Tag Archives: Ann Gaylia O’Barr

Seeking and Finding

Back in 1986, I wrote in answer to a letter from a family member:

“I seem to be suffering a lot of the same things you are, i.e., periodic depression, wondering what I’m good for and other cheerful things like that. . .

“I feel wasted. I have so many blessings, and feel I’m not doing much with them . . .I go every day to work in front of a little computer screen instead of using my writing, somehow, in this world.”

Then I mentioned the many ways I had searched for a more interesting job but had not found one.

Finally, I talked about what comforted me at that moment. In the New Testament book of Acts (chapter 16), Paul talks about how he and his companions tried to carry their missionary work to two places, but had been prevented from doing so. I commented: “They must have wondered about this time what in the world they were supposed to do. Then Paul had his vision of the man from Macedonia, and they concluded that they were being led to Macedonia. They went there and had a very fruitful ministry, albeit a challenging one.”

I continued: “I have decided to make the most of my time while waiting.” I mentioned tasks I was finishing to get ready for when I would find the work I was supposed to do.

Eventually, of course, I was able to become an officer with the U.S. Foreign Service and was able to travel and live in the Middle East for several years, which had so interested me earlier. I’m now able to use those experiences in the writing I do.

God may answer a person’s prayers in many different ways than God answered mine. Perhaps some may find a renewed interest in tasks that earlier bored them. They may find renewed possibilities, new attitudes.

The point is, I kept preparing, studying, learning. If I had died without my new vocation, the time would not have been wasted, but would have produced growth.

Jesus told his followers: “Ask and it will be given you. Search and you will find, knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Matthew 7:7, NRSV.)

 

Tracing the Rainbow

Here’s the blurb for my newest book on Amazon:

Mark Pacer, a U.S. diplomat serving at the American consulate in Montreal, Canada, is called to the scene of an American citizen killed in a traffic accident. On closer inspection, Mark realizes the death was not an accident but a carefully planned murder. Who wanted his death? And are they also searching for the murdered man’s wife, Clair Bancroft? Mark, a widower with two small children, finds himself increasingly attracted to Clair. But what is she hiding? What is the reason she and her husband fled to Canada? And is the murderer a threat not only to Clair but to Mark as well? Who stalks them, even as their friendship continues?

Here’s the cover and more details:

Tracing the Rainbow

Tracing the Rainbow

FIC042100 Fiction/Christian/Contemporary

FIC022070 Fiction/Mystery & Detective/Cozy/General

FIC045000 Fiction/Family Life/General

FIC037000 Fiction/Political

 

Publisher: Redemption Press (February 12, 2024)
Publication date: February 12, 2024

Alexei Navalny’s Death

The death was widely reported and commented on:

“Alexei Navalny, leader of Russia’s opposition, was killed in jail by the regime on February 16th, aged 47.” (“Obituary Alexei Navalny: Better Russia, where are you?” The Economist, February 14th 2024)

Russell Moore, “What a Murdered Russian Dissident Can Teach Us About Moral Courage,” Christianity Today, February 21, 2024.

Moore, in his column, tied Navalny’s death to the death of other Christian martyrs. “Before the world forgets the corpse of Alexei Navalny in the subzero environs of an Arctic penal colony, we ought to look at him—especially those of us who follow Jesus Christ—to see what moral courage actually is.”

Interesting that Navalny’s courage and comfort and purpose was increased by his Christian faith. Safe to say that many, perhaps most of the dissidents against Putin’s Russia, are not Christians.

Also, Putin and many of his supporters say they are Christians, too. Indeed, some of them oversee Christian churches.

One of the temptations we Christians experience is the temptation to betray our calling by the need to belong. Why do regimes like Putin’s put people in solitary places like Siberia? Often in solitary confinement?

Perhaps those who most suffer for Christ are those who suffer alone. Take a Christian away, not only from family but from Christian community, and they become increasingly vulnerable.

Yet the bedrock of Christian belief is based on Christ carrying out his marvelous work of suffering and redemption when alone—after the disciples had fled.

