Kierkegaard’s Ghost

(News that’s fake, but credible)

The Ghost has just obtained another White House telephone call transcript from a source who does not wish to be identified. The call appears to be between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The transcribed conversation is reprinted below:  

Trump: Vladimir!

Putin: Donald! I just had to call to congratulate you on your acquittal in the United States Senate.

Trump: Yes. Well, the whole thing was a hoax and a witch hunt. I knew it would turn out all right. But it was a little dicey for awhile. Some of those senators-you know. They were starting to cave. But Mitch, he held them all together.

Putin: Ah, Mitch. How is my good friend and most valuable asset?

Trump: Mitch is good. Never better-we’ve had our ups and downs, him and me. Like I said, I was a little worried that some of those senators might break rank. Hate to think of what might have happened then.

Putin: Silly Donald. You were never in any danger. Do you think I would stand by and let you be removed from power? Trust me, Donald. We in the Kremlin will always have your back. Now, about the transfer of Alaska…

Trump: Ah, yes. Well, I’m working on that. It will be ready for occupancy by Russia soon. Real soon. But we need you to do us a favor, though.

Putin: I know, I know. Dirt on Joe Biden. I have my people working on that…

Trump: Actually, Vladimir, I need something a little bigger than that. I need you to take out Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg.

Putin: Like, how “take out?”

Trump: Like take ‘em out. Like waste ‘em. Like, you know…

Putin: You want me to assassinate your political opponents?

Trump: Not you personally. I mean, you know people who handle jobs like that, right? Only it’s got to look like, I don’t know-an accident maybe…or wait! Make it look like Islamic terrorists did it!

Putin: Donald! I’m so proud of you! Now you think like real leader! Like strong man! But this is big job. Lot’s of complications. People who handle things like this, they don’t come cheap. I’m not sure Alaska covers it. You know, you people already took most of the gold out of it.

Trump: OK Vladimir. Here’s the deal. Do me this favor and I’ll throw in Washington State, Oregon and California.

Putin: Very generous of you, Donald.

Trump: Well, it’s good for both of us. I know you people always wanted a warm water port. With this deal, you get a whole coast line full of them. Plus, those are all blue states. When they are gone, that will cement my majority in the Senate and put a huge dent in the Democrat House majority. Oh yes, and when you move into California, that nasty woman, Nancy Pelosi, I wouldn’t mind if you “made her go through some things,” if you know what I mean.

Putin: I know exactly what you mean, Donald. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to, how do you Americans say, “seal the deal.” I need writing.

Trump: Call Rudy-you know-Rudy Giuliani. He handles the paperwork for me-and a lot of other stuff too. You can also call-ah, the Attorney General. He doesn’t like me to mention his name in my phone calls. Got real pissed when I did that with whats-his-name, you know, the guy from Ukraine. But his first name rhymes with kill and his last name rhymes with far. Oops! Gotta go. Just got a text from ICE. My border wall is falling over! Later!

Putin: Be well Donald.

END TRANSCRIPT

The president’s press secretary refused to comment on the transcript, but Senator Mitch McConnell shrugged it off. “So what?” he told our reporter. “We’ve been through all this before. The president believes that his re-election is in the interest of our country. If unloading a bunch of useless real estate and terminating his Democrat rivals ensures his re-election, he can do that under Article 2 of the United States Constitution.” Senator Lindsey Graham agreed. “I sure hope the Democrat party isn’t thinking about another try at impeachment. That whole charade was just a damn lynching-not that I’ve got anything against lynching, mind you. It’s part of my proud southern legacy. But President Trump isn’t the colo-I mean the kind of man you lynch!” Phone calls to the office of Attorney General William Barr were not returned.

****************************************************************

FAKE NEWS ALERT: The above article is satirical. The events it describes didn’t happen.  “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.” John Steinbeck

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 112:1-10
1 Corinthians 2:1-16
Matthew 5:13-20

Prayer of the Day: Lord God, with endless mercy you receive the prayers of all who call upon you.  By your Spirit show us the things we ought to do, and give us the grace and power to do them, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.  Amen.

‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. Matthew 5:13.

The first thing to remember is that these words, indeed, the entire Sermon on the Mount, are directed not to individual persons but to the community of disciples.[i] It is not as though Jesus calls us to struggle heroically as lone individuals in the midst of a sinful world to embody a set of highly impractical moral precepts. Neither is the Sermon a kind of spiritual measuring rod designed to “put us in our place” so that we can be properly repentant. To the contrary, these words of Jesus are a gift, a vision of the life Jesus promises to his followers in order that they might become what preacher, teacher, farmer and advocate Clarence Jordan called “a demonstration plot” for the reign of God. It is through the community called church that the world comes to know there is a better way of being human, that the way things are is not the way they have to be nor the way they always will be. Or, as Jordan puts it: “The crowning evidence that [Jesus] lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.”

So how then does the church function as “salt”? There is no small discussion among scholars as to whether the metaphor implies that the church is a preservative, as was commonly the case in the ancient word, or whether the church is to be understood as a spice. Either way, it is obvious that the church is intended to have a redemptive effect on the world. Moreover, it is obvious that once salt has lost its taste (however that might happen), there is no restoring it. Adding more salt is much like throwing good money after bad. You only dilute the good salt you have to produce mediocre salt. The point, it seems, is that Jesus’ community of disciples is to be different from all other communities. Unlike communities and societies grounded in race or nation or tribe or culture, the church is grounded in its allegiance to Jesus. It exists within every nation, but it does not pledge its ultimate allegiance to any of them. It is made up of people with differing loyalties and commitments, but none of these commitments, whether to nation or party or family, rise to the level of their baptismal vow of loyalty to Jesus. The worst thing that can happen to the church is for it to become “just like everyone else.”

Some time ago I related on this blog how I was listening to an interview on the radio of a young man in his twenties who had recently converted to Islam. It might have been on NPR but I can’t swear to that. I was only half paying attention until I heard the young man say that he had been raised a Lutheran. Suddenly I was all ears. When asked why he turned away from the faith in which he had been raised, there was a noticeable pause. I was beginning to think that the station was having technical difficulties. Finally, the young man spoke out a little tentatively. “Well, you know, the church I grew up in was full of nice folks. I have nothing against them. But since I was a teenager, I was always looking for something more, something I could give my life to. I just figured there had to be more to faith in God than playing Twister and eating pizza in the church basement.”

