What Minority Do You Belong To?

Though hate crimes against American Muslims (or people perceived as such) have increased, recent news has focused on the increasing numbers of hate crimes against American Jews.

David Harris Gershon, a writer for various publications, wrote an article in November, 2015, about American hatred of Muslims from the viewpoint of a Jewish American.

Some of his remarks seem especially prophetic today:

“. . . I have watched the growth of our nation’s post 9/ll Islamophobia with not just heartbreak for Muslim Americans, but with a tinge of fear, knowing this hatred could easily boomerang and hit any group—including Jews—if allowed to continue.”

Gershon wrote after an armed band of men, some masked, stood outside a Muslim center in Dallas. They were there, they said, to protest the Islamization of America, as well as Syrian refugees, and Islam in general. Obviously, any Muslims coming to worship there would be intimidated, which no doubt was their purpose.

Whether against Jews, Muslims, Christians, persons of color, Suni, Shia, Hindus, evangelicals, tea partyers, liberals, conservatives, or any of the thousands of religious and political communities known in the world today, hate is hate.

And every one of us is a member of some minority.

Here is Gershon’s article.

Why We Can’t Sleep at Night

Andrew Sullivan, in New York Magazine (Feb 10, 2017), explores the way politics has dominated American lives since the last presidential election. Then he contrasts normal life in the United States with a dictatorship.

In a dictatorship, people are always anxious, waiting for the unasked next entry of the Great Leader into their lives in whatever unpredictable form he wishes.

By contrast: “One of the great achievements of free society in a stable democracy is that many people, for much of the time, need not think about politics at all. . . . A free society means being free of those who rule over you.”

The dominance of the Trump presidency in the news far exceeds that of past administrations. Its unpredictability keeps us uneasy. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. It doesn’t follow historic precedents and breaks many rules of civility. We retain a watchful uneasiness.

Sullivan compares the situation to a child trapped in a house with an abusive and unpredictable father, “who will brook no reason, respect no counter argument, admit no error, and always, always up the ante until catastrophe strikes.”

One answer, Sullivan says, is for the press to fight every lie for what it is.

But much of the responsibility also falls on us, the ordinary citizens, to read widely in reputable media. Discernment between fake news—also called alternate facts—and the truth is our job. We can be careful what we post through social media. We can lower the decibels in our digital discussions. We can show more respect for those with whom we disagree and pay attention to what they say.

We also have congressional representatives and senators. They’re paid to listen to us. (If they won’t hold town halls, then call, write, and email them.) And we can vote in responsible men and women when we have opportunity.

Read Sullivan’s article in full.

Those Presidential Orders? Don’t Forget Executive Order 9066

Seventy-five years ago (February 19, 1942), President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order authorized the forced removal of 110,000 people of Japanese descent in the U.S. to incarceration camps away from their homes, places of work, and community activities.

In an anniversary issue, The Seattle Times published pictures and copies of old news stories, as well as reminiscences of those who were affected.

The issue included images of Japanese families, loaded with whatever possessions they could carry, young children dressed in Sunday best holding dolls and toys, and one man telling his pet dog goodbye.

Japanese-Americans were forced to sell businesses at cut rate prices. One Japanese woman, before the evacuation began, recalled being spit upon by a Caucasian woman and told that she had caused the death of the woman’s son.

Anger at the attack by the Japanese government on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor fueled attitudes of hatred against an entire group of people who had no part in the attack.

Anger against a particular act of war was justified. The place we allowed the anger to take us was not, an unreasonable prejudice against thousands of ordinary people, many of them U.S. citizens. Later, young Japanese-American men sent to the relocation centers would join U.S. military forces. Some would die for the country that had sent them and their families to the camps.

Current executive orders mirror that earlier time. Understandable anger at terror attacks has mushroomed into unreasonable prejudice even as it did then.

A footnote: Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church began as the Seattle Japanese Methodist Episcopal Church 113 years ago. When its congregation was forced into internment camps, a member of one of Seattle’s founding families, E. L. Blaine, saved the church by holding the deed for the church in trust for the members until their return.

The current pastor at the Blaine church said recently, “The pressure he faced was enormous. But he stood up for us. We are now in that same position: are we willing to stand up for others?”

