land.  They did not speak the predominant English language, did not bow to the predominant God, and did not have any assurance of a better life.  All they wanted was to start anew in peaceful observance of their traditions and heritage, to raise families without fear of persecution, and to share the bounty of a new beginning.

Sounds like some other immigrants about whom we hear today.  My people did not have a statue in New York Harbor to welcome them with a torch and encouraging words, but when others followed their footsteps, I am sure they said,  “Welcome neighbor, we have plenty to share.  Enjoy the bounty with us which the good Lord has provided.”

Yes, I know they would have said that.  That’s who we were back then and that’s who we are now.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these , the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”  Emma Lazarus – THE NEW COLOSSUS 

Our words are perhaps not as eloquent, but Emma Lazarus speaks to who we are.  We have been in the shoes of the homeless and tempest-tost and we will remember.

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