Immigration policy







A letter to President Trump

To the Honorable Donald Trump, President of the United States:


Many people in our country are talking about the large number of Central Americans (now estimated to include 6,000 people) crossing Mexico on the way to the United States border. This situation brings to mind the 160,000 Vietnamese refugees who fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon to North Vietnam, and also the 125,000 Cuban refugees who left Cuba in 1980 for the United States. In both cases they were fleeing Communist governments and were welcomed into the United States. But the procedure used to resettle them is one that could be repeated this year. As you no doubt remember, both the Vietnamese and the Cuban refugees were temporarily housed in US military facilities where they could be interviewed and processed, and troublemakers could be isolated. At the same time, sponsors were sought for each individual or family—sponsors who would watch over their resettlement, help them find jobs and adjust to American life, and keep them from causing trouble in their new home. Sponsors included families, church groups, other charitable organizations, and many humanitarians who wanted to assist these foreigners who wished to become American citizens.

I believe the same thing can be done with these Central Americans who say that they want to become American citizens. In addition to border guards and Army reinforcements, the people in these caravans could be met by Spanish-speaking clerks from Immigration who would help them to fill out paperwork to request permission to entry our county legally. Sponsors could be recruited within the United States—perhaps calling the bluff of those who are saying for political reasons that we should not try to stop these people from coming. These six thousand people who say they want to live in the United States could become a resource making America even stronger and greater, as waves of immigrants (including the Vietnamese and the Cubans) have done in the past.

Meanwhile, this is a tremendous opportunity to remind our own citizens and the other countries of the world of the greatness of America. Since no one is sure who is organizing and supporting these caravans, some Americans are beginning to accuse the Russians or some other foreign power of trying to embarrass the United States. What an excellent time this is to ask why thousands of people are not trying to enter Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The United States is a great country, and the rest of the world knows it, whether they admit to it or not.

You remain in my prayers as you continue in your difficult job as the President of all the citizens of the United States of America.


First Friday Fiction–Susanna, part two

No one in the office had ever heard Susanna shout. When she spoke at all, she spoke in a quiet voice. Her coworkers were startled one morning when she called out, “Somebody call 9-1-1!” It took a couple of seconds for anyone even to think to ask why they should call the emergency number.

Only Susanna had noticed when Conrad collapsed. Perhaps the odd movement caught her eye, or perhaps she had been glancing his direction more often lately. Conrad’s body turned limp, and he began to slide off his chair onto the floor under his desk. Before his head could hit the floor, Susanna was at his side. She pushed away his chair and eased him into a flat position on the floor. She checked his neck for a pulse, which she noticed was rapid and weak, but regular. Next she watched to make sure that he was breathing. He was.

She heard the voice of one of the other men in the office talking to the emergency dispatcher over the telephone. As three or four concerned workers gathered around, she waved them back. “Give him some air,” she pleaded.

Conrad’s eyelids flickered. Then he opened his eyes and began to sit up. “What happened?” he asked groggily.

“You fainted,” she told him. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she pressed him back to the floor. “Lie still,” she said. “Help is on the way.”

“I’m sure I’m fine,” Conrad started to say, but she interrupted him. “I said lie still. You are going to be checked out to make sure that you’re fine. I lost one friend this way—I’m not going to lose another.”

In stunned silence, the sound of an approaching siren could be heard. “You!” she commanded, pointing at Tony. “Go down to the door and guide them up here. They mustn’t waste a second!”

Susanna took Conrad’s hand and squeezed it. “You are going to make it,” she promised him.

Conrad was already feeling stronger. He decided to try a little joke. “If I don’t,” he whispered, “I just wish… I just wish I had spent more time at the office.” No one laughed, but it seemed to Conrad that
Susanna relaxed slightly.

Less than two minutes later, three paramedics were tending to Conrad. “Do you know your name?” one of them asked him. “Do you know what day this is?” Conrad answered both questions correctly. Another paramedic was checking his pulse and counting his heartbeats. “What happened?” the first paramedic asked.

