#RevThread # 62
Third Safe
1/ Jesus could be rough. Once, facing the hostility of some church and civic leaders of his day, He bluntly said, “I know that you do not have the love of God in you.” (John 5:42) Ouch.
Third Safe
1/ Jesus could be rough. Once, facing the hostility of some church and civic leaders of his day, He bluntly said, “I know that you do not have the love of God in you.” (John 5:42) Ouch.
2/ I see that Tony Perkins of Focus on the Family fame has joined other White Evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell and 'ole Pat Robertson in praising God for Trump. (Note to rich and famous Trump pastors: it is more polite to vomit in private.)
3/ Here are two revealing stories about migration. The first is from the 30’s, the second is happening now. Story #1: Fritz was a young Jewish doctor in Berlin who had gone deaf in his late 20’s. As the Nazis grew in power, he fled,...
4/ ...hiding in the trunk of a car that crossed into France. But France also was not a safe place for Jews at that time, France was about to be taken into the Nazi realm, and Fritz had relatives in Chicago, so somehow he made it to America. Safe.
5/ Now a deaf person, especially a minority, who does not speak English is not exactly a merit-based immigrant. But Fritz got a job as an orderly and pretty soon other medical personnel picked up that he knew a lot about medicine, just from how he handled himself.
6/ Before you knew it, Fritz was once again Dr Fritz. He married a marvelous person, became the chief pathologist in his new city, invented several useful tools for other practitioners. Years later one of his grandchildren, a spectacular soul, became part of my family.
7/ America! Who could not love America?
8/ Who could not love America? Trump, apparently. Not the real America. Not the America that has taken millions of risks on Fritzes and been blessed by God for doing so.
9/ Story # 2: I live about an hour south of Canada. Just above Plattsburgh, NY, is the official border crossing. All you do is drive through and show them your passport and tell them why you’re visiting. They are, as you would guess, very nice.
10/ Now there is also nearby an illegal way to get into Canada. There’s a dirt road to a farm right at the border. There’s no real fence or anything, but there is a sign saying it’s illegal to enter Canada that way. Just into Canada there’s a trailer - a single-wide...
11/.. if you go in Canada that way, you get arrested by the nice people in the trailer. The sign tells you that that will happen.
12/ There are volunteers--mostly women, often elderly, amazingly kind-- from Canada and from Plattsburgh who go there to help with the situation.
13/ The situation is this: A rule passed after 9/11 is called “Third Safe...” That means that those fleeing oppression, often from Central America, cannot have a third safe country. If they make it to the US, they can’t go on to Canada, and vice-versa.
14/ So here’s what’s happening: refugees from Central America & elsewhere have discovered that Trump’s America affords no safe asylum. So they take whatever belongings they have in a suitcase and carry their children and get on busses or walk all the way North of Plattsburgh..
15/.. and know that they need to be arrested in Canada. They deliberately go up that dirt road to the crossing that is forbidden. That way they can get before a judge...
16/.. and plead their case and perhaps be granted asylum. Their crime, apparently, is “breathing while brown” , so you can see why we had to force them out.
17/ The volunteers give them mittens and coats and hats and encouragement because they have never experienced an Adirondack or Quebec winter. The children, sensing the fear in their desperate parents, are terrified their families will be ripped apart and often scream.
18/ The parents are just hoping to get into a court where a judge might have compassion and include them in some temporary way in Canada.
19/ In the 30’s we were poor, we had the depression. But we were way richer in spirit.
20/ To all my fellow evangelicals who are finally feeling safe because the Lout has won some delusional victory in some non-existent war on Christianity, I say:
21/ Repent! You are betraying Christ. You are at enmity with God. When you support the mobster in the White House, you strengthen our national flirtation with fascism. If these families are not “The least of these my brothers” (Matthew: 25), who is?
