Tag Archives: Ann Gaylia O’Barr

You’re Not From Here, Are You?

As I shopped in a supermarket in my northwest U.S. community, a woman asked me where she might find a certain item. I gave her the information.

“You’re not from here, are you?” she responded.

I admitted my birth and rearing in Nashville, Tennessee. It doesn’t matter that I’ve lived all over the United States and in several foreign countries for decades. The accent remains.

I was reminded of my origins when I read an article in The New York Times, “The Passion of Southern Christians” (April 8, 2017) by Margaret Renkl.

One paragraph especially moved me, reading it as I did after returning from a church service a week before Easter. The service had reminded us of Jesus’ disciple, Peter, and his actions following the arrest of Jesus by the authorities.

Fearful of consequences if he was seen as a Jesus person, Peter denied all connection with him. One person thought Peter had to be a follower, though, because his Galilean accent betrayed him.

Renkl wrote: “I have a lot of sympathy for Peter these days. Here it is nearly Easter, and for the first time in my life I don’t want anyone to know I’m a believer. To many, ‘Christian’ has become synonymous with angry white voters in red hats, personally responsible for handcuffing all those mothers and wrenching them out of their sobbing children’s arms.”

Yes, I’m a Southerner, still following Jesus, the person I first learned about in a church in Nashville, Tennessee. So it’s not just my accent but my religious persuasion that may mark me as “not from here.”

Despite the accent and the religion, I didn’t vote for Trump. As Renkl writes, “Watching Christians put him in the White House has completely broken my heart.”

On the other hand, with Renkl, I believe in resurrection. The accent matters no more in the Christian faith than those early differences between Jew and Gentile.

Third Horseman of the Apocalypse

In the Christian Old Testament, seeking food for self and animals is often a part of the stories. Herdsmen like Abraham moved to find better pastures for their flocks. A famine in Israel sent Jacob and his large family fleeing into Egypt. Lack of rain in the time of the prophets led Elijah to a miraculous encounter with a poor widow.

Obviously, areas with less predictable rain, as in much of the Middle East and parts of Africa, are more likely to suffer famine than countries in temperate climates. Sometimes, however, famine is not caused by weather but by conflict.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who follow each other in the book of Revelation in the Christian New Testament, are sometimes depicted as conquest, war, famine, and death. The third horseman, famine, is not the result of weather but of conquest and war. It is human caused.

This kind of famine is afflicting millions of people in the countries of South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen. In Sudan, they flee power struggles, often over oil revenues or ethnic rivalries. In Nigeria, people flee terrorism. Somalia’s looming famine is partly a problem with lack of rain but is increased by struggles with the terrorist group, al-Shabab.

Yemen, a country in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, suffers fallout from rivalry between Saudi Arabia and its arch enemy Iran. The two countries are supporting rival factions that are tearing the country apart. Terrorist groups also have made inroads, as they often do in areas of conflict.

Some relief is possible if food shipments can be unloaded in one of the ports. According to reports, Saudi Arabia has so far been unwilling to allow shipments to the people they are fighting.

The United States has supported Saudi Arabia in this struggle. If we are truly a compassionate nation, we will exert as much pressure as possible on Saudi Arabia not to use starvation as a weapon of war. Else, we will be collaborators in the resulting deaths.

Syria: No One Wants to Own It

A previous post “The Graveyard of Empires” pointed to the number of empires throughout history that bogged down after entry into the Middle East. But the Middle East continues to thrust itself onto the world’s stage, like some black pestilence.

Today, it’s the horrendous deaths in Syria apparently caused by a gas attack on civilians. Most nations are condemning the attacks, and especially Bashar al Assad’s rule there, abetted by Russia.

Perhaps things will change, but as of now, no one appears to know what to do to prevent future attacks. No one wants to own the problem.

Recent interventions to “fix” international problems have often made them worse. Unlike World War II, a powerful alliance working together seems nonexistent. Militarily, an immediate fix might tumble Assad, but where’s the will for another Marshall Plan? That effort, after World War II, used billions in aid, not for war, but to build the economies and governments of post war Europe.

The saying is: “If you break it, you fix it.” And no one wants to risk the cost of fixing Syria.

Laughing at Ourselves

One of the great strengths of a democracy is the freedom of its citizens to laugh at themselves.

Humor helps us cope in tough times. American comedians have recently noted the boost given to their profession by the current political upheavals.

Dictators may feel threatened by humor directed at them, but satire and political cartoons have been around since at least the 1700’s in both Great Britain and America. Television and the internet have increased the possibilities for humor. Humor releases tension and sometimes causes us to notice absurdities we didn’t see before.