Sidney Chambers in The Forgiveness of Sins by James Runcie

The Forgiveness of Sins is the fourth book of the Grantchester mystery series. These stories are not suspense stories but quiet mysteries, involving more than solving a crime. They offer insight into problems of evil, sin, and redemption. Critics have compared the series to G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries.

The main character of the Grantchester series, however, is drawn more fully. He is Sidney Chambers, an Anglican priest. He loves jazz and walking his dog. He constantly worries that his investigative pursuits may keep him from both his priestly duties and, eventually, his family responsibilities.

Single at the beginning of the series, he marries and becomes a father. Many of the mysteries involve close friends. One of his sidekicks in the stories is a policeman friend with whom he enjoys games and drinks in a neighborhood pub.

My enjoyment of the stories springs from the dry, British-understated dialog, as well as occasional inclusion of the political and cultural events of his time. The series begins shortly after World War II, when rationing was in effect. In The Forgiveness of Sins, Sidney and his family are in Florence, Italy in 1966 during the disastrous floods that ravaged the city. A masterpiece stolen during the flood plays into one of the mysteries.

During times of turmoil, such as the one unleashed by recent political events, I find such books as the Grantchester series to be soothing while thoughtful, a rest from some of our dystopian who-done-its.

A reviewer of the series for The Seattle Times, Mary Ann Gwinn, wrote: “Runcie meant these novels to be a commentary on life in post-World War II Britain, and so they are. But the themes of good and evil, temptation and sacrifice, remain as fresh as today’s news feed.”

How To Kill Your Religion

Speaking of the political maelstrom that elected Donald Trump to the presidency, Russell D. Moore, a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote: “. . . the crisis comes from the fact that the old-guard religious right political establishment normalized an awful candidate . . .” (Russell D. Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, “Can the Religious Right Be Saved?” First Things, January 2017.)

Moore called attention to views of the founder of First Things, Richard John Newhaus, when he mentions the temptation “to impose biblical standards on a society outside of covenant with God.”

The first amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits Congress from making laws respecting a religious establishment. Europeans, with their established churches, thought this amendment would surely lead to a lessening of religious influence in America.

The surprising result was the growth of Christian influence in the country, far more than it influenced those European countries. In a nation of many religious persuasions, Christianity grew in part because of the challenges. It couldn’t depend on government aid or favor. It was required to make the case for its existence in a pluralistic society.

Amazingly, because Christianity so influenced the country (whether you like the outcome or not), people began to speak of America as a “Christian” nation.

If the enemies of Christianity want to defeat it, perhaps they should favor it. Perhaps they should seek, by law or merely by suggestions, to give Christianity special privileges. If those measures don’t kill Christianity, they will surely weaken it.

Success: How Much Depends on You Alone?

Robert H. Frank, in his book Success and Luck, explores the role played by luck in the success or lack of it in a person’s life.

Those of a spiritual nature may prefer the term providence instead of luck, but no matter. Frank suggests the good fortune of a person with talent born in the United States rather than, say, war-ravaged Libya. Or the young girl whose parents care for her rather than the girl abandoned by her father and “raised” by a mother on drugs.

Frank doesn’t downplay the role of hard work. Many people beginning with life against them do succeed. He points out, however, that others with talent and a strong work ethic don’t make it to the top but live mediocre lives.

He includes studies to back his claims as well as the results of differing attitudes. Those who believe that their good fortune is a result only of their own efforts are less likely to favor programs giving the less well off a chance to improve their lives.

On the other hand, those successful people who realize how little they deserve their good fortune tend to be filled with gratitude for the good that has befallen them. They are much more likely to favor helping those who were not favored with such advantages. They wish to pay it ahead.

What Are Those Judo-Christian Values?

According to “Talking Points” in The Week (February 10, 2017), Steve Bannon, formerly of Breitbart.com, is the power behind the throne of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Named as the President’s key advisor, he “has described Christian civilization as under mortal threat from unassimilated immigrants and radical Islam.”

Judo-Christian values are under threat, many fear. They go further: they must be defended by any means possible.

What are Judo(Jewish) Christian values?

Hebrew writings became the Christian Old Testament. They stressed care for the aliens and the poor. Landowners were told not to reap their fields to the very borders but to leave gleanings for the less well off. In other words, to care for the poor rather than squeeze every last bit of profit from their holdings.

