National Bird-flipping

What goes around comes around. We reap what we sow. A man’s appetite works for him. Opportunity knocks. You don’t spit into the wind. Wake up and smell the coffee.

What the heck am I talking about? Immigration. It seems to be on everyone’s mind these days. Each of these above quoted tidbits of scripture or cliché have something to do with the current immigration debate in congress. This debate showcases one of the clearest examples of political grandstanding and hucksterism I have ever seen. Playing off of our irrational fears and selfishness, the politicians are trying to convince us that they are going to fix the problem (assuming there is a problem to fix). I’ll go on the record by saying they won’t fix the problem because they can’t.

Whatever laws congress enacts to “get tough” on immigration will have the same clout as the treaty the Sioux Indians signed with the United States. The original treaty stipulated that the First Nations people would retain sovereignty over the Black Hills in present day South Dakota. Settlers were forbidden by the law from entering the Indians’ sacred territory. Custer’s cavalry had been dispatched into the region to enforce that law and protect the borders. Then gold was discovered and the law became as worthless as the paper it was signed on. A stampede of opportunity seekers crossed the border, overwhelmed law enforcement, and created a new reality.

The “gold” of opportunity resides inside the borders of the United States. Hungry and hopeful people will not be deterred in their quest to lay hold of it. They are here and they are coming and anyone who imagines that we are going to stop them is ignorant of history and living in extreme denial. It is human nature to resent people who don’t play by the rules and seek to get an unfair advantage. Many are reacting to illegal immigrants with the same attitude they react to lane cutters and rule breakers in traffic. But, just as honking one’s horn and offering a finger salute doesn’t stop line cutters and traffic violators, our immigration laws and attempts to secure our borders will continue to be ineffective.

We value law and order when it protects our interests. When it doesn’t we change the rules. All the high sounding rhetoric about law and order forgets the colonialism, slavery, invasion and conquest that shades our history as a nation. We are reaping what we have sown and the best we could do in reaction to the new wave of opportunity seekers is be hospitable, cultivate the potential benefits of the new reality, and stop this embarrassing, immature national bird-flipping. If we don’t, history could repeat itself and the “hostiles” could end up confined to the reservation—or worse.

SAY YES FOR A CHANGE

If you grew up in a segregated white neighborhood in Bible-belt America in the 1950’s and 60’s and went to a conservative church with similar situated folks, chances are good that you did not think of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement as being good for America. In fact, you likely were taught that it was a sinister, communist plot to destroy America. Thank God history has shown how utterly wrong that mindset is.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, women’s suffrage was represented in sermons and editorials as a menacing threat to democracy. Horrible outcomes were predicted if women were given the right to vote. Only a social Neanderthal would think that today. Also, it was in that same time frame when the great split between Bible-belt fundamentalists and the practitioners of the so-called “liberal” social gospel occurred. The fundamentalists retreated into revivalism and rapture hype, and have only recently awakened to the fact that, if they don’t get involved addressing the pressing issues of social injustice and the ills of poverty, they’ll become totally irrelevant in today’s world.

It was once thought that the “Christian” thing to do was to militarily conquer Native Americans, force them to live on reservations, and take their children away from their families (at gunpoint if necessary) to live in boarding schools run by missionaries. If you were a mainstream, God-fearing, white American in the mid to late 1800’s, that’s what you most likely would have supported. We continue to reap the horrible consequences of this evil policy— even as we are with the lingering impact of the slave trade that was promoted often times by religiously devout people.

These, and many other examples I could cite, illustrate the reality that religious folks often find themselves on the wrong side of issues. It seems to be a knee jerk reaction on the part of conservative religionists to do whatever it takes to protect the status quo. Declaring a resounding “no!” to change is the default position of many. I understand that there can be wisdom in putting the brakes on accelerating cultural upheaval in order to allow progress to be implemented in a more mature and considered fashion. But, too many automatically stand in defiance of societal evolution digging in their heels and label anything new as satanic and threatening to their sacred comfort zone. It is the mindset that caused some to plot the execution of Jesus 2000 years ago when he was proposing a new social/spiritual order of God’s governance characterized by compassion, love for neighbors and enemies, and the elimination of excluding beliefs and practices.

Will we ever learn? Join me in accepting the challenge to say yes to something new today.

Tornadoes Suck!

Tornadoes suck! Yes, I intended to use this unoriginal pun. That’s the way I feel as I look at the total devastation and learn of the dozen or so deaths caused by the F-5 tornado that struck Greensburg, Kansas this past weekend. May God help those whose lives have been forever changed by this act of nature.

It raises some serious questions like, considering all the vast open spaces of western Kansas, why did the tornado zero in on the tiny town of Greensburg? You have to figure that the odds of such a storm colliding with that little town in that wide open, rural area are very small. We’ll never know the answer, of course, but I’ll bet many of the God-fearing residents of the now flattened community are wondering the same thing.

Another question is why wasn’t I in Greensburg? I’m guessing the odds that I’d drive into town that day aren’t that much different than the odds that an F-5 tornado would show up. Or, I might ask, why wasn’t I born in Darfur where genocide and drought are leaving an unimaginable toll of human suffering? How was it decided that I would be born in free and prosperous America and would be completely out of harms way the day of the tornado?

Only God knows the answers to these questions, but I sure want to thank him for my good luck!