I don’t doubt that there were people of faith worshiping and serving in the congregation where that young man grew up, but somehow, they failed to transmit that faith to him. He didn’t hear Jesus’ call to discipleship in that church’s preaching, teaching or ministry. He never caught a vision of the reign of God worthy of his dedication and commitment. What a tragedy. Here was a young man looking for the Bread which comes down from heaven and all his church offered him was Twister and pizza. No wonder he went searching for something with a little more spice!

I am not faulting this church for trying to appeal to teenagers anymore than for trying to reach millennials, boomers and however many members of the “greatest generation” are still around. But I suspect the underlying assumption here might have been that any serious effort to engage these kids with Jesus’ call to discipleship, challenge them with a grown up faith pushing them out of their comfort zones and enlist them in worship, prayer, witness, service and giving would surely have driven them away. Who knows? The assumption might have been correct. Perhaps the alternate approach I suggest would have driven many, or even most of those kids away. It might be equally unappealing to millennials, boomers and the greats. But I suspect that a serious engagement with Jesus would very probably have held this one young man who was seeking him so earnestly. As I used to tell my church council to the point of eliciting a “there he goes again” eye roll, I would prefer making one new disciple to signing up twenty new members.

A lot of churches, including my own, have a sign that says “all are welcome” in some way, shape or form. If that is taken to mean that all are welcome to come in and check us out, I guess that’s OK. But is it the case that everyone should feel welcome once they come inside? If David Duke, the former KKK grand wizard, sat through one of my church’s worship services and then told me how welcome and at home he felt, I could only conclude that we are not doing our job. There are clearly attitudes, opinions and ideologies that are unwelcome within the Body of Christ. So too, if a church is attractive because the music is singable, the sermon is always upbeat and the pastor stays away from controversy, I have to question whether that church is really fulfilling the Great Commission. If we are hiding the hard realities of the cross and downplaying the good news of God’s reign in the interest of marketing, we are doing exactly what the Apostle Paul warns us against in our second lesson. If people cannot sense Jesus’ thirst for justice, his longing for peace and his commitment to defending the human dignity of every person when they walk in the door, we are not salty enough. If we are to be preservative for a world rotting with racist and nationalist hate, if we are to be a people shaped by the mind of Christ and his yearning for the reign of God, it follows that a lot of folks will not feel welcome within our walls-not only the new ones walking in the door, but many of the old faithful members walking out the door.

I know whereof I speak. When the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America I serve took a welcoming stance toward same sex couples, we lost a number of our churches to breakaway bodies. When I announced that I stood with my church and that I would recognize these couples and their marriages, I lost five members of my congregation. As a result, however, we were in a position to welcome one wonderful new family that immediately became active in our children’s ministry and we were able to provide assurance to a number of people in our church, who had previously been living their lives in partial secrecy, that they need not hide who they are any longer. Let me add that I am not proud of the way this went down. A better pastor might have been able to welcome and affirm our gay and lesbian members while convincing the objectors to open their hearts, get to know these new people and trust the Holy Spirit to “lead us into all truth.” Regardless, if we would be the salt of the earth, then we need to become the kind of community in which the mind of Christ is formed-even when it drives potential members away and alienates the ones we have. Because church is finally not about accumulating members. It’s about making disciples.

When the church loses its focus on God’s reign, we are in the impossible position of having to salt the salt. Fortunately, Jesus loves us too much to let that happen. Jesus declares to us, “you are” the salt-just as Saint Paul says to the hopelessly dysfunctional church in Corinth, “you are the Body of Christ.” I Corinthians 12:27. Jesus simply will not allow us to go stale on him. He continues to breath his Holy Spirit into our communities, salting them with fire and prodding them with his promises. We have everything we need to be the demonstration plot for God’s kingdom. Jesus has given us the kingdom. All we need to do now is start living in it.

Below is a poem by Maureen Ash telling a story similar to that of the young Muslim related above. Salt, it seems, was in short supply.

Church Basement

The church knelt heavy
above us as we attended Sunday School,
circled by age group and hunkered
on little wood folding chairs
where we gave our nickels, said
our verses, heard the stories, sang
the solid, swinging songs.

It could have been God above
in the pews, His restless love sifting
with dust from the joists. We little
seeds swelled in the stone cellar, bursting
to grow toward the light.

Maybe it was that I liked how, upstairs, outside,
an avid sun stormed down, burning the sharp-
edged shadows back to their buildings, or
how the winter air knifed
after the dreamy basement.

Maybe the day we learned whatever
would have kept me believing
I was just watching light
poke from the high, small window
and tilt to the floor where I could make it
a gold strap on my shoe, wrap
my ankle, embrace
any part of me.

Source: Poetry Foundation, Poems for Children, (c. 2012 by Maureen Ash). Maureen Ash is an American poet currently living in Wisconsin. 

[i] To be sure, the “crowd” is present and paying close attention. But in Matthew’s gospel, the crowd is a character in its own right sometimes selfishly seeking Jesus’ gifts of healing, sometimes curious and, in the end, hostile. Jesus nevertheless views the crowds with compassion “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36.

The Hon. Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister
State of Israel
Beit Aghion, Jerusalem

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu:

I saw you on TV a couple of nights ago standing next to our president and felt compelled to drop you a line. I’m obviously not a Jew, so maybe I’m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. Nonetheless, I am a Lutheran pastor whose church’s silence and complicity with the nazis contributed to the horrors of the Holocaust in Europe eight decades ago.  History need not repeat itself and we want to ensure particularly that this sorrowful chapter does not. Thus, as between the risk of speaking out of place and that of remaining silent when duty requires one to speak, I choose to incur the former.

I feel compelled to share with you some relevant matters concerning your American friends. I understand that Mr. Trump and his administration have been good for your own political agenda, which you believe is the best way forward for the State of Israel . You probably feel that the strategic gains arising from your partnership with Mr. Trump outweigh whatever risks that partnership might entail. After all, if Israel’s national interests are advanced, why trouble yourself with the American president’s political woes and ethical deficiencies? And why not pursue a robust, uncompromising policy based on military strength with the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors? After all, you have the might of the United States of America standing squarely behind you.