As the Jewish religion developed, prophets became even more concerned with justice and right dealing with the poor. “But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” (Amos 5:24, NRSV)

Another prophet distilled the teachings into three things God required of his people: “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8 NRSV)

As for Christians, they were a powerless minority in their early centuries, but their lives and practices attracted others.

The early Christian missionary, Paul, sent a letter by a slave to one of Paul’s friends to remind the friend that the slave was, in fact, a brother. Eventually, slavery died out in European lands, unable to exist among brothers and sisters.

Christ himself told his followers, “. . . the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.” (Luke 22:25-26, NRSV)

As Christianity grew and attracted even those in power, the story is told of one European tribal chief who was baptized into the Christian faith. However, he held his sword out of the water, signifying that it was not under Christ’s lordship.

Such an outlook has warred with the servanthood taught by Jesus through the centuries. The Crusades of the Middle Ages, whose atrocities reverberate to this day, were an outgrowth.

One of the greatest values Christians have given the world is servanthood. When Christians ally with power to favor their religion, they risk losing their souls.

Midnight Wanderings Led to New Novel

Terrorists attacked a residential compound in Saudi Arabia in May, 2004, where Americans and other expatriates lived. I was working in the U.S. State Department’s “watch” or operations center in Washington at the time.

On my last overseas assignment before returning to the U.S. to work on the watch, I lived near the attacked compound. I visited for meals in restaurants there. I attended meetings of American women, one of whom was wounded in the attack. Because I knew the area, I was able to provide a summary of the compound’s layout to the watch team as we kept up with events and provided input to State Department officials.

The State Department operations center is staffed with career U.S. Foreign Service officers taking a Washington assignment between appointments overseas, as I was. Some hours on weekends or nights were dull, but worth it for the privilege of those adrenalin laced moments when we had a front row seat to a crisis erupting on the world scene.

Coming to work for midnight shifts on the watch, walking down empty, echoing hallways in the State Department, my overactive imagination pictured lurking spies waiting for the opportunity to steal classified documents, perhaps to kill if they were thwarted.

It seemed natural to center my third novel in the Mark Pacer mystery/family relationship series around those evenings loaded with my imaginings . . .

He reached the nearest elevator and punched the button. The elevator hummed as it descended from an upper level, then shuddered to an opening. He began his first step inside, his hand instinctively held out in case the elevator door started to close prematurely.
Then Mark halted, one foot in the doorway, his hand remaining out as he saw a man’s contorted face staring back at him. . . .
The man collapsed with his knees bent. Was he aware of his tall frame and the small space of the elevator floor? He turned slightly, resting on his left shoulder, his face toward Mark.
Mark forced the elevator door open as it tried to close, his mind noting further details; a part of him frozen in shock, another part of him driven to analyze. The man forced a groan, as though it was pulled involuntarily from him, and his right arm stretched to within inches of Mark’s foot. Finally, a dark stain puddled on the floor from the man’s right shoulder. His expensive suit would be ruined . . .

Thankfully, this experience never happened during my tenure on the watch. During those nighttime hours, however, with their aura of haunting, I could easily imagine it.

The Last Line of Defense

According to reports, hundreds of U.S. State Department employees are signing a “dissent” cable.” This dissent cable is a communication to the acting head of the State Department indicating disapproval of the recently signed order by President Trump halting the processing of refugees into the United States.

Many of these signers have worked overseas with refugees and immigrants to the U.S. They are aware of our honored place in the world as guardians of the unwanted (“wretched refuse” as the Statue of Liberty proclaims) from other nations, including the grandfather of President Trump.

A dissent cable allows the expression of views differing from the official one of any political administration, not just the present one. One of the more recent ones dissented from President Obama’s decisions on Syria. It supports the discussion and frankness that a democracy, at its best, encourages.

White House spokesperson Sean Spicer said dissenters should “get with the program or they should go.” In reaction, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, has pointed out in a letter (January 31, 2017) to President Trump: “The State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual prohibits reprisal or disciplinary action against anyone who uses the Dissent Channel.”

Laura Rosenberger, a retired State Department officer penned a plea to career officials in the U.S. government to stay in their jobs. (“Career Officials: You Are the Last Line of Defense Against Trump,” January 30, 2017, Foreign Policy)

Many State Department officers have the experience and education to find jobs with higher salaries and less hassle. Please don’t, Rosenberger says: “Your jobs have never been more important. You are patriots who work for the American people, largely out of sight and with little recognition or glory—and your job remains to keep them safe and secure, as you have always worked to do.”