Christian community, from the beginning, has comforted and grown us in our Christian faith. It is a bedrock of Christian growth. Yet, ultimately, it isn’t the most important piece of our Christian faith. The most important is the indefinable friendship with Christ our brother.

The Neighborhood

Do you live in a neighborhood? A block or two or three where you know the neighbors’ names, perhaps even some of their interests?

A long time ago, before I was old enough to even attend school, I remember when neighbors would come over to visit after supper. We lived in an older suburb, and in the hot summer, the adults sat on porch chairs and talked. I listened, perched on a step. In colder weather, they gathered in our living room, and I listened, sprawled on the floor, next to my mom’s chair.

I don’t have a lot of memory of what they talked about—possibly about current events, like what the Soviets were doing in Europe. Or maybe they talked about elections or the growing student population in the local elementary school. Maybe they argued—surely they had different opinions about the world—but I remember the atmosphere as being collegial and—well, neighborly.

After a few years, the neighborly chats stopped. Not because of any disagreements or bad feelings. They stopped because people began staying home to watch the new invention called television.

Maybe portable phones and other electronic devices have merely increased what is inevitable. We’re able to do more and more without leaving home or taking time for personal contact with actual people. Banking, communicating, entertainment—we do all these activities more often without leaving our homes.

Certainly, Americans without good jobs may live in crowded conditions—or even on the street—but typical middle class Americans live less and less with families or friends. Yes, some of us do have active social lives, but families are smaller, less of us are involved in the local school, the children tend to leave while still in their teens, and more of us live alone. Even our communication tends to be impersonal—often over the computer. And actual visits to neighbors become rare for many of us.

It’s supposed to be an advantage to take care of banking and bills and other transactions from the comfort of our homes. But it means we meet less and less with others even when performing these chores.

What spaces are left for humans to actually meet in person? Some of us still work in offices or visit shopping centers. Children still need teachers. Political meetings may include in person attendance—but often include electronic attendees as well. Those of us attending religious services may still be more likely to do so in person, although the Covid pandemic increased meetings via the internet.

It’s perfectly all right, of course, to seek ways to “save” time. Busy parents, often working, need all the help they can get to have time for their families.

Nevertheless, the idea of neighborhood has become, for many of us, a foreign concept.

Sisterhood: Faith and Uncertainty

As an adolescent, I struggled with questions many young people face. What vocation was I going to choose? What kind of man did I want to marry? And, as a daughter of a church-active family, when did I know I was a Christian?

I was blessed with loving parents and an older brother, but my father, to whom I was close, died when I was thirteen. I don’t remember questioning God about why he should die. Part of my family’s life had included going to “funeral homes” and staying for a while to comfort the grieving. Visiting wasn’t particularly scary. The adults visited and reminisced and laughed a lot. Death was just a part of the community’s life.

What I missed was certainty. I wanted to know I was a Christian. Yes, I remember a time when I was nine or ten when I had a quiet but sudden “quickening,” a feeling of knowing God’s presence. Probably God comes on many of us that way.

No doubt I was influenced by growing up in an age of revival meetings. Perhaps I assumed a coming together with God had to be through a revival type experience. We Christians, believers in a future life, nevertheless are sometimes victimized by ways that moved mightily in the past but may be past their prime. We forget that Christ’s religion is forward-going. Past ways fit some but can, if we aren’t careful, close us to new ways.

Jesus met so many different people. All of them were individuals. They chose the way he preached, then went on to help others know Him. Mary and Martha, Peter and Paul, missionaries and, later, food bank operators, food servers and teachers—the list is endless, and it’s all individual in the ways we meet and serve. As Christians, we have this forward life—we have never arrived, but that is good. If we understand that we’ve never arrived, we are wary about giving complete allegiance to any human movement or allow ourselves to be stuck in past gear.

Secular Times: Best for Christians?

“Although some religious conservatives warn that the retreat from faith will lead to a collapse of social cohesion and public morality, the evidence doesn’t support this claim. As unexpected as it may seem, countries that are less religious actually tend to be less corrupt and have lower murder rates than the more religious ones.” (Ronald F. Inglehart, “Giving Up on God; The Global Decline of Religion,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2020)

Inglehart cites several factors in the noticeable decline of religion in the United States and other developed societies.