Well Mr. Prime Minister, I have just two words for you: Honorary Aryan. As you probably know, that was an expression used in Nazi Germany to describe the unofficial status of persons who were not recognized as belonging to the so called aryan race according to nazi standards, but were informally considered to be part of it. It was a designation given a few Jews and other “non aryan” individuals useful to the state for propaganda purposes or for the war effort. Survival under this designation lasted for about as long as the usefulness of the one holding it. In short, honorary aryans had no right to live, but were granted their existence as a privilege of the state-which could be revoked at the state’s pleasure.

You probably know, Mr. Prime Minister, that Donald Trump is the darling of a growing number of white nationalists in the United States, many of whom look upon Hitler as a kind of hero. I don’t doubt you know that, on the morning after Mr. Trump’s election, a band of white nationalists led by one Richard Spencer celebrated the new day in America with a nazi style salute to Trump. You are aware, I am sure, of how Trump supporting white nationalists marched through the streets of  Charlottesville, Virginia in a torch light parade chanting “Jew will not replace us.” It cannot be any secret to you that, since Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and election, anti-Semitic attacks in the United States, including mass killings, have increased substantially. If you are inclined to dismiss all of this American anti-Semitism as insignificant fringe activity, I remind you that many German Jews initially made the same tragic miscalculation about the nazis. The lesson I hope we all learned from that horrific era is that when someone says or even implies that they are going to kill you and your people, it behooves you to take them seriously.

So if Trump and his base are so anti-Semitic, why is the president so generous toward Israel? The answer is obvious. A huge part of Mr. Trump’s base is made up of white “Evangelical Christians” who are rabid supporters of Israel. At the same time, however, these folks are none too friendly to Jews and many are outright anti-Semitic, blaming American Jews for infecting American culture with socialism, liberalism and atheism. Mr. Trump’s closest evangelical adviser, Rev. Robert Jeffress, has made no secret that he believes God has rejected the Jewish people and that they are all destined for hell. That, Mr. Prime Minister, is the true face of your new allies.

“How can this be?” you ask. “How can people love Israel while hating Jews?” Allow me to explain. Many evangelicals subscribe to a fringe doctrine known as “premillennialism.” According to this teaching, a blueprint for the imminent end of the world and the return of Christ to establish a one thousand year Christian theocracy is woven into the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. There is much disagreement among evangelicals holding these views over the details of exactly how the end will unfold, but I won’t bore you with that. The point is, in premillennial thought, the nation of Israel plays a crucial role in igniting the wars and tribulations that will plunge the earth into a hopeless condition of demonic global rule. After this, Christ will return and with him the resurrected Christians to crush the powers of evil and rule the world for the next thousand years.

So you see, Mr. Prime Minister, for Mr. Trump and his evangelical supporters, you and the Jewish citizens of your country are honorary aryans. Mr. Trump needs your support to satisfy his evangelical base. The evangelicals need the nation of Israel to fulfill its critical role in bringing about the thousand year reign of Christians. You can expect their support to last for as long as you and your country continue to be useful. That might not be very long. Let’s face it, Israel needs to come to some agreement for peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians and its neighbors. There might be plenty of disagreement over what the terms of that agreement should be, but the agreement is a foregone conclusion. Even if you are able to get a peace agreement all on your own terms, it will still be a peace agreement-and peace agreements do nothing to bring about World War III. Any such agreement, however favorable to Israel, is bound to be seen as a betrayal of the divine time table for the last great battle and the return of Christ.

Furthermore, you should know that many of these premillennial theologies predict a mass conversion of the Jews to Christianity. History has taught us how ugly things get when Jews resist conversion. I suspect that your evangelical supporters’ zeal for Israel will cool the minute it becomes clear to them that the Jews are as determined as ever to remain Jews.  Worse yet, some of these premillennial theologies predict another holocaust of the Jews during the tribulation before the coming of Christ. Do you think your evangelical fans would support a military effort to protect Israel if that would thwart or delay the thousand year reign of Christians? Would they want to support Israel in any military action that is at cross purposes with the plan of the Almighty? Can Mr. Trump be trusted to adhere to his alliance with you when it no longer serves his political interest in retaining white evangelical support? I suggest you consult the Kurds about that.

Bottom line, Donald Trump has not the least bit of love, empathy or concern for Israel and its people. Hell, he doesn’t have any of that for the American people. He is a self centered, self-serving egomaniac who thinks nothing of separating families at our border, calling Mexican migrants rapists and murderers and referring to people from African nations by a name I won’t repeat. Do you really believe he would have any compunctions about treating Jewish people the same way? Do you really think he won’t drop you like a hot potato the minute you become a political liability to him? And have you given any thought to the welfare of Jews in the United States? Are they not also of concern to Israel? Torchlight parades, desecrated synagogues and violence against Jews, all with the underpinnings of religious teaching-your ancestors saw this before in Europe. Now we here in the United States are seeing it within our own borders and with the implicit blessing of our government. History has already shown us the dark places to which all of this leads. Are you really willing to risk going down that dark path again? Do you really want to lend further legitimacy to this president? Do you really think that your partnership with Donald Trump is in the best interests of Jews in Israel and worldwide? These are questions I hope you are asking yourself.

Well, that’s all I wanted to say to you. Be well, Bibi. And watch your back. These new friends of yours-they are not your friends.

Very Truly Yours,

Rev. Peter A. Olsen (Retired)

PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD

Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm 84
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40

Prayer of the Day: Almighty and ever-living God, your only-begotten Son was presented this day in the temple. May we be presented to you with clean and pure hearts by the same Jesus Christ, our great high priest, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Luke 2:36-38.

Perhaps most of the people passing through the temple precincts that day thought Anna a bit daft. Religion is a fine thing, to be sure. But this old woman seems a little too fixated on it. Besides, who but a homeless bag lady lives in the temple precincts? Doesn’t this woman have a home? A job? Family? Grandchildren to take care of? I expect that a lot of folks walked past Anna just the way most people today would pass a raving lunatic parked with his sleeping bag in the entrance of an urban church. Pick up the pace, don’t make eye contact and continue on to your destination without looking back.

Of course, I suspect that those of us who have been raised in morally and socially responsible households might pity poor Anna. Clearly, this woman has no family support, no other place to live and suffers from some measure of psychiatric illness. Should we offer her a ride to the nearest shelter? Make a referral to a free clinic? Help her to find some kind of employment? Something should be done! She should not be left to spend her nights in church doorways and her days pestering worshipers with wild, delusional rants.