Wall Street Is Doing Well; What About Main Street?

The bull market is setting records. As might be expected, putting one of their own into the White House appears to have excited Wall Street. Good times are here again, at least for them.

What about Main Street? Some on Main Street are excited about Wall Street elites replacing government elites. Surely Wall Street will look after them better than government elites? Of course, wasn’t it Wall Street who came up with the idea of those bundled mortgages that contributed to the Great Recession?

Some on Main Street are concerned about losing health care. Various plans have been floated to replace the Affordable Care Act. One is to replace it with some kind of catastrophic health insurance. Individuals would pay their own health costs until they reached a certain amount, then catastrophic health care would kick in for them.

The problem is how much the person would have to pay and how well they could afford this amount.

Members of Congress, who will decide on healthcare, could probably afford such a plan. For someone on minimum wage, it could be disastrous.

Whatever replacement is finally decided on, members of Congress will most likely have access to adequate healthcare coverage.

I don’t object to members of Congress having their healthcare. I don’t imagine Wall Street has to worry about healthcare, either, which is fine. I just don’t see why Main Street should have to worry about it.

America First

The original America First was a movement appearing shortly before the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941. It was the ending act of the American withdrawal from foreign commitments after World War I.

Americans had rejected President Woodrow Wilson’s idea for a League of Nations to prevent future wars. World War I had seen an awful slaughter of young men, and Wilson wished to avoid such conflicts in the future.

Most Americans, however, wanted to rid themselves of the world beyond their borders and concentrate on life in the golden twenties and eventually the miseries of the Great Depression.

As Europe slid toward yet another war, the suffering of Europeans touched some Americans. But the America First movement said the war wasn’t ours. Instead, we should put America first and stay out. A few, like the aviator, Charles A. Lindbergh, even found much about Hitler to admire.

Regardless, sentiment against involvement ended with the Japanese attack on the U.S. navy installation at Pearl Harbor.

Some paint the current America First movement as the proper reaction against the cost of money and lives the United States has paid in championing, first, the free world against Communism and lately the democratic world against terrorism.

In fact, our foreign policy has always put “America first.”

The money spent by the United States on defense and foreign policy for the safe navigation of oceans and skies benefited us more than any other nation. It gave American businesses access to other countries. It assured plentiful oil for our country. What we spent was, first and foremost, for us.

We can withdraw again, of course, and pretend we don’t need to concern ourselves with the needs of anyone but ourselves. It will only be so long, however, before reality calls with a Pearl Harbor or a September 11th.

Leadership Is Not About You

Prudence Bushnell was the ambassador when the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, was bombed by terrorists in 1998. Over 200 people were killed. The majority were nearby Kenyan civilians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Forty-six of Bushnell’s colleagues, Kenyan and American, died in the embassy itself.

“Leadership is not about you,” Bushnell wrote recently in The Foreign Service Journal, (January/February 2017 issue “Notes to the New Administration.”)

“The lesson that practicing leadership means getting over yourself to focus on others came as a whack upside the head a few weeks after the attack. I was asked to speak at an unexpected remembrance ceremony for a beloved colleague. I was burned out from funerals, memorial services, anger, and sadness. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I actually felt a stab of resentment. Whack: This is not about me.”

Some of the employees of the United States government that President Trump will supervise have, like Bushnell, seen what it means to sacrifice for their country: military personnel who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq, Foreign Service officers who have been through bombing attacks, intelligence officers who risk lives to keep the U.S. government informed of dangers, and a lot of ordinary employees who come to work every day proud to serve as administrators and organizers of the vast amount of information and decisions required to serve over 325 million citizens of their country.

President Trump, it’s not about you. It’s about them and the citizens they—and you—serve. You are a servant.

Harry S. Truman, an Example for Donald J. Trump

Donald Trump, President-elect as of this writing, due to be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States in two days, tends to issue orders.

Some have applauded Trump’s style, believing that Mr. Trump will operate the U.S. government with the same authoritative style that he used in ordering around employees in his companies.

Unfortunately, a couple of centuries of government under the Constitution, its amendments, and laws passed by the U.S. Congress may stand in his way.

