Are We Really Nazis--Seriously?

photo by BrotherM/ flickr

Ted Kopple has written an article that I think helps clarify the current situation in our country. He takes on those people that say we are like Nazi Germany. Does that mean everything is dandy today? No. But newscaster Kopple is a cautious optimist. He believes in America and the values that are bed rock in our country. Read his article and ponder what he has written.

In John Meachum's book, The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels he reminds us that we have had a lot of dark pages in our history. Those that have lived very long can footnote these. But he also says that finally, even though in the process many get hurt or broken, we come to our senses and remember the values that made the country great for everyone.

If we are people of faith we do not lose heart. We really do believe that goodness wins out in the end. We keep working and fighting for what we feel is right. We don't watch the TV continually but we do turn it on long enough too know what is going on around us. Flannery O'Connor, the writer once said, "You shall know the truth and it shall make you odd." Maybe what we need are more and more odd balls.

In another dark time Reinhold Niebuhr wrote:

"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime, 
therefore we must be saved by hope. 
Nothing which is true, beautiful or good makes complete sense int any immediate context off history, thererfore we must be saved by faith. 
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone, 
therefore we must be saved by love. 
No virtuous act  from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. 
Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."

William Sloane Coffin in another hard time said, "There never was a night or a problem that could defeat a sunrise or hope."

photo by Guiseppe Calsamiglia / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Responding to Trump's Rants, Tweets and Attacks

"Remember the faith that took men
  from home
At the call of a wandering preacher. 
Our age is an age of moderate virtue    
And moderate vice
When men will not lay down the Cross
Because they will never assume it. 
Yet nothing is impossible, nothing,
To men of faith and conviction. 
Let us therefore make perfect our will.
O God, help us.
         --T.S. Eliot



Let me say first I don't believe Preachers should be telling people how to vote. I do believe in Separation of Church and State like old-time Baptists did and still do. But this article by a Roman Catholic is entitled: "A Priest Says Mr. Trump Should Quit Hate Talk" got me too thinking. I found myself saying: "Yes...Yes...Yes." The writer talks about her Priest in Washington who has preached strongly about what the bed-rock principles of our faith are all about. Courageously in his Washington pulpit the Priest said: "the current occupant of the White House spews hatred, bigotry, and intolerance and must resign."

He said that he used these words because: "Jesus won't let me off the hook." He says no President should be telling elected Congresswomen to go back to where they came from. Three of those he attacked last week were born in the United States. The other is a citizen of our country. But the Priest continued: the Christian faith is not consistent with separating migrant children from their families,*courting brutal dictators, seeking to bar Muslims from the country and stirring racism." The list goes on and on. The Priest stressed the need to: "respect one another as children of God" and talked about racism is always rooted in fear.  

After Hitler came to power a group of concerned Christians protested many of the things Hitler was doing. They penned what they called: The Barmen Declaration. It is a document rooted in the faith of Jesus Christ and Holy Scripture. You can read it on the Internet if you wish. It is a powerful statement about another time and another place.

Holocaust victims have protested using Hitler to underline many of the actions of our President. I think they are right. This is a different time. But a group of committed and concerned Christians have written a Barmen Document for today. These words do not mention Hitler or Germany. They do talk about our time and where we are as a people. Read these words and ponder their meaning. For the Christian, God must come first. 

Many of my friends have supported Trump. Many do not understand my feelings about the President. Most of these folk are decent people whose values for the most part are like our on. We have no business bashing them or raging at any group like Republicans. Neither should Republicans trash Democrats.

Jesus Christ talked about peace. He said the greatest commandment was love God and love one another. That's pretty clear. Most of us fall short of following our Lord. We keep falling off the wagon. Jesus talked a lot about self-righteousness and how wrong it is. But whether you agree with me on this issue or not--we are a divided country. The United in our title does not represent where we are. The ALL in our Constitution seems to have been lost in the shuffle of today. 

Looking back in our country's history there have many dark pages--but we seem to put these aside and move on for a while. And then the challenge comes again. And I think we are being challenged as a people. I am not talking about who anybody voted for or will. I am talking about the larger issue of who we really are and what we want to be. I just heard a song, "There Comes a Time..." and have put it on my Facebook page today. It is written by a lady who loves this nation and speaks to all our hearts. 