Our gospel lesson offers us another lens through which to view people like Anna. Though we might tend to see her as a social problem needing to be solved, Luke the Evangelist recognizes Anna as a valuable witness to God’s act of salvation through Jesus Christ. After listening to the lyrical hymn of praise from the mouth of Mary in the prior chapter, it should come as no surprise that people like Anna, people living at the margins of the margins, are the first to recognize in Jesus the beginning of God’s radical reversal of fortunes for the poor and oppressed. Anna the homeless crazy lady living in the temple precincts turns out to be Anna the prophet who, along with the homeless shepherds abiding in their fields by night, becomes one of the first witnesses to the good news.

I grew up in a home where the obligation to help the poor and underprivileged was taken for granted. One of the earliest memories I have took place on a winter evening when I accompanied my mother on one of her many trips to bring food and clothing donations to needy families. I recall how thankful the young single mom was to receive our help and how good it made us feel to support her and ease her burden. But when this woman offered my mom and me a cup of coffee and some cookies she had made, mom politely declined. It was all for practical reasons, of course. It was getting to be past my bedtime and that of my younger sister who was at home with dad running a fever. But young as I was, I sensed the awkwardness of the situation. This woman had something to offer beyond coffee and cookies. She was offering us hospitality-the gift of herself and, if we take our gospel seriously, the opportunity to encounter Jesus.

Christianity has for so long been a mainstream faith that we find it hard to read faithfully the gospel testimony that comes to us from the margins. We who live for the most part in privileged security find it hard to imagine that people like Anna and the single mom of my youthful memory are capable of much more than receiving our help. We have developed a collective “messiah complex” that prevents us from seeing ourselves as anything other than “helpers” and blinds us to the gifts and insights we so desperately need from those we categorize as “the helped.” Each Thanksgiving we rant about how “blessed” we are to have comfortable homes and more than enough good food to eat. Then, as if to prove it to ourselves, we eat ourselves silly. The words of John of Patmos come to mind: “For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” Revelation 3:17.

The poor, as St. Lawrence rightly observed, are the “treasure of the church.” This is so not because they afford us the opportunity to exercise charity and feel good about it. It is because the God we worship was born incarnate of a homeless family in a barn, was first recognized by landless shepherds, an old man with a dying wish, a crazy homeless woman living in the temple precincts, lepers, harlots and foreigners. The people at the margins are not just unfortunates that have “fallen through the cracks” and who need our help to become self-reliant and productive like us. They are the favorites of a God who would have us become more like them-weak, humble and wholly dependent upon God.  It is in the poor that we encounter the one we call Lord. If we cannot recognize God at the margins, we do not know God, period.

I expect that most people simply ignored Anna that day of Jesus’ presentation in the temple. But some people apparently were looking for the same thing Anna was seeking. For some people, her words struck a chord of recognition. They evidently saw in her hunger, her yearning a reflection of their own need. So they stopped. They listened. They came near to see the infant squirming in Simeon’s arms.  I have no idea how many there were. A crowd? Just a handful? One or two? However many or few may have been gathered around the ancient prophetess, there were at least some left in Jerusalem that could still dream. There were still people in Israel who were not yet convinced that the way things are is the way they have to be and always will be. Some there were who could see past whatever stereotypical baggage might otherwise have obscured the miracle to which Anna testified. There were still people capable of believing the ancient promises of liberation from oppression, justice for all and peace among the nations. The last embers of hope had not yet been extinguished. They still have not been extinguished. That is because our faithful God continues to send us prophets like Anna to fan them into white hot flame just when it seems they are about to go cold.

As the poet points out, it sometimes becomes necessary to “reteach a thing its loveliness.” So too, it becomes necessary to reteach ourselves how to recognize loveliness and so much more in what we have been taught to view as peripheral, unimportant and distasteful. If we would see Jesus, we must learn to recognize goodness, beauty and truth in the words and faces of people like Anna. If we cannot find them there, we will not see them anywhere.

Here is the poem by Galway Kinnell to which I alluded in the prior paragraph.

Saint Francis and the Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Source: Three Books, (c. 2002 by Galway Kinnell; pub.by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Galway Kinnell (1927-2014) was an American poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1982 collection, Selected Poems. He also split the National Book Award for Poetry with Charles Wright and was poet laureate for the State of Vermont from 1989 to 1993. Kinnell was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He was drawn to poetry in his youth through his reading of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. Kinnell was actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States throughout the 1960s. Upon returning to the US after traveling in Europe and the Middle East, he joined CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and worked on voter registration and workplace integration in Hammond, Louisiana. This effort got him arrested. In 1968, Kinnell signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. Kinnell died in October of 2014 from leukemia. You can find out more about Galway Kinnell and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 4-9
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23

Prayer of the Day: Lord God, your loving kindness always goes before us and follows after us. Summon us into your light, and direct our steps in the ways of goodness that come through the cross of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord

“For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.” Isaiah 9:4.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. Matthew 4:23.

Chrystul Kizer, the teenager pictured above, is now nineteen years old. She was told in November of last year by Judge David P. Wilk in Kenosha County, Wisconsin that she must stand trial and face life in prison for murdering the man who sexually assaulted, imprisoned and forced her into a life of prostitution in her early teens. The crime was committed when Chrystul was just seventeen years old. You can read the full story in the Washington Post, December 17, 2019. The pertinent facts are as follows:

Chrystul was one of a few children born to a single mother who was herself a teenager when she gave birth to Chrystul. The family was living in Indiana and Chrystul’s mom was working to support herself and her family at several low paying jobs. Her on and off boyfriend was abusive both to her and to the children. Though the family contacted the police on several occasions when the boyfriend became particularly abusive, the responding officers would simply tell him he had to leave the premises-which he did, only to return a few days later. The family finally moved from Indiana to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to escape the situation. There they lived in a Salvation Army shelter for several weeks before finding an apartment.

By this time Chrystul was just sixteen years old and her life was beginning to unravel. Chrystul’s mother’s attention was consumed by Chrystul’s older brother who was having repeated scrapes with the law. Chrystul became involved with a young man three years her senior. Like her mother’s boyfriend, this young man was volatile and abusive. Though she left him several times, once after he was convicted for brutally assaulting her, she returned to him repeatedly because she felt she had no alternatives. At this vulnerable point in her life Chrystul met a thirty-three year old white man named Randy Volar over the website, “backpage.”[1]  Chrystul learned about backpage from a school friend and placed an add on the site hoping to raise money for “snacks and school supplies” in exchange for sex. Volar was the first to respond to the ad. He treated her with kindness at first, complementing her on her appearance and bringing her gifts. But his genuine motives became clear when he began pimping her to johns at cheap hotels and using her to produce child porn. When Chrystul told Volar she wanted out, he threatened to kill her.

