Living with Turmoil

By Fr Michael Plekon

In the past week we saw videoclips of interaction between ICE officer Jonathan Ross and a woman in a car, Renee Good. Within  seconds she was dead from the multiple shots he fired point blank at her. The media is full of rage and condemnation of this lethal force by a federal agent with little apparent cause. As well there are claims that federal agents have complete immunity, can act however they chose with impunity. They are above the law because they are carrying out the administration’s policies of arresting and deporting illegal aliens and, so it now appears, combatting opposition to these policies in the form of protest.



I don’t intend to go further with this tragic case. I do ask you, as I ask myself, how are we to live in a country that seems to be growing even more angry and suspicious of each other, and disdainful of those with whom we disagree. Protests on the Christmas Circle are peaceful. Prayers are lifted in our churches about all of this. There are groups who discuss how best to act within the law to make our demands for justice known to those who represent us at the county, state and federal levels.  We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19, someone I have written about here in this paper.

Dr. King was a Baptist pastor as well as a social reformer and educator. He knew Ghandi and the way of non-violent protest. He understood America to be made up of a diversity of peoples, religions, cultures and political points of view. While he was passionate in opposing the racism that eventually killed him, he said that his work was not only for African Americans who descended from slaves but for all Americans, indeed, all people. So wide was his humanity, as wide as the mercy of the God he preached and followed.

To live with the mess that is our country and world at present, we must have things to stand up for. Here we must question ourselves about what in fact these are. Are we only feeling anger and not understanding? Are we able to look beyond the miseries of the moment to live for ourselves, our children, grandchildren and those yet to be born? Do we see that our country, soon to celebrate its 250th birthday, has represented what is just, good and beautiful—in two world wars and their aftermath, through the Great Depression, even after a bloody Civil War. 

As you see, I am after what is good, true and beautiful here. While we will be able to vote in November, keep informed and protest, and yes, pray, is there more we can do? In my congregation, we talk about standing up for God’s ways and doing what God does. Even if you edit God out of this, I don’t think you’d reject-- being generous with those in need, trying to heal conflict and hurt, forgiving rather than holding a grudge, listening rather than refusing to hear another or shouting them down. Dr. King embodied these ways of being, as did Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day and Rabbi Heschel, to name a few. Would this not add to justice and peace, despite the turmoil?