One is the greater security people may feel when their material needs are more easily met. They don’t feel a need to depend on a divine being to protect them from material want.

Also, as gender and sexual norms are relaxed, religion becomes less important in enforcing those norms.

However, Christianity began in the more secular society of the Roman empire. The Roman empire was fairly moderate in terms of religious freedom, so long as no religion advocated the overthrow of Rome.

Jesus taught his disciples not to worry about material things but to be more concerned about seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness. He did not, however, seem to forbid wealth in itself and even enjoyed fellowship with some who were well-off.

Though the early Christian communities taught care of the poor, some of the early Christians were well-off and shared their wealth. They also included the learned, like the apostle Paul.

The attraction to the religion of Christ has, throughout the centuries, included those who care for the poor, such as many religious communities in the Middle Ages. Material support for these communities often came from the well-off.

Christianity often spreads through a minority, but a minority that encourages practices that benefit society as a whole. In America, some Christians advocated for the abolition of slavery. Others advocated for universal access to education. Still others began missionary societies that cared for the poor and the sick even as they evangelized.

A belief in the worth of all people also contributed to the growth of more democratic forms of government.

Christianity is not necessarily limited in ultimate results by being a minority.

Religion, including Christianity, can be corrupted. Yet, throughout the centuries, each failure within the Christian community has birthed a minority who not only overcame the failures but found new ways to grow.

I Owe It All to Boredom

As a child, I was frequently bored. School was especially tiresome. Not all of it, of course. I enjoyed recess and music. Also lunch.

However, much of the time in my elementary school days I was bored: Listening to a rehash of things I’d already learned. Having to sit for long periods. Working out long division (without a calculator.)

I coped by daydreaming. I invented stories and went on adventures to desert islands and galloped on ponies across the prairie.

Once in a while a teacher caught me up short with a question suddenly directed at me, but most of the time they were lenient. Since my grades were okay, their wisdom must have included letting a bored child grow her imagination by drifting.

My ability to drift, to imagine, has served me well in adulthood. Working on a storyline for a novel? Just start writing, even if I have only a faint glimmer of the story, and eventually the process is likely to kick off an aha moment.

I don’t think my imagination would be nearly as developed, including my fiction, if I hadn’t often been bored as child.

Political Religion

In his book Bad Religion, Ross Douthat states: “Using the Word of God to support political causes has long marred Christianity.”

The interplay between Christianity and politics has long been discussed by both religious and secular thinkers. When Christianity began in the backwaters of the Roman Empire, it would hardly have been suspected of much influence. It came to the attention of Rome only after its rapid spread had disturbed the authorities by its devotion to another king, Jesus, called the Christ.

Few adherents of the new religion, however, advocated the overthrow of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the apostle Paul sometimes appealed to his Roman citizenship for protection. Roman roads meant the gospel could more easily be spread. Good government is indeed a blessing.

Roman authorities were mistaken in their belief that the Christianity of Jesus wished to overthrow the empire. When practiced, however, Christianity conquered the Roman empire, but by peaceful means. The government continued, but the practice of Christianity grew to become a major influence.

In its first few centuries, the interplay between government and religion continued. After Christianity became, not only tolerated, but ascendant, the temptation to use it for political purposes increased. However, the more that Christians attempted to use political power, the more they risked corruption.

Later, when religion and political power began to separate, Christianity grew. Those who chose a religion because they would be persecuted if they did not, now were free to leave. Many did. However, the new freedom meant that the remaining members were more committed to their faith. Their dedicated work drew in new members.

In areas like the southeastern United States (where I grew up), the general population was more “religious” in the sense of church membership. Religion became part of the general culture. That included a kind of civil religion.

For many, this meant choosing a political party which catered to religious beliefs. Even though you could choose your religion, you were more favorably accepted, including politically, if you were culturally Christian. Such societies, however, tend to ignore the hard parts of the gospel.