Thanks for reading whether you agree or not. I keep looking at the above statue of Jesus bearing the cross knowing I have much, much yet to do. And so do we all.

* (almost all these desperate people are poor and have nothing but their children)   

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Church--Coming In Out of the Storm

This picture captures perfectly what Church means to me. I call it: Coming in out of the storm. Years ago my family and I were in Charleston and I saw this watercolor. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. But we went home and I did not buy the picture. Years later we were back to Charleston and I saw this picture again and bought it. I hung it in my office and from to time I would look at the picture and it moved me again and again. It reminded me of what my real job was.

Church gets a bad rap many days. And sometimes there charges are right on target. And yet on our better days we really do open our arms and say welcome to everybody. 

As I look at this picture I think of all the people out there in the storm. It really is stormy weather. And many folk think there is no place to hide. And we in the church have not always provided a safe place for those out there cold, wet, scared and not knowing which way to turn. 

Sometimes they are divorced. Sometimes they are poor or black or gay or abused women and men, too.  Many have found alcohol or drugs destroying their lives. Sometimes they are rigid and closed minded and judgmental. Sometimes they have no screens on their windows at all. Today those on the Southern border wonder just wonder about us.  

And all this political talk—not ethical talk—but political talk doesn’t help. People are still left out in the cold. And yet come Sunday it is my hope that out there all those in need—which really are  all of us—will find those open doors and come out of the storm. And once inside we can find acceptance and love and forgiveness and help and encouragement, too. 

Last Sunday I remembered an old story that i heard years ago. Dean Snyder talked about working in an emergency shelter in an inner city church. He said that one day Nora came and stayed with them several days. Her family had kicked her out. She was covered in tattoos. Se walked around in too-tight pants and kept wearing a see-through blouse. She couldn’t have been a day over 16. And she was hard as nails.She chained-smoked and talked to loud and flirted with the men and had a very foul mouth.

One after Snyder said that as he worked alone in the kitchen Nora came in at sat down. After a long time she said, “I been meaning to ask you somethin’. I heard a priest say one time that Jesus loves everybody even prostitutes. Is that so?” He said he was a tempted to tell her that God loves the sinner but not the sin. But for once, he said he didn’t say that. He just answered her question, “Does God love everybody? Even prostitutes?” He nodded and said, “Yes.” He said the dam broke and Nora cried and cried. After a while he knew those were happy tears and not sad ones.

That’s our job in the church. To open the doors. To say welcome to all those out there in the storm. To say yes and not no.

Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Dear Melania...

Dear Melania—

Since you wrote me a letter the other day—I thought I would respond. You began your letter: “Dear Mr. Lovette, 

          Decisions made by the President of the United States impact countless lives across our nation and throughout the world

          From the moment my husband, Donald, placed his hand on the Bible and took the oath of office to serve as America’s 45th President, he has worked nonstop to deliver on his promise to Make America Great Again.”

Well Melania, I don’t believe I will be sending you a check.  I cannot understand how you can sleep at night, with your son, Barron in another room safe and sound—and at our Southern border little children cry for their parents, for enough to eat, for someone to hold them. Many do not know where their parents are. And across the country children have been snatched from their parents and sent to places where many of their parents cannot find them. 

Back at the border men and women old and young are penned behind chain-link fences. Your husband has tried to tell us that we have to “protect the border” from rapists, drug dealers sex trafficers. Most of the people—and by the way they really are people. They have names and many of them came thousands of miles to find a place called America where they might be safe and they had always heard this was a land that would really care for them. Most, if not all of them are dirt poor. The only thing some of them have are their children for them to be taken from them must be horrifying indeed.

Mrs.Trump this does not make America great. It joins a whole line of countries that do not care for people who are in desperate circumstances. The Bible your husband put his hand on that day he was inaugurated has a lot to say about how we treat the stranger and aliens. 

But there is another reason I cannot respond too your request. On this Sunday, which we Christians call the Lord’s Day ICE will send out troops all over the country to knock down doors, drag some parents away from their homes, splitting couples This is done under your husband’s direction. And as we  Christians sing our songs and say our prayers all over America there will be people living in utter fear. They came rot this country to escape from fear. And America on her better days has never engendered fear in the hers arts of ordinary people. Notice I did not say citizens. The Constitution does not use this term. 