Even presidents understand the need for humor to lighten the mood. President Lyndon Johnson once said, “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’”

Ronald Reagan is reported to have said, “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency—even if I’m in a Cabinet meeting.”

From George W. Bush: “These stories about my intellectual capacity really get under my skin. You know, for a while I even thought my staff believed it. There on my schedule first thing every morning it said, ‘Intelligence Briefing.’”

Barack Obama: “There are few things in life harder to find and more important to keep than love. Well, love and a birth certificate.”

The White House correspondents’ dinner, begun in 1920, became an occasion for ribbing between the President and the reporters who covered him for the press. In 1924, Calvin Coolidge was the first president to attend. Since then, every president has attended at least one dinner during his time in office.

President Donald Trump refused to attend the first one of his tenure. Too bad he can’t recognize the value of humor, the cleansing humbleness of laughing at oneself.

They Don’t Want to Visit Us Anymore

The Week magazine, March 17, 2017, quoted The Guardian, a British newspaper, about the drop in British visitors to the United States: “Interest in travel to the U.S. has plummeted since President Trump’s inauguration. . . .”

According to the same article, the Global Business Travel Association “estimates the U.S. travel industry has lost $186 million in revenue so far because of Trump’s presidency.”

Citizens of the United Kingdom don’t require visas for temporary visits. If Britons are visiting the U.S. less frequently, think about those who must first go through the hassle of applying at a U.S. embassy or consulate for a visa to visit the country.

My work overseas for the U.S. State Department included processing visas for temporary visits. I dealt with endless lines of visa applicants. Perhaps my successors are less busy.

American tourism depends in part on global travelers paying money for hotels, meals, and recreational activities. Businesses depend on merchants from other countries buying our products. Universities depend on foreign students kicking in hefty fees to attend our schools. Without them, American students would pay even higher tuition costs.

Foreign citizens do not vote in our elections, but they can certainly vote, or refuse to vote, with their money.

Data Scrubbing Fears

Some librarians, civic groups, historians, and others have begun downloading federal websites for safekeeping, just in case the data on these sites disappears (The Seattle Times, March 12, 2017.)

They are alarmed by certain actions of the Trump administration regarding federal data. They include: removal of animal cruelty data from the website of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; suspension of a regulation protecting whistle blowers at the Department of Energy; more difficulty in accessing the log of visitors to the White House.

Do their fears echo George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four, in which all information is controlled by a Soviet style government?

Alex Howard is an official of the Sunlight Foundation, which tracks transparency in government. He was quoted in the article as saying that downloading by private citizens is done “because of the antipathy this president has shown toward government statistics and scientific knowledge.”

Government watchers are awaiting Trump’s appointment to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. This little-known agency guides federal policy on various aspects of information policy.

Data watchers wonder if this appointment will change or limit our access to government findings and information.

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Where Are You When We Need You?

Remember Mister Rogers? Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on public television? Sometimes we laughed a bit at this gentle character who so quietly entered our homes and talked about feelings and helped children deal with fear and anger.

“Look for the helpers. Look for the people who are helping” is a quote of his repeated often in recent times after murderous attacks on innocent people.

In 1969, Fred Rogers appeared before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications when President Nixon wanted to decrease funding for public television. Listen to his defense of continued funding so children might have access to quality programming.

How we need his calming, sure presence in these days of anger and incivility. Even the adults need help with proper expression of emotions.

Short Term Thinking Can Be Deadly

No doubt the new administration’s announcement of a hiring freeze for government employees is popular with many. It is to remain in effect, apparently, until the government workforce declines “sufficiently.”

I was recruited to be a Foreign Service Officer by the U.S. Department of State in 1990 after an earlier hiring freeze was lifted.

Part of my job in U.S. missions overseas was the processing of requests for temporary visas to visit the United States. Citizens of other countries apply by the millions to travel to the U.S. for tourism, business, and study as well as for more specialized interests like investment. After the hiring freeze, visa interviewers were understaffed.

During the summer of 2001, the visa section of the embassy in the country where I worked sometimes processed seven or eight hundred visas a day. Just two officers were available to interview and approve or reject their travel to the U.S. Obviously, they had minimal time for careful interviewing.

Around this time, nineteen young men received visas, the majority of them from the country where I worked, to study at flight schools in the United States. These young men later hijacked airliners and plowed them into the World Trade towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Another crashed in Pennsylvania due to heroic actions of passengers on the plane.

Hurried processing may have contributed to those visas, though other factors certainly played a part. Anyone not closely associated with visa processing has difficulty understanding the toll exacted by too few workers for the jobs assigned.

The same is true for many government agencies that protect us at home as well as overseas. Sometime deadly results only show up years later.