“I guess I fainted,” Conrad said sheepishly. One minute I was at my desk, working, and the next minute I was lying on the floor.” He paused and confessed, “During the night I got up and was sick, and I didn’t think my stomach could handle breakfast this morning.”

The paramedic nodded and gently pinched the skin on Conrad’s arm. “Dehydration,” he announced. “Probably nothing serious, but we’ll still get you to the hospital for a complete check-up.”

“Really—I’m fine,” Conrad protested, but they seemed to ignore his words. They had a stretcher which folded into a chair which would fit in the elevator. As they carefully moved Conrad onto the stretcher, Susanna grabbed her purse. “I’ll follow you to the hospital,” she told them.

Of course the ambulance took Conrad straight to the emergency room entrance. Susanna had to find a parking spot, then find the public entry, and from there try to find Conrad. When she admitted that she was not part of his family, they were reluctant to allow her back to see him. He remembered her promise, though, and asked about her, and soon she was with him.

One machine was monitoring his heart, while another was pumping fluid into his arm. Susanna had no medical training, but on the heart monitor she could see that Conrad’s heart was pumping thoroughly and regularly. He also seemed less pale than he had been when he was lying on the office floor.

She took his hand. “You gave us all a little scare there.”

He smiled weakly. “Sorry about that. I guess I should take better care of myself.”

She smiled back. “I guess you should.”

Conrad squeezed her hand and said, “Can I ask you a question?” She nodded, and he asked, “Back at work you said you had lost a friend this way. Please tell me what happened.”

She drew her breath in sharply, and Conrad thought he had made a mistake. After she let the air out slowly she took another breath. No longer smiling, she said, “I guess I can talk about it.

“We were both in college—our last year, about to graduate. We weren’t officially engaged, but we were making plans as if we were. We both knew what jobs we wanted to have, and we hoped that we found jobs in the same city, because that would make it easy for us to get married right away.

“He was on the football team. They were having a practice, a normal practice, getting ready for one of the last games of the season. It was just an ordinary practice, nothing strenuous, but he suddenly collapsed on the field. They rushed him to the hospital, but he was dead when they got him there.

“Something was wrong with his heart. He had probably been born with a weakness in his heart, but no one ever knew it.” Susanna closed her eyes and tried to hold back the tears, but they flowed all the same.

“I’m sorry,” Conrad said. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Susanna shook her head. When she could speak, she said, “It’s good for me to talk about it. I’ve held it in too long. I’ve been frightened of what would happen to be when I finally came to terms with it.”

“It must have been a terrible shock to you—and to his family and everyone who knew him.”

“It was. I took it very hard. The night after his funeral, I got drunk and walked down the middle of the road, screaming and cursing at all the drivers who swerved to miss me. I wanted them to hit me. I wanted to be dead and buried, just like him.”

“How awful!”

Susanna looked Conrad in the eyes. “I was messed up for a couple of years. I dropped out of school and spent days in my bedroom binging on movies. I would go days without food and then fill up on sweets. My parents told each other to be patient, I’d snap out of it. Instead, I kept making myself more miserable with bad choices. Then, finally, I… I….”

An older nurse had been in and out of the medical bay as Susanna told Conrad about her past. When Susanna burst into tears, the nurse wrapped her arms around her and spoke soothingly to her. “I(t’s alright now, Honey. Don’t let it bother you. Things will be fine from now on.”

It took a couple of minutes for Susanna to regain control of herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping tears off her face. “I guess being in a hospital again is bringing back a lot of memories.”

“Well for now,” the nurse said to her, “talk about something more pleasant. The doctor is going to be back in a few minutes to check on your friend, and I have a feeling he’ll be allowed to go home. So—you see?—everything’s not so bad.”

“Yes, let’s talk about something else,” Conrad agreed.

“But one thing before we change the subject,” Susanna interjected. “You won’t say anything about all this to anybody at work, will you?”