I weep this Lord’s Day when what we are doing with undocumented immigrants is beyond belief. There are a lot of reasons I cannot support the re-election of your husband. He is shredding the decent things that have made America the shining light on a hill for multitudes. 

So I must deny your request for money.

I have closen a Facebook piece by Hania Thomas-Adams. She is a pediatric pre-op Child Life Specialist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Oakland, California. She knows the damage that we re doing to children who may never recover emotionally from what the United States is doing to them. Read it and weep.

Hania Thomas-Adams

June 19, 2018 ·

“I regularly see young children separated from their parents. It is one of the hardest parts of working in a surgical environment. We go to great lengths to make it less traumatic for them, including medications, transitional objects, putting the parents in head to toe covering so they can stay with their child, showing the kids exactly where Mommy will be waiting for them, and forming relationships with the kids days in advance so they have someone that they trust to carry them in. Even so, it is always difficult and frequently terrifying for the children. In those cases we sing, we rock, we make promise after promise that Daddy will be right back, and we go as fast as we can. It is a significant portion of my job, and all of this is done to limit the disorganizing fear and effects of being separated from caregivers for less than three minutes.

Today there was a little one who I carried in to an OR and who had to be pried off her mother. I saw the screaming and the reaching and the "mommy mommy" and the feral terror that takes over small children in these situations. I repeated over and over in her ear that her mother would be right back, I rocked her, I wondered out loud with her whether Mommy would ride the elevator to come see her and what color popsicle she would choose for herself and for Mommy. She calmed down a little but not much and we went as fast as we could. After she was asleep I walked back out of the OR and had to hold on to the wall.

I can't stop thinking about those children at (the) border who can't find their parents and the parents who can't find their children. It is not kind or fast for them and there are no promises of coming back soon. I feel so helpless beyond writing and calling and I feel myself being drawn toward despair one minute and all out anarchy the next. There's been this terrible subtle process where I've become gradually overwhelmed even as I am realizing that, yes, this is truly evil if the word means anything at all, and yes, it's being done by my country and my tax dollars. Please everyone write and please call and please, please vote as soon and as often as you can.”

On this Sunday I lift up all the children of the world. Maybe Jesus had in mind children of all ages. If we open the book we call the Bible we cannot look away from the evil which is perpetrated on many people even as we sing to Jesus this day.

(I took the two photographs of people who gathered March 28, 2015 to stand with the Dreamers who were trying to finish their educations and get a job in this country. This is July 14, 2019 and the status of the Dreamers is still in limbo.)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Jerry Moye Remembered

Dr. Jerry Moye

There’s no other place I would rather be today then with you all—the beloved community. But previous commitments I could not change have kept Gayle and me away. But I told Ruth since I can’t come—would you like me to send you the remarks I would have made and have someone with a very deep bass voice(like me, of course) to read what I send. She said yes.

And so here goes. One reason I would like to be there with the family and with you is because Jerry Moye wrote a poem about me when I turned sixty. And nobody else has ever written a poem about me. A friend calligraphed the piece and it hangs on my wall by my desk. And then just a year ago Ruth and Jerry visited us in Clemson and I moaned about being 82. He said: “I’ll write another poem for you and one for Gayle too.” So when he got back to Hong Kong he sent me these two poems. And nobody else has done this.I don’t know why some of you out there did not write poems about your then-Pastor but that is another topic.

We come to celebrate the splendid life of Jerry Moye. And I don’t know a better way to frame what I want to say than those beautiful words of Mary Oliver. She said: “When death comes I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

And if we were to write an epitaph to this man who loved literature and fine words—I don’t know a better tribute. “I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

Jerry Moye did not visit us—he moved in and he stayed. He was no visitor. Born in Illinois—went to school there. And went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and stayed there, finishing this undergraduate degree and then not one but two Master’s. You see he really did move in.

I don’t know when his heart was strangely warmed but it took him to Louisville Seminary where he stayed until he finished his Doctorate at that then-fine school. He was there seven years. 

He married dear Ruth. And from that marriage there came Laura and Nathan and much later twin grandchildren.

I don’t know when his heart was strangely warmed a second time but he and Ruth felt the call to missions. And they plowed twenty years of their life in Hong Kong. I would not say they were just visitors there. And you and I know that not all missionaries would ever be more than visitors. He loved his work there. And maybe it was in a foreign country that he began to see a larger world. A world not only of theology which he loved but art and music and a vision which encompassed a large church so large no one could number all those in the circle. All denominations. Maybe all cultures. 