It’s not a coincidence that slavery and then segregation became embedded in southern culture, while the area was termed more “religious” than other parts of the nation.

However, it’s also not a coincidence that Christians have been among those fighting first slavery and then segregation. Stories are legion of southern children growing up in a segregated society who eventually took their Christianity so seriously that they become convinced that racial discrimination was terribly wrong.

The fact that such struggles continue should not surprise us. Those who take Christ seriously, while often a minority, often surprise us with the changes they ultimately birth.

Is Jesus in My Politics?

The short answer for a Christian is: “Yes, of course Jesus influences my politics, the same way Jesus influences how I interact with family or my neighbors or my fellow workers.” Presumably, if I’m attempting to live as a follower of Christ, the teachings of Jesus guide me in all parts of my life. This would include my political life as well.

Thankfully, the U.S. Constitution gives me the right to worship God as I see fit, even to ignore religion if I so choose. It gives that same right to all Americans.

The Constitution’s protection of the right of Americans to believe and worship as they see fit, however, was revolutionary at the time. In the Europe from which most of the American founders descended, a state church was a given. Perhaps because they saw how religious wars had devastated large parts of Europe in the recent past, the founders wisely decided to avoid such conflict by opting out of a state religion.

The majority of early Americans were influenced by churches, however, even those not active in one. Certainly, the country’s day to day life was influenced by what people thought was Christian. (Surely, though, any country that was truly “Christian” would not have allowed slavery.)

The United States stayed more religiously attuned long after Europe had become more secular. Eventually, however, secular trends reached more and more Americans. Christian worship lessened, even though many who did not regularly worship would call themselves “Christian” in a cultural sense. Active church membership, however, has decidedly declined.

Any group who has been in a majority tend to be alarmed when their group diminishes, whether religious, political, or even believers in small town life. In addition, of course, political movements now concern fundamental issues like marriage and abortion. People who considered themselves Christian because of culture may not consider themselves as such in terms of traditional beliefs on these issues.

The question is not whether those actively involved in trying to live as Jesus taught should be concerned. Certainly they should be. The question is how they will respond to their concerns. America is not changing because it is no longer “Christian.” It is changing because those calling themselves Christians are being challenged to actually live as followers of Christ.

My Country Right or Wrong?

My father was a fan of Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain during World War II. I have written in a previous blog about the call my parents received on December 7, 1941, from a neighbor informing them of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack led to the U.S. entering World II immediately on the side of Britain and other allies.

We may forget how shocking was that attack and the fear that the United States might lose this war with the Nazis and their allies. My mother later recounted my family’s experiences in dealing with wartime life: how she hoarded gasoline, sold only with the use of carefully regulated coupons, as she rode one way up the main shopping highway and back down the other in one trip. No short trips for just one item or shopping in only one place at a time. She saved cans and newspapers for the drives which recycled them for war use.

The British, of course, having been attacked earlier and watching France fall, across the narrow strip of the English Channel, were obviously in even more danger of losing the war.

They did not lose, and surely one reason was the absolute resolve of Winston Churchill that they would not. His refusal to even consider surrender, fought with stirring speeches to the British parliament, was as brave an act as any in history.

However, societies involved in great conflicts almost always find it impossible to return to past ways once the conflict is over, even if they win.

Churchill was never as popular after the war. His strong belief in the continuance of the British Empire was at odds with the new world risen from the ashes of the conflicts in Europe and Asia. Native citizens would, time and again, gain release from their colonialist overlords by war or by the reluctant understanding of the colonizers that the time of empire was over.

Churchill, brave as any wartime leader in history, did not understand that even the British Empire was not ordained to last forever.

Much earlier in his life, Churchill had taken a speaking tour of the United States and met “an aging Mark Twain.” They discussed the Boer War, fought between the British Empire and South Africa. As described in The Economist (December 23, 2023, “From Prisoner to Prime Minister”), the conversation went as follows, Churchill remembering: ‘Of course we argued about the Boer war. After some interchanges I found myself beaten back to the citadel. ‘My country right or wrong.’ ‘Ah,’ said the old gentleman, ‘when the poor country is fighting for its life, I agree. But this was not your case.’”