In February of 2018, police arrested Volar on charges of child sexual assault, a felony punishable by up to forty years in state prison.  The police searched his home confiscating laptops, hard drives and memory cards, along with women’s pajamas, bikini bottoms and underwear. The hard drives contained hundreds of child pornography videos, featuring girls who appeared to be as young as twelve, and more than twenty videos of Volar with underage black girls-one of which was Chrystul. But on the same day police arrested Volar, they released him. Records indicate he paid no bail but was told he would be summoned to court. The court summons never came. He remained free until Chrystul, then 17, went to his house one night in June and allegedly shot him in the head, twice. She lit his body on fire, police said, and fled in his car. She was ultimately apprehended, arrested and held on $1 million bail.

Most states, Wisconsin included, have a law that gives sex-trafficking victims an “affirmative defense” if they can prove at trial they committed a crime because they were being trafficked. In most cases, however, the law has been applied to charges of prostitution or theft committed at the command of the trafficker. The defense has never been interpreted as applicable to homicide. Consequently, Judge Wilk held the defense inapplicable and ordered that Chrystul be tried for premeditated murder as an adult.  “The court is satisfied that a blanket affirmative defense to all acts leads to an absurd result,” said the judge. He stated further that ruling in Chrystul’s favor would set a “dangerous precedent.”

Damned right it would. It would be a dangerous precedent for male celebrities, CEOs and United States Presidents who seem to think that they are entitled to the bodies of any young girl they fancy. It would be a frightening precedent to male Senators and their accomplices who put an attempted rapist on the Supreme Court despite what everyone acknowledged as the credible testimony of his victim. Acquiting Chrystul would send a message to law enforcement that the lives of Black girls matter and when they find out that someone is sexually abusing them, they had damned well better do something to stop it. With all due respect to Judge Wilk,[2] acquitting Chrystul would not have been “an absurd result.” The absurd result is further punishing this young woman, whose childhood was stolen from her by a brutal predator, by robbing her of the rest of her life. This ruling reeks of racism, injustice and utter cruelty.

Thanks be to God, Judge Wilk’s decision has been overruled. It was, in fact, overruled twenty-six hundred years ago by the prophet Isaiah who declared the release of the captives, the breaking of the yoke of servitude and the liberation of the oppressed from the rod of the oppressor. It was overruled when Jesus emerged from the wilderness and began “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” God’s verdict has been spoken. To the “cruel majority” of which the poet sings and those of us who benefit from its systemic injustice, this precedent is dangerous and downright scary. But seen from the perspective of people like Chrystul, the news couldn’t be any better. The only question remaining is where we choose to stand.

Some might say that the connections I have drawn here between sexual predators, law enforcement procedures, purveyors of sexist jokes, the confirmation decisions of United States Senators and the predatory acts of our President are tenuous. I disagree. Men like Randy Volar do not materialize out of thin air. They are encouraged and enabled by a culture that devalues women. They find support in the growing chorus of misogynist voices that have become louder, bolder and increasingly found within the “main stream.” Their predatory behavior is reinforced by a criminal justice system that minimizes the worth and credibility of people of color while favoring that of white people. As long as men are convinced that they can victimize women with impunity and, more particularly, women of color, we can expect travesties like the ruling in Chrystul’s case to continue.

It is all well and good for churches to issue social statements condemning racism and misogyny. But that only goes so far. What needs to happen is for ordinary people to shine “a great light” into the dark corners of bars, bowling alleys, coatrooms, boardrooms, police precinct lounges and, yes, church potlucks, parking lots and committee meetings where racist and sexist jokes, language and attitudes too often find a safe haven for expression.  It’s time to break the embarrassed silence when Uncle Ned airs his racist opinions at the family reunion because, well-that’s just Uncle Ned and we don’t want to make a scene. We jolly well do want to make a scene. It is time for pastors to stop speaking in generalities and start naming names. So if our bishops will not condemn as heretics evangelical religious leaders referring to Donald Trump in nearly messianic terms and the United States as God’s chosen people, I will. If the Southern Poverty Law Institute will not declare the GOP a hate group, I will. If no one else will go so far as to say that everyone who pulled the lever for Donald Trump on November 8, 2016 owes a sincere apology to their wives, mothers and all the other women in their lives, I will. Lasting cultural change does not begin with elections, landmark legislation or mass protests. It begins with people on the ground deciding that the status quo is intolerable and saying so-whenever and wherever they can.

I understand that what I have said might be taken as “judgmental,” “divisive” and “polarizing.” Some might say that I am hindering dialogue and reconciliation within the Body of Christ. That might be so. But there comes a time when one has to choose between peace in the ecclesiastical household and justice in God’s world. Sometimes, you have to choose between freeing the slaves and preserving the union. Sometimes you have to decide whether you will stand with people like Chrystul or go on placating the powers that keep her imprisoned. I think I know where the God of the Exodus stands.

Here is a poem by Jerome Rothenberg reflecting all too well the prevailing conditions of our time that yield up victims like Chrystul. May the people who walk in darkness know the light of Christ!

A Poem for the Cruel Majority

The cruel majority emerges!

Hail to the cruel majority!

They will punish the poor for being poor.
They will punish the dead for having died.

Nothing can make the dark turn into light
for the cruel majority.
Nothing can make them feel hunger or terror.

If the cruel majority would only cup their ears
the sea would wash over them.
The sea would help them forget their wayward children.
It would weave a lullaby for young & old.

(See the cruel majority with hands cupped to their ears,
one foot is in the water, one foot is on the clouds.)

One man of them is large enough to hold a cloud
between his thumb & middle finger,
to squeeze a drop of sweat from it before he sleeps.

He is a little god but not a poet.
(See how his body heaves.)

The cruel majority love crowds & picnics.
The cruel majority fill up their parks with little flags.
The cruel majority celebrate their birthday.

Hail to the cruel majority again!

The cruel majority weep for their unborn children,
they weep for the children that they will never bear.
The cruel majority are overwhelmed by sorrow.

(Then why are the cruel majority always laughing?
Is it because night has covered up the city’s walls?
Because the poor lie hidden in the darkness?
The maimed no longer come to show their wounds?)

