It is personal
I was listening to a podcast of This American Life while at the gym this morning. The episode to which I was listening was about a politically conservative town which voted for President Trump partly because of his promise to build a wall and keep illegal immigrants out of the country. To many in the town, including the religious leaders, it seems to be a simple choice of allowing criminal into the country or find a way to keep them out. For many of the people in this town it seemed axiomatic that breaking the law creates a criminal. Criminals are undesirable as neighbors, co-workers, co-worshipers, friends, playmates for one’s children and as future leaders in all areas of community life. One must, after all, provide a safe, moral, community in which to safely raise one’s children. Who could blame a person(s) for wanting such a community?
Given the above assumptions about truth and morality it is not surprising that a majority of the residents supported President Trump and the goal of ICE to round up and arrest the criminal illegals. Apparently, they had not imagined that a significant number of their neighbors who worked at the local plant, whose children who were classmates of their children, and some of those sitting next to them at church or other community events were these “criminal illegals”.
It may seem difficult to believe that the local clergy did not know that “the least of these” to whom Jesus referred were those same neighbors and church members. It may seem difficult to believe that most of the legal citizens did not know the system of getting and receiving a work permit or becoming a citizen is an incredibly difficult and expensive process for the average person. It may seem difficult that good people who are at least average intelligence – some of whom had college or even graduate degrees – could not know or even imagine what it was like to not be able to feed one’s family without taking the risk of being an illegal with no rights. It is difficult to imagine and, yet we humans, are very adept at using labels around which we spin stories without needing to know the real human being who seems to hide beneath that story.
When ICE came and loaded up many neighbors, co-workers who were needed, mates of their children, worshipers of the same god the residents of this town were forced to confront the truth of their kinship. Those arrested could no longer be kept in the box of criminals, illegals, drug runners or whatever other labels were used to create the mythical world which makes good political coverage on the evening news. Suddenly, the labels became real people with whom they had a connection. Suddenly the labels became persons.
In every age and in every place it is not until we sit down to break bread together, share parent hopes, and share vulnerabilities that we realize all those labels are about real people with whom we have much in. common. We must break bread together, cry and laugh together, and share parenting hopes and dreams if we are to move beyond the labels of black, white, immigrant, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, criminal, law abider, Palestinian, Russian, socialist, sexual offender, male, female, gay, transgender, politician, farmer and many others.
The “least of these” are us with broken hearts, loneliness, mental illness, poverty of spirit, food challenged, immigrants, and even those whose live in a gilded cage of the mega mansion or palace. We are all, at some time in some way, the least of these. It is very personal.
Written April 24, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
Coachpickett.org
I was listening to a podcast of This American Life while at the gym this morning. The episode to which I was listening was about a politically conservative town which voted for President Trump partly because of his promise to build a wall and keep illegal immigrants out of the country. To many in the town, including the religious leaders, it seems to be a simple choice of allowing criminal into the country or find a way to keep them out. For many of the people in this town it seemed axiomatic that breaking the law creates a criminal. Criminals are undesirable as neighbors, co-workers, co-worshipers, friends, playmates for one’s children and as future leaders in all areas of community life. One must, after all, provide a safe, moral, community in which to safely raise one’s children. Who could blame a person(s) for wanting such a community?
Given the above assumptions about truth and morality it is not surprising that a majority of the residents supported President Trump and the goal of ICE to round up and arrest the criminal illegals. Apparently, they had not imagined that a significant number of their neighbors who worked at the local plant, whose children who were classmates of their children, and some of those sitting next to them at church or other community events were these “criminal illegals”.
It may seem difficult to believe that the local clergy did not know that “the least of these” to whom Jesus referred were those same neighbors and church members. It may seem difficult to believe that most of the legal citizens did not know the system of getting and receiving a work permit or becoming a citizen is an incredibly difficult and expensive process for the average person. It may seem difficult that good people who are at least average intelligence – some of whom had college or even graduate degrees – could not know or even imagine what it was like to not be able to feed one’s family without taking the risk of being an illegal with no rights. It is difficult to imagine and, yet we humans, are very adept at using labels around which we spin stories without needing to know the real human being who seems to hide beneath that story.
When ICE came and loaded up many neighbors, co-workers who were needed, mates of their children, worshipers of the same god the residents of this town were forced to confront the truth of their kinship. Those arrested could no longer be kept in the box of criminals, illegals, drug runners or whatever other labels were used to create the mythical world which makes good political coverage on the evening news. Suddenly, the labels became real people with whom they had a connection. Suddenly the labels became persons.
In every age and in every place it is not until we sit down to break bread together, share parent hopes, and share vulnerabilities that we realize all those labels are about real people with whom we have much in. common. We must break bread together, cry and laugh together, and share parenting hopes and dreams if we are to move beyond the labels of black, white, immigrant, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, criminal, law abider, Palestinian, Russian, socialist, sexual offender, male, female, gay, transgender, politician, farmer and many others.
The “least of these” are us with broken hearts, loneliness, mental illness, poverty of spirit, food challenged, immigrants, and even those whose live in a gilded cage of the mega mansion or palace. We are all, at some time in some way, the least of these. It is very personal.
Written April 24, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
Coachpickett.org
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