America is still my country even when it errs, but I am not called to worship it as a god. Some of the greatest patriots are those who, like ones who opposed the U.S. entry into Vietnam, practice great patriotism when they rightly fault the country for its sins.

Unity In a Divided Time

A long time ago my parents were suddenly awakened one Sunday morning by a neighbor’s phone call. “Turn on the radio,” the neighbor pled with my father, apparently herself awakened by bad news.

My parents did, of course, and learned of the attack on U.S. naval forces in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Though Europe had been at war since 1939, many Americans hoped to stay out of this latest European confrontation. Europeans had been fighting for centuries, many figured, and it needn’t concern us. Now it did. Americans are rightly skittish about committing their young men and women to battlefields, but not when their own country is bombed.

One of the few other times I remember such unity was after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Virginia. Another plane crashed in Pennsylvania when passengers fought a fourth group of hijackers. I watched the newscasts that day on a TV screen at a U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia, wondering how we would handle this awful challenge. Whether we correctly handled these attacks in the long run may be open to question, but for a long while, we were definitely united. Americans bought flags and gathered in patriotic groups and supported rescue groups and firefighters in New York City.

But how do we react to wrongs when they involve few of our own citizens, like the attacks in Israel and Gaza and Ukraine?

How do we remain united in working out these and other problems when we have such vastly different opinions about many issues, like abortion, aid for Israel, and immigrants?

Our country’s government is over 230 years old. We have almost foundered on different ideas, directions, and yes, sins, more than once, but we are still here. If we can learn one thing, it’s that we can continue only as we respect differences and continue to work together. We need each other, because none of us has all the answers.

Dark days of December 2023

A light can run out of fuel or electricity or the fuel can be cut off. You can break a light so that it no longer works. Light can be obscured as by a fog.

Yet, darkness never extinguishes light as long as the light is burning. Indeed light always extinguishes at least some part of darkness.

For these dark days of December 2023:

“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
Psalm 139:11-12 (NRSV):

Christmas Isn’t Canceled

Somewhere I read that Christmas celebrations in the Holy Land will be canceled this year, due to Israeli/Palestinian conflicts. With armed incursions into Israel, not to mention bombings and terrorist events, holding mass celebrations at the usual sites of Christian remembrances may indeed be unwise.

Of course, Christians long ago burst the bounds of the Middle East. First throughout the Roman Empire, then spreading to Europe, then to newer nations and continents and to older ones in Asia, Christians have grown in number.

But the growth in numbers happens alongside the different cultures that are influenced by the lessons Jesus taught, then spread by his followers. Though coming slowly at times and threatened by human sins, slaves have been freed, the status of women improved, the poor fed, prisoners visited, and children better protected.

Surely no one can claim that we have arrived at the society Jesus wishes for, but, despite setbacks, the ways championed by Jesus long ago in Galilee, when chosen by his followers, have contributed to miraculous changes.

Giving Up When You Lose

The United States has often complained to some of our Central American neighbors when unelected dictators take over a government. Lately, Guatemala has bucked the trend and freely elected Bernardo Arévalo to be their new president.

In a region where freely elected governments are hardly a given, the election in Guatemala has been a welcome signal that things could change. Hopefully, outgoing officials will feel the pressure and allow the new government to take over.

Regardless, the United States must temper any arrogance toward countries with a tradition of less than freely elected governments. After all, Donald Trump’s supporters in our last election attempted to keep him in power by insisting that he won the election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In court case after court case, the results of Joe Biden’s election to the presidency have been validated.

Even in a country with a long history of democratically elected leaders, some would still attempt to overcome that tradition and connive to keep in power a man who lost an election.

The euphoria that followed the end of the cold war, when democracy appeared to be in the ascendency, has vanished. We are learning again how difficult it still can be for free and fair elections to be accepted.

 

The Year I Lost and Found Christmas

My father died when I was thirteen. When the first Christmas after his death approached, my mother was finding it too difficult to celebrate our usual Christmas. She and my brother, seven years my senior, decided we would do Christmas differently that year. We would travel to Florida and perhaps find some enjoyment in celebrating Christmas in new ways—enjoying the seashore and perhaps visiting some historic sites, like St. Augustine.