I suppose the country saved money from fewer government employees that summer of 2001, though.

So What’s Wrong with Doubt?

In a thought provoking article, Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, spoke with a Christian pastor, Timothy Keller: ( “Am I a Christian, Pastor Timothy Keller?” December 23, 2016).

Keller makes the argument that faith and skepticism are not necessarily opposites. Reasoning can, and probably should be, a part of faith. He also answers in the affirmative that he and most people of faith struggle with doubt at times.

Keller says, “Neither statement—‘There is no supernatural reality beyond this world’ and ‘There is a transcendent reality beyond this material world’—can be proved empirically, nor is either self-evident to most people. So they both entail faith.”

Useless wars, religious and otherwise, have been fought between groups, each certain of their reasons for killing the other. The author Ron Hansen was quoted as saying, “the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.”

Mystics, whom we hold to be especially close to God, have nevertheless spoken of a “dark night of the soul,” a moment of despair that they must work through.

According to the Christian New Testament, even Jesus prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” when he was suffering crucifixion.

Faith that is tested can be a stronger faith for that testing.

Don’t Drink the Water

In several less developed countries where I lived overseas, we had water systems of our own, not trusting the local supply.

In another place, I would wake in the night and hear the guards making their nightly checks of our yard and gates. In other countries, we lived in guarded compounds.

On the other hand, when we lived in Canada, we lived in an apartment of our choosing, with no extra security. We drank water from the tap.

What causes the difference between the two types of nations?

In too many developing countries, corruption means bribes must be paid for getting anything done. Infrastructure is poor or non-existent, schools are inadequate or not available for the majority of children, the water is contaminated, and armed thugs threaten the general population. Sometimes the armed thugs are the police.

Back in my own country, I don’t have private security. I depend on the local police and/or public emergency vehicles to arrive after an accident, acute illness, or possible crime. I drink the local water. When my children were growing up, I sent them to public schools.

I have never minded paying adequate taxes for these public services. Yet taxes often have a bad name. A campaign promise to never raise taxes or even to cut them is often used to secure votes.

Lately, parents in some states have brought suit in courts to require more adequate funding of public schools. Mental health services are proving woefully inadequate. Bridges need to be repaired. Yet, legislators are elected on promises never to raise taxes.

Meanwhile, some of the wealthy pay little or no taxes. We are told we must bribe them with more tax cuts in order to keep our jobs.

We get what we pay for, including the regulations that protect us with oversight of government functions. We can choose not to pay for adequate health services, drug treatment programs, quality education, clean water, infrastructure, and regulations to protect us from wealthy cabals.

Or, we can go the way of those countries with private security forces, crumbling roads, contaminated water, and healthcare and education only for the wealthy.

How to Stage a Coup in a Democracy

First, if a majority of people did not vote for you, proclaim that the election was tainted. Add that millions of those who voted against you were not Americans but illegal immigrants. Against all evidence, continue to make this claim

Second, if some media reporting is critical of you, angrily denounce these critics as the opposition, or even that the free press is the enemy of the American people.

Third, if reports are leaked that a foreign power may have interfered in the election that put you in office, deflect attention from these reports. Loudly state, showing no evidence, that the past president ordered illegal wire taps. Order your administration to continue to push your accusation, throwing as much sand as possible into a clear investigation of possible foreign meddling.

Fourth, turn citizens’ healthy skepticism of government into hatred. Proclaim often that government is the enemy. Appoint amateurs into positions of leadership, declare a hiring freeze, and starve the government of funds, assuring lack of expertise when crises arise.

Coups do not necessarily require troops marching in the streets. Small groups can so manipulate emotions by sound byte slogans and angry rhetoric that the electorate begins to believe them. It they succeed, they will prove the old adage that a lie repeated often enough will be believed.

Waiting for the Good Guys to Win

The biography Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill, by Sonia Purnell, reminds us of Britain’s dark times in early World War II, when the country stood alone against Hitler’s might.

The book lists the number of European countries fallen under Nazi control at that time. France, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and Holland had been swept into the Nazi vortex. Now Britain was to be the next victim.

The author recounts a day in September, 1940, when Clementine and Winston visited the operations center for the British air force. They watched as the command sent up squadrons to counter wave after wave of the German Luftwaffe.

At one point, Winston asked, “How many more planes have you?”

The commander replied, “I am putting in my last.”

Yet, this small force somehow—God only know how—repelled the much stronger enemy.

England was never invaded, and the entry of the United States into the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor slowly changed the tide.

This reminder of a time when the forces of evil should have won and didn’t offers comfort in this time of moral turmoil. Sometimes the good guys do win.

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.