“Of course not,” Conrad promised. “If you knew me better, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

As the nurse had promised, the doctor was soon checking on Conrad. “You don’t seem to be in any danger,” the doctor said. “If you can go home and stay quiet for the rest of the day, and get plenty of fluids, you should be fine.”

“I’ll drive you home,” Susanna told him, “and I can pick you up tomorrow and bring you to work.”

And that is what they did.


To be continued… but I don’t know when… I don’t even know what happens next. J.

Woe to you who are rich

Jesus said, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry” (Luke 6:24-25). Believers and unbelievers alike nod and applaud when Jesus scolds the rich. We know that he is not talking to us. He is talking to those people who have more than we have—those who could feed the world’s hungry and shelter the world’s homeless and cure the world’s ailing people if each of them just gave a fraction of the wealth they have acquired.

But who are these wealthy people?

If you have eaten today and expect to eat again before this time tomorrow, you are rich.

If you own more clothing than you can wear at one time, you are rich.

If you have a roof over your head and four walls around you, so that when it rains you do not get wet, you are rich.

If you can control the temperature under that roof, keeping yourself cool in the summer and warm in the winter, you are rich.

If you can press a button or two and be entertained by musicians, actors, or athletes, you are rich.

If you must control your diet and your exercise to keep from gaining weight, you are rich.

Explain to the impoverished people living in Asia and Africa your frustration when you set the TV to record a movie or a ball game and the recording is missing the last ten minutes of the production.

Explain to the homeless people living in American cities why you turn the thermostat down a degree or two after spending fifteen minutes on the treadmill.

Explain to Jesus why his scolding was meant for other people and not for you.

Yes, we all give at the office. We all support Christian outreach which includes help for the poor. Some of us donate our vacation time to take trips to other parts of the world where we can help those less fortunate than ourselves… for a week or two.

The fact remains that we are rich. Ninety-nine percent of the people who have dwelt on this planet could not even imagine the comfort, the medical care, and the entertainment that we take for granted. We are the one percent whom God has blessed with material comforts, not because he loves us more, but because he expects greater acts of mercy and love from us.

You will do more when you have paid off your student loans or your credit card debt. You will do more when you have retired from your job and have paid off your mortgage. You will do more once the government gets off your back with high taxes and too many regulations.

Jesus did not wait before he offered you help. He looked into this world from outside of time and saw your cold-hearted regard of your neighbors, your addictions to wealth and comfort, and your neglect of his most basic commandments. Jesus had compassion, not only upon your neglected neighbors, but also upon you. He set an example for you, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, using the power he had to make life better for others. His example has become a Substitute, so that when his Father looks at you, he sees righteousness instead of sin. As a Substitute, he became also a Sacrifice, so that when his Father looked at him on a certain Friday afternoon, he saw your sins and treated them as they deserved. Jesus thought of you that day. He said, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.”

This forgiveness is not license to remain addicted to wealth and comfort, or to remain cold-hearted toward the poor. This forgiveness is wealth, and wealth is meant to be shared. As God has forgiven us, so we forgive one another. As God has given us hope of a better world, we share that hope with those around us. God loves us, and he teaches us to have his compassion toward those who need it the most.

Our treasure is in heaven, not on earth. Abraham and Job and Solomon were wealthy men, but God did not hate them for their riches. Like them, we can be poor in spirit, no matter how much we own in this world. Being poor in spirit is not measured by how much money you have; it is measured by how much money has you. When we judge ourselves by worldly standards, we know we are not rich, because we don’t even have enough money to buy everything we want. When we judge ourselves by heavenly standards, we know that we are rich, because our investment is in the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and nothing in all creation can separate us from that love.

This wealth we share. We forgive those who sin against us. We share the hope we have in Christ Jesus. And, because God has blessed us with riches in this world, we do what we can, when we can, to serve God by helping others. After all, we were created to do good works, prepared for us from the foundation of the world. J.



Last weekend InsanityBytes published this post about Jonah the prophet. Predictably, her post triggered an intense conversation within the comments. The book of Jonah is a lightning rod for debates about how to interpret the Bible. Even some conservative Christians view Jonah as an allegory rather than a history.

