Every morning I begin the day with a look at my phone--the New York Times, the Guardian and Substack. Some of my Substack favorites are about nature, poems, watercolors, attention to the minute like a salamander or frog that lives happily on someone's front porch or daisies in a meadow (like mine).
But I also get stuck in the news: the wanton destruction of Ukraine and Gaza, the cruelty of cutting food for the hungry, medical research for the chronically ill, educational budgets for our school children, Medicaid for the deserving poor . . . the list is long. When I think it can't get worse, it does. Like the $4 million jet from Qatar or the attempt to exclude international students from Harvard. (full disclosure: My grandson is an international student at St. Andrews, Scotland.) Or maybe the worst, some movie-inspired parade of military might on Trump's birthday. We've all seen those in old black and white Nazi propaganda clips.
Many are saying that America isn't immune from cruelty, recalling Indigenous genocide (full disclosure again: we just visited the Taos Pueblo, what remains of the sovereign nation of the Tiwa of New Mexico); the cruelty of slave holders; the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during the second World War. Three groups that looked different from the whites with the guns or whips and power. But it does seem simplistic to conclude that this administration loves cruelty for its own sake, as sadists do. After all, what our president seems to love more than anything is gold and wealth, for himself and his friends. Think of the golden escalator at Trump Tower (more disclosure: we've ridden that thing) leading inexorably to the glorified new Air Force One from Qatar (no doubt embedded with golden listening devices).
No, as analysts are noting, the demonization of immigrants, gay adults, trans youth, women who need abortions, Medicaid recipients, international students who might support Palestine, protesters, grant recipients, NPR and PBS (I loved Downton Abbey!), scientists, the judiciary, is not for its own sake but rather the playbook for fascism, dictatorship and white supremacy. We live in a hard time.
As a Christian, many wonder, what can we expect from our churches? In a different time, Martin Luther King Jr said, "The church must be reminded once again that it is not to be the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state." Surely this is true. There is no conscience in this administration and its supporters. No empathy. No kindness. To speak up is a duty; to waffle or remain silent, a sin.
After the new Pope Leo XIV (Chicago native) appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's in Rome, a writer for the New York Times (David French, an evangelical from the rural South) noted: Trump is no longer the most important American in the world. We have an American of malice and an American of love and compassion. French said, "Christianity is an ancient faith, one that has endured through rulers and regimes far more ignorant and brutal than anything we've ever confronted in the United States."
I find hope in this, that our faith will help us endure--not passively but in active protest--and that long after Trump is gone from public life, Pope Leo will be preaching the Gospel that has sustained us for over 2,000 years.
We have two visions and only one is sustainable. The Bible says in Micah 6-8, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your god?"
There will be protests all over America on June 14, easy to find under No Kings, Mass Protest, June 14, 2025. I signed up for our local one. It is something we can do, a showing of conscience. For what is required of us but to do justice.
In peace, Nina Naomi
