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DJ  Vogel's avatar

Faith and courage are easiest on Sundays in church, harder on Tuesday when you witness armed people in tactical gear assaulting and abducting your neighbor’s husband as he returns home from work.

Mr. Trump’s private militia (ICE) never phones ahead, never allows us time to steel ourselves and plan our individual or group method of confrontation. Therefore, it’s important that we each have a simple plan, as an individual or a group. (The American Pamphleteer on Substack, and state or national ACLU’s provide information regarding the victim’s rights, your rights, and what information you can legally demand from the perpetrators.) The plan should include calling 911 to report an assault and abduction in progress, recording the perpetrators, their vehicles, and license plates.

How do we find our courage in the midst of this Administration’s violent, dehumanizing, and threatening kabuki dance against our siblings, when our adrenaline is surging? We turn to our faith. Center on the Holy Spirit. When we are confronted with injustice or cruelty, acknowledging the Holy Spirit’s presence can ground and calm us, help us focus on the challenge confronting us. I see faith as a conduit to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit as the source of courage and trust. I believe that, with the Spirit, no one is alone when confronting wrong or evil committed against another human being.

Every evening, I pray that each of us is able to keep our faith (whatever form that faith takes) and the strength of the Holy Spirit present in our hearts and, in our minds, a rough plan to follow should we encounter illegal/immoral ICE activity as we go through our daily routines in this brave new world. God bless us and keep us all safe.

Rev, Trimble is right. Today and going forward we are called to engage in moral action, we are called to provide sanctuary, we are called to defuse cooperation with unjust laws. We are being called to resist.

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Cress Forester's avatar

Such sadness is here, such terrible grief, as well as great fear. Thank you for this post. As I seek balance for response rather than reaction, I'm re-reading "Gandhi on Non-violence, a selection edited and introduced by Thomas Merton". Also Barbara Deming's "prisons that could not hold" and Pam McAllister's "you can't kill the spirit" (part of the Barbara Deming memorial series). They give accounts of people working non-violently, effectively, withstanding and bearing the suffering that often comes with that. And always working to hold to the truth, not falling into hatred but striving to be consistently fair and just: loving. It does call for tremendous fortitude and cannot be done alone. We need one another for this in so many mundane as well as spiritual ways.

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