Somewhere he discovered the medieval saints and they taught him contemplation and reflection and holiness. Saints like Lady Julian of Norwich and Saint Francis and a whole lot of others stretched him until his heart was larger and his vision far-reaching. No visitor could duo such a thing.

He wrote one book called Praying With the  Saints. And he taught us about the contemplative life and paying attention. Which is one of the commandments that most of us have neglected. Prayer became for Jerry not just something you do—but something you live and something that kept him going. Moving to a strange culture must have been hard—and there must have been hard days when he and Ruth looked back to the home they had left and longed to see children and family and friends. Like most missionaries. But he was no visitor in Hong Kong. He taughtstudents and he preached and thought and prayed. He knew deep in his heart that this Lord Jesus whom he followed really did have the whole world in his scarred hands. 

He and Ruth came back to  America after those 20 years in China. But that was a hard time as most missionaries know. Not quite fitting in. Not quite finding their place—he and Ruth. But they did teach for a while at Miles College knowing that this gospel even in a white culture included black folks in Alabama. 

So after six years Jerry and Ruth packed up their bags and moved back to Hong Kong. Not visitors—the people there would tell you. He preached and loved and taught and wrote. And he was stretched yet again to a largeness and a wonder that he found all around him.

After 77 years his heart just gave out. And in the hospital surrounded with Ruth and Laura and Nathan and Chinese folks that just came and stayed he just slipped away. And Jerry left us for yet another move. To a clean well-lighted place where there would be reconciliation not only with family members but maybe Lady Julian and Saint Francis and who knows who else. A land where he would find the old Baptists were right after all—a land fairer than day.

Dear Jerry you really were a wonder. Never, ever just visiting but moving in and moving and moving in. Touching so many and gently making a difference in the lives of a great many of us. 

I look up from this writing and I see his kind words. He ended his poem to me like this: “Dear friend who takes God’s harness as his own, We see you shaped by Him you call the Christ.” Those words always embarrassed me—but Jerry, they fit you to a tee.

He used the word Selah a lot in his little book. We are not sure exactly what that term means but it seems to mean a pause in music and writing. And sometimes in the musical score Selah means the conductor slows down the even flow of the music and the cymbals bring their mighty clash. 

Jerry we don’t have cymbals here today. But we do rejoice that once upon a time Dr. Jerry Moye lived among us. He didn’t just visit this place but he moved in and stayed faithfully to the very end. 

He loved the Catholic traditions. And so I end with those words that come from the Roman Catholic Prayer for the Dead.

“Into paradise may the angels lead dear Jerry; at his coming may the martyrs take him up into eternal rest, and may the chorus of angels lead him to that holy city, and the place of perpetual light.”

Selah

(Ruth wanted me to speak ar Jerry's Memorial Service. But I had another commitment July 7th I could not break. So I sent these words for someone to read at the Memorial Service. It was held at the church Jerry and Ruth dearly loved. The Baptist Church of the Covenant, Birmingham, Alabama.)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

It's July 7th and I am still Thinking About the 4th

photo by John / flickr
"If my people who are called by my name..." 

Maybe I should have preached a July 4th sermon last Sunday. But sometimes we preachers get mixed up on the calendar and so even though our 243rd birthday as a country is over—I think it is time for all of us to look at where we are and where we ought to go. The prophet Micah helps me here.

Micah lived at a tough time in his nation’s history. He looked out and he really wanted to turn away. But his people were confused and scared and bumping into each other and not knowing exactly what was a happening and where they ought to go. 

Last week we had two nights when across the stage stood all the Democratic candidates for President. How many—I forget over twenty. But they were all asked what to do to make this country strong and sure. Their list was long and varied. Good and weird.

 I’m not going to choose sides one way or the other folks. This is not why you came to church. And I’m not supposed to stand up here and tell you who to vote for. That’s left up to you. But I will say that we are in a mess. We are a divided people. We find it hard to talk to the other side. Reading between the lines I think Micah must have had the same concerns a lot of us do. 

So—are we just supposed to think about our little half-acre and make sure our kids don’t fall off the cliff and maybe take care of our grandparents and go fishing or shopping once in a while. Or maybe here talk about how to pray and how to get along with our neighbors next door and not kill each other off in church. Or better yet—just crucify some preacher. Maybe our job is to just figure out how to fill these empty seats.