The most memorable event in the book of Jonah occurs when the prophet is swallowed by a large fish. The Bible is not specific about what sort of fish swallowed Jonah, and many have pictured him in the stomach of a whale. This is, of course, unlikely, since whales have sponge-like filters in their throats and eat vast amounts of tiny aquatic creatures. After doing some research about marine life, I have concluded that Jonah was most likely swallowed whole by a large shark. A great white shark can be more than twenty feet long, and many large items have been found in the stomachs of captured great white sharks. Recently a shark was found with an intact skeleton of a seven-foot porpoise. Reliable records from the 1600s report that a shark was found with the carcass of a fully armored knight in its stomach. Imagine Jonah captured in a shark’s stomach that was just a tiny bit larger than he was. At first he expects to die, but without air to breathe or any room to move around, he does not die or even become unconscious. After a few long, dark hours of this, the prophet began to pray fervently. A summary of his prayer is contained in the second chapter of the book of Jonah.

For many readers of the Bible, the account of Jonah is an object lesson about disobedience and compassion. God told Jonah to preach in Nineveh, but Jonah got on a boat that was going the opposite direction. God sent a storm to stop Jonah. When Jonah refused to reverse direction but instead sought death at sea, God sent a fish to contain Jonah. When Jonah came to his senses, the fish vomited Jonah onto the beach. From there, Jonah traveled to Nineveh and preached a call for repentance. The people of Nineveh repented. Jonah was furious. He had taken a good seat to watch fire fall from heaven to destroy the city, and God did not send the fire. God reminded Jonah how much God cared about the city and its inhabitants, even the livestock.

Jesus compared the time Jonah spent inside the fish to the time Jesus would spend in the grave. Jesus died on a Friday and was buried before sunset; he rose to life on Sunday morning around sunrise. The “three days and three nights” Jonah spent in the fish might also have been closer to forty hours than to seventy-two hours. (The Bible’s description of time in this case resembles that of a vacation resort that promises accommodation for “three days and two nights” but is only available toward the end of the first day and must be left before noon on the third day.) The miracle of a prophet surviving inside a fish and returning alive to the land pictured the death and resurrection of Jesus, the world’s Savior. Jonah’s ordeal and Christ’s resurrection are miracles, beyond the ability of science to predict or explain. Those who first wrote about these events were aware that they were miracles that went against the laws of nature; otherwise, they would not have bothered to describe them.

Aside from the fish stomach/tomb comparison, several other similarities identify Jonah with Jesus. Both men slept in a boat during a storm until their fellow travelers woke them in panic. This detail may seem trivial, but not many people are capable of sleeping in a boat during a storm. Both men had the wrath of God directed at them: God sent a storm because Jonah was disobeying God, and Jesus went to the cross to bear the wrath of his Father over all the sins of the world. Both men offered to sacrifice their lives to save other lives—Jonah told the sailors to throw him off the boat so the holy storm would cease, and Jesus died on the cross to pay in full for the sins of the world. Both preached messages of repentance that became vehicles for God’s forgiveness—the crew of Jonah’s boat became believers in the Lord because of Jonah, and the citizens of Nineveh repented of their sins and were forgiven by God instead of being punished by God. Likewise, the forgiveness of God is available to everyone in the world because of the sacrifice of Jesus, and his victory over evil is demonstrated by his own resurrection.

Jonah did not want to obey God; he had to be forced to obey. Jesus volunteered to do what his Father desired, even when his Father’s will included the cross. Jonah’s work rescued some lives, but the work of Jesus suffices to save the world. Jonah is remembered for spending time inside a fish, but Jesus is remembered for blazing a trail across the valley of the shadow of death, guaranteeing that his people will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. J.


The cost of being poor

One of the oddities of our current economic system in the United States is that it is costly to be poor. I cannot offer any brilliant solution to fix that problem, but for those who haven’t noticed the problem, I can describe it.