President Harry S. Truman, very much a strong executive, serves as an example.

In 1952, in order to avoid a strike by American steel company employees, President Truman ordered the seizure of the steel companies. The President argued that the strike would affect the ability of the United States to wage war. (The country was in the middle of the Korean War at the time.)

The employees sued the government. The government lost its case when the Supreme Court found that, in seizing the mills, the president had exceeded the authority given him by the U.S. Constitution.

One of the Justices, Robert Jackson, wrote in upholding the court finding:

“With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.”

The Russian Bear and the American Eagle

In the early 1990’s in Saudi Arabia, during my assignment at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, the Saudis and the Russians opened diplomatic relations. The U.S. and its allies, officially including Russia, had just won the first Gulf war to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi occupation. The days were full of optimism and enthusiasm. Russia had emerged on the world stage shorn of the Soviets, and we believed democracy had won the Cold War.

For a while, it looked as if a glorious new age was born, when the countries of the former Soviet Union would be overtaken by democracy and capitalism. A Russian official visited our U.S. consulate in Jeddah, and we all basked in cooperative civility.

Alas, it was not to be. Today, Russia and western nations, including the United States, back client conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, like the old days of the Cold War.

U.S. intelligence about Russian hacks interfering with the American election have opened a frontier of grave concern.

Raymond Smith, a U.S. diplomat in Moscow during that early time, writes in a recent issue of The Foreign Service Journal (December 2016), “The Russian people, giddy from the collapse of the corrupt, oppressive regime under which they had labored for generations, hungered for a normal relationship with the rest of the world and believed that the result would be quick and dramatic improvement in their lives. . . . I wrote that these expectations could not be met, and that a period of disillusionment would inevitably follow.”

It did, indeed. For one thing, the golden age desired by the Russians did not materialize. Instead, “Russians saw criminality, disorder, poverty and the emergence of a new, corrupt and astronomically wealthy class of oligarchs.”

Former European nations of the Soviet Union desired the expansion of NATO as a guard against the reestablishment of any future Russian dominance over them. Russia saw the expansion of NATO as a humiliating attempt to force on them an international system managed by the United States, with Russia no longer allowed a role on the world stage.

How to avoid these adversarial roles? Smith suggests coming together on common causes, such the defeat of ISIS. If we have reasons for defeating the terrorist group, Russia has even more: they wish to defeat the groups before they begin attacking the Russian homeland.

The trick is to find those areas of common interest while we stand firm on issues important to us. Foreign interference in our elections is not open for negotiation. We will fight it. Other issues. like the brutal bloodletting of the Assad regime, must be recognized as evil.

Nevertheless, Smith ends on a positive note: “Unlike during the Soviet era, the two countries are not ideological opponents. There will be areas where our interests conflict. Resolving those conflicts constructively will require both countries to understand the limits of their interests.”

Why Buy Health Insurance or Pay a Fee?

Healthy people should buy health insurance or pay a fee for two reasons. One reason is that good health is not a given, even for those folks who keep their weight down and exercise. Accidents and unplanned illnesses happen.

Also, the expenses of those who become ill or injured and have no insurance are paid by you and me and other taxpayers when whatever savings they have are exhausted.

Another reason that all should buy health insurance or pay a fee is for the same reason that people with no children should pay taxes to support public education.

Our country works better if we have an educated population. An uneducated workforce drags down the entire country.

The country also works better if we have a healthy population.

For selfish reasons as well as unselfish ones, everybody should have health insurance–or pay a fee for not doing so.

Suffering Uncluttered

This day, scenes of suffering will float across our computer screens: perhaps atrocities in Syria, or a kidnapping in Nigeria, or a terrorist attack somewhere in the world, or an earthquake in southeast Asia, or the homeless caught in freezing weather in one of our cities. We are bombarded with scenes of suffering, both in our home towns and in other hometowns all over the globe.

The Morse Code, leading to telegraphic communication, was invented in 1839. In the early 1860’s, Matthew Brady was able to take photographs of people and places in America’s Civil War.

The concerns of the average American until the first decades of the twentieth century were mostly local, those of his or her community or, for some, a missionary speaker in a local church.

Today, we are bombarded with multiple needs. How do we cope when human suffering meets us every hour?

Some of us become callused. The suffering bounces off with no more effect than a baseball score in the minor leagues. Others of us live in guilt, overwhelmed.