Today the cruel majority vote to enlarge the darkness.

They vote for shadows to take the place of ponds
Whatever they vote for they can bring to pass.
The mountains skip like lambs for the cruel majority.

Hail to the cruel majority!
Hail! hail! to the cruel majority!

The mountains skip like lambs, the hills like rams.
The cruel majority tear up the earth for the cruel majority.
Then the cruel majority line up to be buried.

Those who love death will love the cruel majority.

Those who know themselves will know the fear
the cruel majority feel when they look in the mirror.

The cruel majority order the poor to stay poor.
They order the sun to shine only on weekdays.

The god of the cruel majority is hanging from a tree.
Their god’s voice is the tree screaming as it bends.
The tree’s voice is as quick as lightning as it streaks across the sky.

(If the cruel majority go to sleep inside their shadows,
they will wake to find their beds filled up with glass.)

Hail to the god of the cruel majority!
Hail to the eyes in the head of their screaming god!

Hail to his face in the mirror!

Hail to their faces as they float around him!

Hail to their blood & to his!

Hail to the blood of the poor they need to feed them!
Hail to their world & their god!

Hail & farewell!
Hail & farewell!
Hail & farewell!

Source: Rothenberg, Jerome, A Paradise of Poets, (c. 1991, 1993, 1995, 1998, 1999 by Jerome Rothenberg, pub. by New Directions Publishing Corp.). Jerome Rothenberg is an American poet, translator and anthologist. He is the son of Polish-Jewish immigrant parents and was born in New York City. He attended the City College of New York and received his master’s degree in literature from the University of Michigan in 1953. Rothenberg served in the U.S. Army in Mainz, Germany from 1953 to 1955, after which he did further graduate study at Columbia University. He published translations of German poets, including the first English translation of poems by Paul Celan and Günter Grass. He also founded Hawk’s Well Press and the magazines Poems from the Floating World and some/thing. He currently lives in San Diego, California. You can read more about Jerome Rothenberg and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.

[1] “Backpage” was a classified advertising website that had become the largest marketplace for buying and selling sex by the time that federal law enforcement agencies seized it in April 2018.

[2] I do not mean to suggest that the judge in this case is solely responsible for Chrystul’s cruel fate. From what I can see in the record, Judge Wilk gave this matter considerable thought before rendering his ruling. Judges are required to interpret the law as it is, not as what, in their opinion, it ought to be. Moreover, one can hardly expect judges to rule justly when the defendants brought before them have been arrested, charged and processed under a criminal justice system infected with racism and weighted heavily against people of color. This is a classic example of what we say in our confessional liturgy, namely, “we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.” In a very real sense, individuals cannot be anymore just than the society of which they are a part.

Kierkegaard’s Ghost

(News that’s fake, but credible)

Trump 2020 Campaign press secretary, Kayleigh McEnay, announced today that the campaign will soon be releasing for sale a new and improved “MAGA” hat. The bright red hats, sporting the 2016 campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” continue to be popular among the president’s supporters. McEnany, explained that the new hats will have aluminum foil linings to protect the wearer against damaging radiation from Ez Pass detectors, cancer causing vibration from windmills and brain washing from exposure to liberal media. “We encourage our supporters to avoid electronically monitored toll roads, make whatever detour might be necessary to stay at least ten miles from windmills and listen only to ‘safe’ news outlets,” she said. “But we understand that people need to get to their jobs. And when you are getting your car fixed, you might not be able to convince everyone else in the waiting area about the dangers of listening to CNN. In cases like these, it’s good to know that your MAGA hat will protect your brain from any dangerous change of mind.”

Secretary of Education Betsy Devos hailed the new MAGA hat, which will be sold in child sizes, as a breakthrough for early childhood education. “We all know that the brains of very young children are malleable and subject to learning,” she said. “There are a lot of bad things children should not be learning. In a perfect world, we would have all children home schooled where they won’t learn much of anything. But unfortunately, we live in a world where most children go to public school. There they are exposed to learned teachers and libraries filled with books oozing dangerous ideas. Sending your children to school with the new MAGA hat will give them some measure of protection against premature learning.” Her sentiments were echoed by Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Michael Azar II. “While our children are so very young and receptive to learning, we need to protect their brains from the dangers of overthinking,” he said. “The problem with liberalism is that it triggers thinking in children before they are able to handle it. We have to make sure we build all the correct thoughts about science, religion and politics into the minds of our children before we allow them to start thinking for themselves.”

Critics question not only the objective, but the efficacy of the new hats. “What scientific basis can there possibly be for the outrageous claim that tin foil can protect your brain from dangerous thoughts-or that there is any need for protection like that?” asked an incredulous reporter of Ms. McEnny. Ms. McEnny would not give specifics, but assured the reporter that the new and improved MAGA hat has been put through rigorous testing and has proven to be thoroughly effective. “Interviews and testing of people who wear our MAGA hats regularly demonstrate conclusively that our hats successfully inhibit thinking-and that’s before we added the aluminum foil linings,” she said.

The new MAGA hats are not yet ready for distribution and sale. Sources tell us that President Trump is tweaking some of his tariffs on Chinese goods to permit their importation into the United States. Ms. McEnny has assured the public, however, that the hats will be available well before the 2020 campaign gets under way.

****************************************************************

FAKE NEWS ALERT: The above article is satirical. The events it describes didn’t happen.  “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.” John Steinbeck

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm 40:1-11
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

Prayer of the Day: Holy God, our strength and our redeemer, by your Spirit hold us forever, that through your grace we may worship you and faithfully serve you, follow you and joyfully find you, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Two disciples of John the Baptist, one of which was Andrew the brother of Peter, follow Jesus in response to John’s testimony. They ask Jesus where he is staying and they wind up going to Jesus’ place of abode and “remaining” with him. Recall that beforehand John reported that he knew Jesus was the Lamb of God because he saw that the Spirit “remained with him.” The Greek word “meno,” translated in the English version as “remain” is the same in both cases. More broadly, the word means to “abide,” “live,” “dwell,” “continue” or “endure.” It carries with it the sense of determination to “hang in there” to the end. Used as it is in our lesson, the word indicates that, just as the Spirit remains and endures with Jesus, so Jesus’ disciples remain and endure with him. Jesus will make that very point later on when he tells his disciples, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” John 15:4. Again, the word translated as “abide” is “meno,” the same word translated as “remain” in our lesson.

