Category Archives: immigrants
Voting and Loving
Standing in the line to vote, I’d brought my rolling walker with a seat to use if standing long brought on pain. Three different poll workers kindly asked if I’d like to go to the front of the line. I said no, because I could sit down any time I needed to. They noticed the woman behind me with a bandaged foot and asked her the same. She also said no, there were chairs every six feet. She and I began to chat about the challenges of aging and life in general right now. She shared some difficulties, but then recounted with a light in her eyes how they had turned out to bring about some good changes in her life. I reacted with delight, recognizing grace and a faith we shared. We bonded there in a line, six feet apart, with masks. It was one of those blessed moments of connection. We parted reluctantly after voting and as I drove away I realized from other things that she had probably voted red, while I voted blue. But I also realized that she went back to her life reaching out in love to those familiar faces whom she understood and trusted, while I went back to reaching out to unfamiliar faces, with lives so different from mine. Both of us doing our best to help others and to share the faith that saw us through the hard times.
The problem with a political solution is that it doesn’t take into account that we are born with very different personalities. And though as we grow through stages of life, we can become stronger in undeveloped aspects of our personality, there’s a timing to the process that isn’t under our control.
I once wrote an article called Aliens in the Nest after recognizing how different I was from either of my parents and how different my five children were from one another and at least one of us, their parents.
It takes grace to love across these differences. It takes both time and grace to develop strengths in our weaknesses. What we can handle with the grace of faith now would not have been possible for us at an earlier stage of our personal spiritual development. God gives us grace for the moment.
We cannot force others to be where we are. I keep coming back to the importance of realizing with heart and mind that I and all others are loved completely at our worst, but are also still unfinished at our best. Legislating for others, no matter how strongly we feel and even if we ourselves would with grace be willing to sacrifice our own life for what we believe, doesn’t work. Our call is to help others find that love that frees us all to grow and risk and accept suffering and die knowing we were loved at each stage of our journey.
Of Cabbages and Kings
OK, who has actual numbers, countries, conditions that precipitated such a sudden increase in immigrants? What is the current number,condition, and plan for immigrants in custody.
Who has an itemized list of symptoms of climate change beyond normal vacillations in weather over a couple of centuries? Anyone know of charts imaging the extent of changes? Who reads the Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post , The Atlantic, and watches PBS and Fox News?
The time has come the Walrus said, to speak of many things! But unless we have some facts that we can trust, we will be ruled by dictators or kings. And even if you like the first, there’s no guarantee you will like those who follow, and we will no longer have a choice.
Anger, antagonism, name calling, ridicule, do not convince anyone. I’m open to facts with sources and numbers with names. I’d like to hear from people who actually read and analyze sources on opposite sides.
I admit that I became an ostrich once politics turned into mud throwing. I don’t know where to begin now, so am open to help.