Friends
Our shared
Right Now
just isn't all that
alright.
We are in the midst of a
moral meltdown,
a societal slide.
It's ours to
Love Live Lean
into it's
redemption.
This week we take
an honest,
hard look at
one of too many
not at all rights
and
ways to respond.
That "look"
will take
extra time
and
courageous honesty.
May we give it both.
I pray it!
Your brother in Christ,
John Frank
******
Dear All of Us,
When do we confront
a loved one whose drinking
is out of control?
When do we take
the car keys from Dad?
When do we challenge
a coworker
for gaming his
expense account?
A critical
WHEN
deferred to
an indefinite
if at all
THEN
is a failure of
love.
"God is Love."
l John 4:18
Our whole
spiritual life
is
actual, practical,
loving
and that right now.
or
it is a sham.
We take a learning,
a deep one,
from the
Church and people
of Germany.
They deferred
their critical
WHEN
to an
indefinite
THEN
if at all
and one of the most
hideous, vicious,
satanic,
Genocide
in all history
became a deadly
WHEN
for
6 million Jews,
250 thousand Romani,
3 million Soviet prisoners of war,
2 million Polish citizens,
250,000 people with disabilities
political dissidents,
Jehovah's Witnesses,
LBGTQ + people.
It metastasized into
World War ll
with
15 million military deaths
24 or more million
civilian deaths
in Europe.
HELL ON EARTH
That's one of the worst failure
to live God Love
in all history.
It began with
Church and populus
looking the other way,
ducking their critical
WHEN
the Nazis
came to power and
their thugs
started harassing
and then deporting
Jewish people
to death camps.
We are right now
at our critical
When.
To look the other way,
to punt to an indefinite
THEN
if at all
denies God Love lived,
right here, right now
and exposes
sham religiosity.
In a growing number
of countries worldwide
there have been and are
moves to elect
rouge leaders
whose thugs
will harass and deport
immigrants to hellish danger.
It is blatant, devilish
Scapegoating:
You set up innocents
as the enemy
they are not.
You ride to power
promising to be the one
to eradicate
the problem that isn't
by aggressively destroying
the unjustly scapegoated.
People are picked off
on the street,
at work, in courts,
graduations and churches.
Children are severed
from their parents.
The holding pens
are wretched.
This is public sin.
Here in my beloved USA
we are faced with
this growing
spiritual crisis.
We are in
early stage
moral cancer
as were the
German Church and people
in the face of early Naziism
as it began its terrors.
It is claimed that
in the USA there are
thousands upon thousands
of illegal immigrants.
Technically there are and
that needs remediation,
a lot of it and now
as we work a way
to legally wrap them in
because and as
they are already
wrapped into our
nation's life.
Not recognized
in the USA
is the fact that
this country started
with illegal immigrants.
They came to these shores,
brutalized and pushed out
the peoples long here,
those of The First Nation.
Unjust, immoral immigration.
Their decedents chose to
import immigrants.
They captured and brought
peoples of Africa here
as slaves to be sold
in our marketplaces.
That's immoral immigration.
With the exception
of First Nation peoples,
every non-black American
is here because their families
immigrated here
one way or another -
legally, illegally.
Many were harassed
and discriminated against -
the Irish, the Italians, Germans,
Eastern Europeans.
And now some
of their decedents
are among those doing
the same to new arrivals.
Our government did not set up
a humane and functional way
for vast numbers of immigrants
to legally immigrate here.
We have refused
to face the fact that
migration has been a part of
human life and history
from our get go.
Peoples have movrd
to new places
for a better life.
Each and everyone
of our ancestors
sure did!
It is said that
the current immigrants
are criminals.
Some are,
and proportionally
less so than
the general population.
It is argued that immigrants
have stolen American jobs.
Quite the opposite.
They have supported our economy
in farm work, food processing,
construction, domestic services
all the while most paying taxes.
The politicians in power
right now
claim to be Christian.
They are not.
They pervert scripture
to their remaking and favor.
They wrap the Bible in a flag
to the desecration of both.
They completely deny Jesus
as their
"Lord and Savior"
in practice
because they banish
his kingdom living
and teaching.
Thet do not accept nor live:
- "I was a stranger and
you welcomed me."
Matthew 25:35
- "Whatever you do to
the least of these
you do unto me."