Abiding, remaining, enduring and continuing in Jesus is all important for John the Evangelist. Perhaps that is why his gospel ends the way the Synoptics begin: with the disciples leaving their boat and nets behind and following Jesus. See John 21:15-22. There is no ascension story in John’s gospel. It is as though the evangelist cannot imagine the church going on absent Jesus’ remaining fully present to his disciples. The gospel closes with the disciples following after their Lord. We are not told where they are going or what happened next. That is because the story of Jesus is not over and, in any event, it is a story too big for inclusion in any book-even the Bible. Indeed, John tells us that if everything Jesus has ever done were to be written down “the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” John 21:25.

The Spirit remains with Jesus and Jesus remains with his church, writing into human history too many stories to record even with today’s digital technology. Some of these stories constitute a dramatic public witness. I think of the disciples of Jesus abiding among refugees in wretched and terrifying conditions south of our border. I think of disciples all over the country abiding with and ministering to persons incarcerated for no better reason than that their paperwork is not in order. I think of believers around the world risking their lives abiding with non-white peoples and speaking out against the rising tide of global nationalism and white supremacy threatening their lives and communities. I think of the bold actions taken by my own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and its congregations on behalf of children and adults threatened daily with deportation from the only home they have ever known. All of this testifies to Jesus’ abiding with his church.

But not all of these stories are quite so visible. I also know many anonymous saints who work persistently each week to provide a community dinner for the homeless, for families that are food insecure and for people living alone who simply crave the opportunity to share a meal with others for a change. I recall the choir members from my prior congregation who remained faithfully with me week after week to ensure that our worship was rich in song and music. I watch with thanksgiving the hospice chaplains who remain faithfully with the dying in their final hours. Finally, I know of a church in Seattle, Washington that remained in its urban neighborhood throughout the 60s and 70s when its white inhabitants fled to the suburbs and transformed itself into a worshiping community reflecting its new neighbors. That same church stubbornly remains in its place today fighting for its neighbors as they struggle to save their homes and their community from domestic colonization, commonly known as “gentrification.” In a very real sense, John’s gospel continues to be written as Jesus remains with his church animating its people through his lifegiving Spirit.

God is the One who remains with us-even after we have messed up; even when the task seems hopeless; even when everyone else has thrown in the towel and gone home. That is good news to those of us who are hearing each day new evidence that the checks and balances in our government, that were supposed to protect us from tyranny, are coming apart at the seams, that our forests are burning up and that the international institutions and treaties that have maintained a semblance of global order for the last half century are failing. The one who sent the beloved Son for the sake of the world remains in and for the world. The one crucified by the world lives and remains in the world. The Spirit that remains with the Son continues breathing life into the world. If the Triune God stubbornly remains in and for the world, who are we to give up on it?

Here is a poem by Matthew Zapruder that I think reflects the kind of quiet “remaining” John the Evangelist attributes to our God and expects from disciples of Jesus.

I Commit

I commit to vote because
I’m pretty sure I grab
whatever I need from the world
and place it in my mind
which is getting incrementally
like the commons
undeniably more toxic and sad
yes I too walk around
considering my intractable problems
complaining it’s too late
for more sonatas
everything is already too beautiful
music and anger won’t save us
yet I commit to talking
earnestly with Sarah
about the school board
it will be night and we will be sitting
shoulder to shoulder
at the old table we love
each holding a pencil
like grade school children left alone at last
then in the morning
before our son wakes
I commit to holding
this tiny bit of quicksilver
(quick in the sense of living
in its very molecular nature
it wants to usefully combine with yours)
in my palm and to walking
up to the blue mailbox
I pass most mornings
in that familiar silence
under those nameless little trees
when all things that surround me wait

Source: Father’s Day, Zapruder, Matthew, c. 2019 by Matthew Zapruder; pub. by Copper Canyon Press). Matthew Zapruder (b. 1967) is an American poet, editor, translator, and professor. He holds a B.A. from Amherst College with a major in Russian Literature. He earned an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Slavic Languages and an M.F.A. from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He teaches in the low residency MFA program at the University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert and at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Zapruder is the author of several collections of poetry, including Father’s Day, from which the above poem is cited, as well as Sun Bear (2014), Come On All You Ghosts (2010), The Pajamaist (2006) and American Linden (2002). You can read more about Matthew Zapruder and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website and at the author’s own website.

Dear Supporters of President Donald Trump:

I just read in the Christian Century magazine that Christian leaders across theological and political divides are pushing an initiative called “Golden Rule 2020: A call for Dignity and Respect in Politics.” Part of this initiative calls for people of faith “to take a pledge” to promote the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you) in political discourse. The objective is to “highlight the need to bridge the divisions in our country…”[1] My own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has signed on to this initiative as have The National Association of Evangelicals, the American Baptist Churches USA, Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church USA, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development and The National Council of Churches. I understand that soon there will be an option on the Golden Rule 2020 website for individuals to endorse the project as well.

Though it pains me to spoil this Kumbaya moment, I won’t be signing the pledge. I don’t see the need. Whatever is in that pledge is surely covered by my baptismal vows “to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” That means I won’t be driving a pick-up truck through your daughters’ college campus in the middle of the night sporting the flag of my chosen candidate while hurling insults, threats and obscenities, as did two of you at my daughter’s campus on the night of Donald Trump’s election. I won’t call you ugly names like “snowflake,” “libertard,” and “cuck” as you have done to me, my family, friends and my colleagues. I forgive you this behavior, though I doubt most of you know, care or feel the need for my forgiveness. If you come to my door hungry, homeless, sick or grieving, you will receive whatever help I can give you regardless the political affiliation displayed on your cap, your lapel or your bumper. I will pray for you, bless you and wish only the best for you and your loved ones. I will do all that because, as the GEICO commercial says, “it’s what you do” when you are a disciple of Jesus. Nevertheless, I must confess that I don’t have much respect for you and I’m about done talking to you.

Of  course, I will always treat you with respect because there is no other way to treat a neighbor. But respect you? Respect who you are and what you stand for? That’s an entirely different proposition. Let’s take a look at what you are asking of me.