Can we simply talk about the personal and the private when the house is on fire?  And Micah says: No. No. No. And then he says what if we just come to church faithfully and bring some burnt offerings and a year-old calf. If not that, he said, maybe we’ll corral in a thousand rams or ten thousand rivers of oil. He was being sarcastic of course.

Our homework is the same as Micah’s: Do justice love mercy and walk humbly with our God. This is how we get through a hard time. This what real community is all about. This is what it means to help and enable everyone and not just the chosen few. 

Our homework: Do justice. This word flows out of the character of God. God is just. God is fair. God is judge—which means he will set right what is wrong. Justice is a practical word. It concerns our daily life. How we treat our friends and enemies alike. Remember the words of our Constitution: Justice for all. Whatever happened to that dream?

photo by derek d. / flickr

The only time I heard the great Martin Luther King speak he ended his sermon with: “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”And when I stood up to leave that day—I wanted to do something.

But I didn’t realize that day that to do justice was a hard thing. It means more than personal morality. It means to speak to systems. Systems? Yes. Justice touches homelessness and poverty and hunger and inadequate medical care and brown-skinned men and women and little children behind cages. Most of them only wanted to flee poverty and find a job that pays enough money to live on,  raise their kids in safety maybe send a little back home. 

Justice means child labor laws. A woman that lived up the street from us where I grew up could not read or write. She started working in the mill when she was ten years old. We changed that finally. Justice means minimum wages at least and breakfast for kids who come to school hungry every single day. And to do justice maybe means giving every child in a title one school at Christmas a new coat and a new pair of shoes. One church around here does that every year.

Several years ago I spent a year as Interim in a big fat Baptist church. And there was a men’s Sunday School class that decided to give about fifty or more children who would have no Christmas a hundred dollars to spend on themselves. One old arch conservative man in the class thought that was the dumbest thing he ever heard.  But one Saturday morning they fed the kids breakfast and gave each one a hundred dollars and got the local Wal Mart to open early and let nobody in but these children and members of the Sunday School class. I went with a little black girl and she came up to me and said, “Could I take some of this money and buy my Daddy a coat.” And that old man who muttered about this project was there following a little girl around. And he kept tabs on that little girl after that Saturday morning and got to know her needed and her family and he followed her through school—and guess what this crotchety old man who did not believe in hand-outs did? He sent this same little girl all the way through college. 

Now Providence you may not be able to do that but what would it mean for you here to do justice in this community?

A second part of our homework is: to love mercy. Some of the meanest people I have ever met were church people who never heard of mercy. One translation says the word mercy means kindness. 

photo by Niez Ain Latif / flickr 

This word, too flows out of the heart of God. And if we could ever get our hearts around this word mercy or kindness it would mean that God really does love all the little children  of the world. Red, yellow, black and white—reckon it means immigrants too?

In the last church I served there was a  woman who had a son with AIDS and she dragged him to church. It was a  time when we were all scared of AIDS and thought we could catch it. Some of our people would look at him and you could tell how they felt. Well, the young man died and we had his funeral. And there was no judgment in that service. And there was couple of little blue-haired ladies that were there crying with the mother. And sitting our there in that funeral home were some gay men that came to the funeral. And some of them said: “This is a Baptist church?” And a few of them started coming to church. Some of them even joined. And our biggest givers—two doctors—came into my office and said’ “We’re leaving this is going to become a gay church.”  And I told them we were just going to continue to be a church—a church that welcomed everybody. But of course this sent ripples through the church. And some Sundays I got scared and wondered if maybe we would become a gay church. It didn’t happen. I just said we’ll open these doors and we are not going to turn anybody away. And some of those gay people changed me. I heard their stories. Of having parents that would not let them go back home. Of parents who said ”You can come home Christmas but you can’t bring your partner.” Some told me that all their li es they thought the church hated them and would never accept them. But that church did. And I left in 2000—and you know what they have gays—quite a few but it never did become a gay church. 

And some days I would remember what Dr. King had said years before: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” And when I heard that I felt like I had to leave there and do something. And I am anything but a saint—I mean that. But I have tried with whomever I meet—I have tried to do justice. And folks, that is everybody’s homework.