Banks favor wealthy people over poor people. Keep a minimum balance in your account, and you will be charged fewer fees to use the bank. If you are close to breaking even but you accidently overdraw your account, banks will charge a fee for attempting to spend money you don’t have. Wealthy people never have to worry about insufficient fund fees. Of course it would be ridiculous to demand that banks change the way they work. A bank would go out of business if it waived these policies for everyone who is poor.

If you are wealthy, it’s easy to get a loan. Banks are happy to lend money to customers who are able to repay the loan. If you are poor, you are unlikely to get a loan. You might have the greatest invention in the world and just need a few thousand dollars to start a business, but if you don’t already have those thousands of dollars, they are difficult to find. Again, no one can change the way loans work; banks would go out of business loaning money to people who cannot repay those loans.

Credit cards are a wonderful convenience when you are able to pay the full balance every month. That’s really the wisest way to use a credit card. They can also be a convenience, though, when you have a sudden unexpected emergency—a car repair, for example, or replacing a broken appliance. The danger of that convenience is that now you have a debt that increases monthly due to interest charges. Then, if money is tight for other reasons and you miss a payment, penalties are added to the debt you already have. Credit works that way, and its basic rules are not going to change. But the credit card business is more likely to hurt poor people than wealthy people.

Rural poor have fewer resources than urban poor. They cannot take advantage of mass transportation, and they are farther away from social services offices. However, the urban poor face additional costs that the rural poor (and the wealthy) do not have. Living in the least costly neighborhoods coexists with greater danger from crime and from gang violence. For that reason, property insurance and automobile insurance are higher for people who live in those areas. These higher insurance costs lead to higher prices for gasoline and groceries in the city. Moreover, sales taxes usually are higher in the city. Higher prices and higher insurance rates make it difficult for families to save enough money to move to less dangerous and less expensive surroundings.

“There will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess—if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today” (Deuteronomy 15:4-5). The Law of God demanded compassion and justice for all people. Every seventh year debts were forgiven, slaves were freed; and every fiftieth year property that had been sold was returned to its family. God’s people were commanded to help the widow, the orphan, and the refugee. A cloak that had been given as security on a loan was to be returned by sundown. In the courts, poor people and rich people were to be regarded equally. Workers were to be paid their wages at the end of each workday. Harvesters were commanded to leave behind scraps for the poor to glean.

“For there will never cease to be poor in the land” (Deuteronomy 15:11). God knew that his commands would not be obeyed. Jesus reminded his apostles of this verse when they objected to the perfume that had been poured on him. They said that the money would have been better used to help the poor. Jesus answered, “You will always have the poor, but you will not always have me.” Poverty cannot be ended by legislation. Taking money from the rich to give to the poor did not end poverty in Robin Hood’s day, and it will not work today.

On the other hand, God still expects compassion from his people. The knowledge that there will never cease to be poor in the land motivates Christians to help as they can. No one deserves to be poor. Some wealthy people use their wealth in various ways to help the poor—gifts of food, clothing, or shelter; scholarships to open opportunities for the poor; financial support for libraries, museums, and hospitals; endowments to fund research to combat diseases and other problems that plague poor people more than wealthy people. Investing in businesses that provide jobs also gives help to the poor.

In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye says, “It’s no shame to be poor. But it’s no great honor either.” Until the Day of the Lord, there will never cease to be poor in the land. When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are asking God to help the poor as well as ourselves. Our compassion for the poor is the beginning of God’s answer to this prayer. J.

Broken people among us

They drive the same roads, walk the same sidewalks, and shop the same stores as the rest of us. Some of them work with us. Many of them communicate with us on the internet. Yet they are not like the rest of us: they are missing something that most of us take for granted.

I am not describing all people who struggle daily with anxiety and depression, for anxiety and depression have many different causes in different people, and they bring about a variety of reactions. Many of the people I am describing would not consider themselves depressed and anxious, and they have not been diagnosed as such. Yet they live their lives without hope, without meaning, without compassion or concern for others, and without healthy relationships with other people.