• You howled with laughter when Donald Trump mimicked and mocked a disabled reporter like a middle school bully. Is that your idea of funny? Are you one of those kids I remember from high school who laughed and jeered as the “cool” guys shoved the head of a terrified mentally impaired kid in the toilet? Well, you sickened me then and you sicken me now. How dare you demand respect!
• You cheered when Donald Trump bad mouthed the family of a fallen soldier at the RNC convention. Is that your idea of patriotism? Is that what I am supposed to respect and admire about you?
• You didn’t blink an eye when Donald Trump called several women “fat pigs” and “dogs.” You shrugged when he was caught on tape bragging about molesting women. When several women came forward to say that Mr. Trump had in fact done exactly what he said he did, he called them liars and several other derogatory names. But that didn’t stop you from supporting him. How much respect does that show for the women you love? I pray to God for your daughters, that they have some other healthy adult influence in their lives so that they don’t grow up believing that their bodies are fair game for any white celebrity who wants them. It doesn’t appear that they will be getting much of that from their parents!
• You voted for Mr. Trump though you knew he had a sordid history of racial discrimination in his failed real estate ventures, that he called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers and you still support him even after he referred to people of African nations by a name I won’t dignify in print. So I have to wonder, do you hate people of color as much as he does? Or is their dignity so inconsequential in your eyes that it doesn’t matter whether they are treated with respect by the president of the United States? And you would seek my respect?

Spin them any way you like, but these are hard facts.[2] This is the man you support. Because you support him, you own all of this crap. And let me add that it doesn’t matter one wit that you were not personally present at Trump’s rallies joining the mob in its hateful laughter and vile chanting or that you “don’t approve” of all the most extreme tweets from the White House. Bystanders at a lynching who do nothing to stop it are no less guilty than the ones doing the dirty work.

Please don’t tell me that all politicians lie, that all presidents have had their faults, that Donald Trump is being held to a higher standard than past presidents or any similar malarkey. Nobody is saying that any past president was perfect. But as imperfect as they may have been, past presidents did not criminally assault women and brag about it, spew racist rhetoric, make fun of disabled people or mock the families of fallen soldiers to the cheers of their crazed followers. They didn’t hurl personal insults at their political opponents and make personal attacks on members of their families. I refuse to normalize these  atrocious behaviors by letting you shrug them off as just the endearing idiosyncrasies of an otherwise normal president. If you can excuse this behavior in the highest law enforcement official in the land, you don’t deserve respect.

Finally, don’t tell me that, in spite of his obvious shortcomings, you support Donald Trump because he has given us a booming economy with low unemployment.[3] That is no different than excusing Hitler for killing six-million innocent people because, after all, he gave people jobs, cleaned up the streets and got the trains running on time. These lame excuses only tell me you understand exactly how corrupt, immoral, perverse and cruel Mr. Trump is, but that you don’t care. You are willing to overlook his racism, misogyny, lies and lawless actions as long as your wallet is padded. Morality has nothing to do with it because for you, everything boils down to money. This makes your support for Trump more rather than less despicable.

You want me to respect you? To put this as civilly as humanly possible: Oh hell no. Where I come from, respect is earned. The people I respect have earned their respectability through acts of kindness, compassion and courage. They are people who stand up to bullies when they victimize weak and vulnerable people. They are people unafraid to speak up when they hear someone make a racist or demeaning remark-even when it spoils Thanksgiving dinner. They are people who do the right thing even if it means losing an election, getting fired from their job or being shunned by family and friends. I respect people whose lives demonstrate that truth, justice and mercy matter more than the health of their retirement accounts, the size of their paychecks or the GNP. To be sure, you have my compassion, my pity and my prayers. But if you want my respect, start earning it.

I also have no further interest in dialogue with you. I’ve tried that numerous times and, to be perfectly honest, I’m exhausted. If this is a war of attrition, you win. I can’t do it anymore. Make no mistake about it, I would have loved to have had a serious discussion with you about the important issues facing our nation. But I can’t possibly have an intelligent, civil conversation with people who make up “alternative facts” when they don’t like the real ones and believe in baseless fairytale conspiracies. So as long as you insist, against all evidence to the contrary, that Ukraine and not Russia was responsible for interfering with our elections in 2016, as long as you insist, contrary to scientific consensus, that climate change is a Chinese hoax because some talking head at Fox or Breitbart told you so, as long as you go on blathering about the “the deep state,” about how liberals, socialists and intellectual elites are conspiring to destroy Christianity, steal your light bulbs and slow down your toilets, as long as you continue propagating myths about how gay and lesbian people can and should change their sexual orientation through a harmful and thoroughly discredited “conversion therapy” and as long as you continue passing off as news wild assertions, such as that Hillary Clinton and George Soros are running a child porn business out of some pizza parlor and all the other make believe crap your president and his enablers dribble into cyberspace, we’ve got nothing to talk about. I won’t dignify such moronic hog slobber by admitting it into serious discourse. If you want to rot out your brains with that phony bologna and throw away the rest of your lives chasing a pack of lies, be my guest. But don’t expect me to waste a single minute of my life chasing you down all of those empty rabbit holes. I have better things to do.

Perhaps you think I’m being unfair, that I am branding you with a stereotype you don’t deserve and that you don’t recognize yourself in the picture I have painted. Believe it or not, I hope to God you are right. Nothing would make me happier than to learn that I have been wrong about you and your president all along. I would love to believe that there is “another side” to this story that I’m just not seeing. But after three plus years of trying to carry on conversations with you that always seem to end in your calling me some derogatory name, reading your president’s tweets and listening to his speeches, watching your  abominable behavior at his rallies and being the recipient of your hate mail on my FB news feed and on my blog, I have not seen anything of value under that pile of filth which is the Trump presidency. So if there is something I’m missing here, by all means point it out to me. But don’t waste your time or mine with any further recitations of the above. If that is all you have, please stay in your bubble and swap your bigoted opinions, your made up facts and your hair brain conspiracy theories among yourselves and leave me out of it.

On that note, I will close with a prayer that the new year brings you health, happiness and a goodly measure of peace. May we someday meet as friends with genuine mutual respect in a brighter future unclouded by ignorance, cruelty and lies.

Very Truly Yours,

Rev. Peter A. Olsen (retired)

[1] Golden Rule 2020: A Call for Dignity and Respect in Politics

[2] I am not even taking into consideration here the Mueller Report and the impeachment proceedings.

[3] There is more wrong with the bogus claim crediting Donald Trump with positive economic indicators than one can shake a stick at. But, in the spirit of the golden rule initiative and because I am feeling benevolent today, I will give you that one for the sake of argument.