A better way is to choose a few areas of need and concentrate on them. We give either time or money or both to a few causes that we have investigated and that speak to us. We do not give to every need that lodges in our email or feel guilty when we can’t. Instead, we practice disciplined giving as a part of our lives.

In the same way, we set aside certain times of the day for news. We don’t click on news stories every time a teaser headline rolls across our screen as we leave our email or finish a check of the weather.

We’re finite individuals. Best to channel our sympathy and not become either frozen or unmoved.

On the Way to War, Peace Broke Out

I grew up in the shadow of nuclear war. During my lifetime, the Soviet Union and the United States fought each other in proxy wars all over the globe from South America to Vietnam.

If the past history of nations and weapons were any guide, the two powers would, at some time, have used their ultimate weapons, and the world would have known nuclear catastrophe.

But it didn’t happen.

Somewhere along the way, a few diplomats and politicians decided to take the first steps away from the chasm and begin tentatively to trust each other.

Some of those people are widely known and some known only by those who closely followed the process. U.S. president Ronald Reagan, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and diplomats George Schultz and Eduard Shevardnadze were among them.

In an interview published in The Foreign Service Journal (December 2016), George Schultz cited a small, early breakthrough involving successful negotiations between the U.S. and the Soviets for a Christian religious group in Russia. The group had fled to the U.S. embassy in search of freedom to worship as they pleased. The negotiations were successful, and though they did not involve a lot of publicity, they led to the beginning of trust between the Soviets and Americans.

The trust grew until bigger negotiations involving nuclear weapons resulted in a rollback of those weapons.

In the decades since, we have seen a return to suspicion. Armed conflicts have broken out in Ukraine, not to mention the awful slaughter in the Middle East. Hope has too often changed to despair.

Nevertheless, that earlier time remains an example of what can happen when a few leaders are courageous enough to risk small steps toward trusting each other.

No More Protected Space

In North America, we have for centuries lived in protected space because of the physical distance between us and the rest of the world. That protection began to break down with telegraphic communication and newer means of transport. After two world wars, air travel and television became part of our lives.

Today, mobile phones are as well-known in Africa as they are in Europe. The videos of an ISIS leader in the Middle East can be watched by a young woman in Idaho.

We can no longer seal off our societies from others, those we deemed in the past as strange and threatening. Today, they come to us, if not physically then electronically, but our ability to speak to each other has far outstripped our ability to speak wisely to each other.

Sometimes old values are strengthened by new insights. In the past, the new ideas of the Renaissance and the Reformation led to wars, but they needn’t have. The ideas ultimately strengthened older institutions when those institutions began to address their failings.

We grow or die, and new challenges can renew us if we use them to spur the changes we need.

Corporate Boss Versus Public Servant

The Economist, in a recent issue (December 10, 2016) , pointed to signs that Donald Trump’s presidency would follow a business model.

Leaders of corporations are not elected by the people. In a sense, company heads are dictators, as far as the everyday running of the company is concerned. They may answer to stockholders, but for most businesses, profit is king. Only very enlightened CEO’s believe that they exist primarily to serve their customers.

But if the government of the United States, as Abraham Lincoln famously said, is “of the people, by the people, for the people,” it exists to serve. It exists for the people, not for the leaders or their political parties.

Trump, in his business dealings, can hire and fire at will. He decides, and his companies do what he orders.

Can Trump adjust to being a public servant? Can he, for example, with no experience in airplane building, order Boeing to come up with a cheaper airplane? Can he discriminate based on religion, even though the U.S. Constitution forbids it?

It will be interesting to see if Trump intends to use the dictator model or the constitutional model as his guide.

War and Peace, Rome and Jerusalem, Hope in Bethlehem

“Jews as much as Romans viewed war as a natural condition but, unlike Romans, they sometimes expressed a hope that this might change. . . . the biblical prophets Isaiah, Micah and Joel all looked forward with longing to a time when there would be no more war at all.”
–Martin Goodman, as quoted in “King David,” Meir Y. Soloveichik, First Things, (January 2017)

“He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” (Micah 4:3-4, NRSV)

“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79, NRSV)

On this Christmas, when multitudes are refugees, when innocent men, women, and children are murdered and maimed, may we, more than ever, be renewed to work and pray for peace.