But there is one more thing. We have to walk humbly with our God. 

And I believe to walk humbly with our God means we have to follow his steps. We have to

photo by emmistitch / flickr

do something. Our job is to teach the children. Help people learn to pray. Help them understand the Bible means that we can can become part of the story. Like that story of the Good Samaritan. Like the parable of the talents. Like that story of the prodigal son. What are we gonna do?

Dean Snyder told the story of working in an emergency shelter in an inner city church. He said one day Nora came and stayed with them several days. Her family had kicked her out. She was covered in tattoos. She walked around in too tight pants and kept wearing a see-through blouse. She wasn’t a day over sixteen. And she chain-smoked and talked too loud and flirted with the men and was street-smart and foul mouthed. 

One afternoon Snyder said he was a alone in the kitchen and she came in and sat down. She was quiet for a long time and then she said. “I been meaning to ask you something. I heard a priest say one time that Jesus loves everybody. Even prostitutes. Is that so?” He said he was tempted to tell her that God loves the sinner but not the sin. But he didn’t say that. He just answered her question: “Does God love everybody? Even prostitutes?” and he nodded and said: “Yes.” And then the dam broke and Nora cried and cried and cried. And he said finally he knew she was crying happy tears not sad tears.

We are to love mercy and do justice and walk humbly with our God. And it hardly matters if we are Democrats or Republicans or Independents. We have to walk the walk and we have to talk the talk after that. Reckon that would make this a better country for everybody? I hope so. I know it will make us better Christians.

photo by Adam Skowronski / flickr

(This sermon was preached at the Providence Presbyterian Church, Powdersville, SC, July 7, 2019)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

My Thoughts on this July 4th

It’s a strange July 4th I think. The President as usual has captured the headlines. You have to give him credit he knows how to demand the spotlight. Today it’s about tanks and all the nailing and painting around the platforms so that the President can stand front and center surrounded by reluctant Generals and Cabinet members—they better be there—and, of course family members and then big, big donors sitting almost close enough too touch the hem of his garments. And marching in the heat are all those fine soldiers and others that serve us. They would rather be  celebrating with their families—but no. We jump when the President growls out his orders. Nobody knows how much this extravaganza will cost but the price will be embarrassing and incredible. 

Meanwhile this July 4th symbol will not be this ghastly parade in Washington but down there on the border locked behind cages. This is America 2019. Poor, desperate folk who traveled thousands of miles just to find freedom and peace and a chance to start over again. And this is America? Those who have been there report horrific conditions. Some have died—and more will die. Many are sick and hungry and just afraid. Sleeping on the cold ground and wondering. wondering. I wish some of them could stand at a microphone in Washington tonight and tell us how it feels to have finally crossed the river and arrived here. Mr. Trump is actually proposing we jack up the fees for those seeking asylum. 

And so here we have two pictures. Flags and planes and dragging out the finest military in the world and then beside them is this other picture. Cages. Fear. Sadness. 

Something is wrong when those in charge have never even asked what if we took all that money that we are spending on Mr. Trump’s folly today and sent it down to Texas or Florida where we are told there is just not enough money or resources to provide for all the needs of those who come here. Maybe we should add a third picture. The picture of that father dead in the water with his little dead girl with her arm around his neck. This too is part of America 2019. Will we ever care enough to change this picture?

I pray today for our country. God knows I love the United States. But the “we, the people”…”we hold these truths…” all…”mutually pledge…”our”. seems to be lost in the shuffle of power and greed and blatant insensitivity. 

This week we buried one of the heroes of 9/11. Luis G. Alvarez, once a Cuban, but a citizen of this country. He left Havana and moved his family to Queens seeking a better life for them. Mr. Alvarez served on the Police force for 20 years. He must have loved this place. This man worked tirelessly like many others after the Towers fell. Searching for survivors. Looking for the remains of those no longer here. Trying to help. He died at 54 of cancer which he believed came from his work among the ruins of the World Trade Center. Maybe this man is a symbol of what we want for all that knock on our doors. 

The old YMCA question we still have to answer. “When will we get back to us?” On this July 4th these are some of the things that run through my head.

Freedom will not come

Today, this year

Nor ever

Through compromise and fear…

Freedom

 Is a strong seed

Planted

In a great need.

I live here to. 

I want freedom

Just as you.”

  —Langston Hughes

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com