Matthew 25:25-40
Jesu said these are
the make its or breaks its
at the Final Judgment.
- "Love one another
as I have loved you."
John 13:34-35
Jesus lived a welcome,
an embrace of
sociality's strangers.
- The parable of the
Good Samaritan,
the "stranger"
who saved
a stranger,
saved the one
avoided/dismissed
by his own.
Luke 10: 25-37
- Jesus was unsparing
in opposing corrupt leaders,
"Herod that fox"
Luke 13;32
"You are whited sepulchers"
outwardly nice, nice,
inwardly stinking rot.
Matthew 23:27
For us now
doing nothing
is doing harm.
It is
passive cooperation
That's what the German Church
and people did - failed to do!
So, what do we do?
First, we pray for those
violating immigrants.
We make sure
we love them enough
to oppose the evil they do.
It's time to take away the keys.
We follow the leadership of
Pope Leo who is THE social justice
Chaplain to the World
with his courageous truth telling.
We risk social acceptance,
loss of power and prosperity
in defense of immigrants.
Our Congress is
conscience comatose,
overdosed on
position and power
no matter the immoral cost.
We need to communicate
with them in love and challenge
- emails, visits, votes
and insist they go straight,
not selling their morals
for political power and
a seat in the Congress.
We need to support leadership
of whatever party that is party
to social justice for all.
Where we can non-violently
demonstrate against
the abuse of immigrants
we are there.
We gather attorneys
to guide and advocate.
We make sure immigrants
from various countries and
of various cultures wanting
spiritual involvement
in their traditions and
places of worship
are able to have it.
We organize groups
to examine all this
in light of the Gospels
and its practical
costs and applications -
study, discernment, prayer,
fellowship and mutual support.
Where and as we can
we favor/shelter immigrants
with practical supports,
friendship, work, sharing
- a now version of the
Ann Frank approach.
We support
causes and groups
seeking justice for all,
not so much on paper
as on the streets.
That's where we live
our spirituality.
We "adopt"
spouses and children
of detained or deport
family members
as much as they wish.
We have them over for meals,
holiday and birthday celebrations,
theirs and ours,
take them with us on vacation.
We become a Big Brother/Sister
for a youngster
one of whose parents
is detained or deported.
We organize empowerment groups
for legal/financial/educational/
employment guidance.
We facilitate celebrations of
culture and customs for immigrants
and ask them to enjoy ours.
We guide trade school and college
preparations for their young -
take them for school visits,
help with the enrollment process.
Those of means cover
trade or college tuition.
The rest of us pool
what we can
to cover those costs.
We have game days
and field trips
for the kids.
We ask them to teach us their
customs, rituals, and music
and to cook their foods
for us all to share.
We write our president
affirming the
moral imperative
of humane
treatment of
all immigrants and
of developing a way
to legalize their
their status here.
We reaffirm in every way possible
E PLURIBUS UNUM
That's what I'm hoping to do here.
We face the fact that
Justice deferred
is justice denied.
There is a moral cancer
metastasizing in our midst.
Unchecked it will track us
in the path of the early Nazis.
There are already
parties among us
here in the USA
ready to enforce a
LEGACY AMERICANS
norm for citizenship.
It would mean deporting
America citizens
whose families
were not citizens here
a set number of
generations ago.
A form of ethnic cleansing,
except
there's nothing clean about it.
There are public figures
flaunting law and precedent
in ever more sectors
of our society.
That's what Hitler did
and got away with.
We're not too far
from fascism.
Yes, we need to
take away the keys!!
We dare not notice or care.
We get in with Jesus
who spent most of
his time and attention
being with and caring for
those foreign to
position and privilege
in his land and time.
A critical
WHEN
deferred to an indefinite
if at all
THEN
is a failure of
love,
a failure of
God's Love Lived
in our
"spirituality for the street."
We are right now
at our critical
WHEN
******
WELCOME ALL
Here each week it is
E PLURIBUS UNUM
in God' Love
ONLINE POSTINGS
NOW
WEDNESDAY EVENINGS
EAST COAST USA TIME
PAST POSTINGS AVAILABLE
by
scrolling well down
beneath
this posting
A TIP OF THE HAT
to all sharing
frankly speaking
with others
Have a great week!
Love to all.
God Bless,
John Frank
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
******
