Here we are at the First Sunday of Lent. The word Lent is derived from the Old English lentchen, meaning springtime, ironic as we in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast face yet another snowstorm. In the early morning we don’t see signs of it yet, but right now the storm we expect is moving up the coast. Perhaps a good time to reflect on events that didn’t catch our attention when they first occurred, like Secretary of State Mark Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference.
Most of us usually don’t pay attention to such events, but we should because his words reflect a worldview that is disturbing. America and Europe are bound together, he said, by a common culture, based on Christian faith and values, excluding other faiths and peoples, which exploded into the violent anti-Semitism of the Third Reich.
Railing against “mass migration,” in a polite way, of course, his speech reflects the ideological basis of an us and them mentality, ignoring the fact that the migrants who have entered our Nation from Central America are hardly the “godless communists” he decried in his speech, but inheritors of those same Western Christian values he claims to uphold. Isn’t living true Christian values mean sharing our prosperity with the poor? Evidently not, for Rubio eliminated USAID and other foreign aid programs.
Prayer for the Day
Deliver us, O God, from our deceptive and self-indulgent lifestyles,
For we really don’t want to have to change our ways’
Save us, O Lord, from our pride of who we say we are,
But only just enough so we can still claim we know it all.
For you, O God, see past our self-deceptions and our fears,
Forgiving us before the words are even out of our mouths,
In the name of the One who is the symbol of your forgiveness,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
What do I think of Western Civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.
Mahatma Gandhi, peacemaker against British colonialism (1869-1948)
The secret of success is to realize that the crisis on our planet is much more than just deciding what to do with your own life, and if the system under which we live the structure of Western civilization begins to collapse because of our selfishness and greed, then it will make no difference whether you have $1 million dollars when the crash comes of just $1.00. The only work that will bring any good to any of us is the work of contributing to the healing of the world.
Marianne Williamson, American author, speaker, activist
If you remove the yoke from among you,
The pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
If you offer your food to the hungry,
And satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
Then your light shall rise in the darkness
And your gloom be like the noonday.
Isaiah 58: 9b-10