I, in my teenage angst, was not in favor, but I was overruled. Glumly I went along.

Fortunately, their patience with me was rewarded. Gradually, I succumbed to the lure of travel, which I have always loved. We enjoyed interesting food. I went swimming in the Atlantic on Christmas Day. And as the days progressed, we laughed a lot.

The road from family loss is going to be hard and hurting at times. One cannot lose a loved one without grief. The ways of handling it, however, can lead to acceptance and even growth.

For my family, that trip, which I was so against, gave us new experiences that helped us deal with our grief in ways that grew us even as it healed us.

Especially for a hurting teenager.

A Still Regional Nation

Though Americans move frequently compared to citizens of many other nations, the United States still maintains regional differences. For many of us, how fellow Americans live in another region may seem vastly different, even perhaps strange.

I have moved about the country probably a bit more than most Americans, even though we are called a nation of movers. In the beginning, I lived with my family in the same house in Nashville, Tennessee, until I went off to college in Birmingham, Alabama.

After college, I began moving around: first within my native state of Tennessee, then a big change to the northeast—rural New Jersey. Later, Indiana, then California, then back to Nashville, then to a couple of places in Georgia.

After that, I joined the Foreign Service of the U.S. State Department and the changes were even further out of familiar territory. Washington, D.C., of course, for training. Then to different countries: Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Tunisia, Canada.

After the Foreign Service, my husband and I retired to his boyhood home on an island up from Seattle.

Even here, I still feel a little out of it—my accent, for one thing, nails me as soon as I open my mouth. After years of moving around, I never lost that accent.

So, yes, even though I’ve moved around more than most Americans, even in a nation with a lot of movers, I still see America’s distinct regions, remaining through generations.

The differences still exist between the Midwest and the South and the east coast and the Pacific region and New England—and all the others in between.

We remain, in some ways, sectional Americans. That is not a bad thing in itself, perhaps even a blessing. It gives us different perspectives and spices our national story, especially as the story is being added to by even more varieties of people.

It does require what has brought America, sometimes badly, but has brought us through all these centuries. That requirement is a tolerance for often very different views of looking at the country and sometimes with different goals in mind.

What is required and has to be prevalent in order for the country to work, is tolerance. We have to be willing to let others win when they have the votes. And we have to abide by those votes and guard with a vengeance any who would attempt to overcome the votes with false counts or narratives. In court case after court case, the past election has been ruled legitimate.

When you don’t have the votes to win, then have enough love of country to yield to those who do. When the other side wins, have the patriotism and love of America to become the loyal opposition—with emphasis on loyal.

 

When We Have Enough? What Then?

Americans certainly include those who are poor, but America in the last half century or so has known an age of prosperity unlike any in history. What do we do with our prosperity?

Those with money left over after their basic needs are met will make choices, whether purposefully or not. Understandably, “basic” is a moving target. Nevertheless, American prosperity has long given a significant number of us disposable income.

Most would agree on uses of income that we would abhor—use of income to sexually exploit others, especially children, for example. We generally would agree, in principal at least, that paying bribes to obtain political favors is wrong.

But what lawful ways do we agree are acceptable? Vacations, probably. Surely, time away from routine duties refreshes and renews us. But vacations can range from a few days of hiking trails to mind expanding foreign travel to expensive sojourns in exotic locations.

We can use extra money to fix up our house to be more livable and create space for relaxing hobbies or entertaining or bringing people together in community. Or we can make our house some kind of useless god which devours our money and time and keeps us from more useful pursuits.

We can support political causes. We can support international efforts to feed people or develop democracies. We can support soup kitchens and affordable housing.

We owe it to the gifts given us to give thought as to how we use them. Money itself is not the root of all evil. As always, our decisions about the use of our money determine whether money is good or evil.