During the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States experimented with various forms of mind control, hoping to use the results of their experiments to defeat the communist forces aligned against the United States. These experiments included powerful drugs, food and sleep deprivation, and various forms of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. Some of these horrific experiments were based on Nazi practices from their concentration camps during World War II. The secret program, code-named MKULTRA, came to light during Congressional investigations of the executive branch of American government in the mid-1970s. CIA leaders promised to discontinue the program immediately.

Some people believe that the program has not been discontinued. They state that the CIA, in conjunction with Illuminati or the Masonic lodge or some other nefarious group, has enslaved a large number of American citizens by these same procedures, using them to accomplish secret goals, which are known only to the central group. Of course any massive conspiracy is going to be clumsy, ineffective, and vulnerable to the human self-interest and incompetence of its members. Strange to say, though, the victims of mind control experiments appear to be real, even if no conspiracy is guiding their training.

Mind control was intended to remove the moral and compassionate restraints that most people possess so they would be willing to do the bidding of their masters. Various forms of abuse were used to achieve this effect. I cannot say whether child abuse of various kinds has increased in the last seventy years or if society is more aware of child abuse than before; the latter may be the case, but I see the former as more likely. Society has changed greatly in seventy years. Gone are the extended families living close to one another, in which grandparents and uncles and aunts could assist in watching and caring for children. Gone are the small towns and the city neighborhoods in which everyone knew everyone else and people watched out for each other. Rapid communication and rapid transportation have created a world in which workers and their families are moved from place to place and in which families choose to relocate regularly for other reasons. Single-parent families and two-income families require paid strangers to care for their children. Children are more vulnerable to various kinds of danger these days, not all of which would be considered abuse, but all of which can disable their moral and compassionate restraints.

In addition, modern families bring into their homes the very kind of sexual and violent materials that were used years ago to desensitize mind-control subjects. Now these things are considered entertainment. Through television, the internet, and video games, children are exposed to sexual behaviors—often inappropriate behaviors—and violence in far larger and more persistent doses than ever before. This is not the result of a conspiracy trying to control people. The entertainment industry only wants to make money. It distributes the products it creates because they sell. Yet the net result of this influence is a larger number of people who are without hope, without a sense of meaning for their lives, without compassion for others, and without healthy relationships with other people.

Not every victim of child abuse remains scarred and miserable for life. Many do find hope and purpose, they do have compassion for others, and they do develop healthy relationships with others. Not every child who plays violent video games or watches violent movies becomes a violent person. Many of them can distinguish between reality and entertainment, and they also have meaningful and hopeful lives and healthy relationships with other people. Not all the broken people around us are victims of abuse or have been swayed by inappropriate entertainment. Some of them are broken for different reasons. Yet it seems that society as a whole has been following the pattern of mind-control techniques, and yet no mastermind is controlling the process. The train is roaring down the tracks, but no one is minding the engine.

Christian truths are the best help for people broken by abuse, by neglect, and by a world that seems out of control. Christian truths teach compassion and help to create healthy relationships. Christian truths offer hope and a meaning for life. Christian truths offer forgiveness to those who have done wrong, and they offer victory to those who have been victims of evil. The victory of Christ’s sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection overpower evil in all its forms and restore human life to dignity and hope.

Yet the broken people, without hope and without compassion, are largely turned against religion in general and Christianity in particular. They reject God and all his teachings. They sneer at commandments to love one another, or they redefine love to remove the meaning of those commandments. They have no desire to repent and be forgiven. They call religion a set of fairy tales, a crutch for weak people, and the source of violence and abuse in the world. It seems as if these broken people have been programmed to turn against the one power in the world that could fix their lives and make them complete human beings.

Is there no hope for the broken people in the world? The Word of God is still powerful and active. Such people can find hope and meaning in the good news of Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, Christians can model hopeful and compassionate lives. They can care for their own children and prevent them from being desensitized to morality and compassion. And Christians can pray for the broken people, asking God to reach into their lives and fix what is broken. Where there is Christ, there is hope. And Christ has already defeated evil at its source. J.