Reconciling Christian and Patriot

I grew up in the days of the cold war between U.S. led western democracies and the Soviet Union. Easy, perhaps, to equate democracy with Christianity. The Soviet Union encouraged atheism, actively curtailing many expressions of religion, including Christianity. The encouragement of democracy by the United States, by default, included freedom of religion.

At this time, Christians were a growing and active part of American society. Religious crusades often included local officials and leaders. Not surprisingly, some of our inheritance includes a legacy of nationalistic Christianity.

Unfortunately, Christians—American or other—are not exempt from temptations. Sometimes Christian leaders took advantage of their favored status and used it to hide financial, sexual, and other personal sins. As these personal failings came to light, American Christianity was tarnished.

National affiliation and Christian calling are not in themselves enemies. The missionary preacher Paul sometimes used his Roman citizenship to his advantage, allowing his continued preaching of the gospel.

Jesus, when religious leaders attempted to trap him by asking if taxes should be paid to Caesar, replied “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”

The problem comes when we set up our country as a kind of god. We sometimes unthinkingly equate America with Christianity. Some of the early leaders of the United States were practicing Christians. Others, like Thomas Jefferson, appeared to regard Christianity as merely a philosophy. Many of them owned slaves and saw no problem with this practice of human ownership and abuse.

We are inheritors of this double speak. Christians should be loyal but not unthinking American citizens. It is not a Christian nation. No nation is or can be.

Living By Ourselves

One of the greatest threats to our societies today is our growing lack of community.

The normal family for most of recorded history has seen family members either living with each other in a single household or close by. Whether living in the same house or merely a short walk away, however, children usually grew up knowing their grandparents and other kin.

Major changes began a century or two ago. Some of it happened to immigrants leaving native countries to settle in places with better opportunities, an understandable choice.

However, the coming of suburbs to developed countries led to a great sifting out. The more well-off parents and their children moved to newly built suburban houses while other family members stayed in the old neighborhood. As time passed, the suburbs increased and grew further from the city center. Fathers and then mothers spent more of their time commuting. More separation increased the distance between these families and those with less opportunities and talents.

In the past few decades, separation has increased due to many factors. More young adults went away to college or to distant jobs and stayed away. Most recently, the ability to work hundreds of miles from the big city where the jobs traditionally were located was increased by both computers and the Covid pandemic.

Alienation has increased and no doubt contributed to our epidemic of harmful drug use. Surely our decreasing human contact and caring have fed alienation and a feeling of purposelessness.

Lately, some worry about artificial intelligence leading to less and less need for human input.

Regardless, for the first time, a record number of people live alone. Any community must be sought out: Vocational? Political? Religious? Leisure?

The new arrangements often have nothing to do with families. Singles may marry or establish relationships, but they tend to produce fewer children, often none at all.

Interestingly, immigration, which is feared by many, has been a blessing to those societies who tend more and more to not reproduce themselves.

Has our striving for ultimate independence finally reached the breaking point? How do we come back together?

Rainy Day Soldier

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” (Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 1776)

Thomas Paine wrote these words in a pamphlet after the American army under George Washington had suffered serious defeats by the British at the beginning of the American war for independence. Though the war had barely begun and other hard times like Valley Forge lay ahead, Paine’s words may have made the difference between an early defeat of the colonists and eventual independence.

We can find parallels today in choosing to slog along and not give up. Ukraine’s war for independence from Russian leader Vladimir Putin is an example.

Other examples of holding on during a bleak time are less clear cut. For all of my life, the Middle East has experienced one crisis after another. Indeed, even long ago, soon after the time of Jesus’ life on earth, the Jewish people attempted to rebel against the Roman Empire and were completely defeated. Most have continued to live in other countries ever since, but a remnant has always sought to return. After the trauma of Hitler’s attempted murder of all Jews, the historic trickle of Jews returning to their ancient land became a flood.

Of course, other people live there, too, as indeed they always have. Today we are called to a harder but much more necessary task: to work for a just peace between all who call the Middle East their home.

Today’s rainy day soldier is not one who fights but one who is a peacemaker. The lines are not clear cut, as is usual in a physical war. Winning is not physical conquest but working so that every man, woman, and child in that historic place has a chance to peaceably make a life.