To Teachers Who Inspire Us: Thank You. THANK YOU!!!!

“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” –William Butler Yeats

I am who I am, in large part, because of the teachers I’ve had in this life.

We are who we are because someone took the time to instruct us in the ways of knowledge and in the ways of living.

Think of it. Good teachers make us soar. Good teachers remind us that we are so much more than we might imagine at any given moment, especially in times of doubt and insecurity. Good teachers bring out gifts and talents we might not have known we possessed.

Yes…the best teachers stay with us, long after we’ve left their classrooms.

So, I’m grateful for Professor Beck in graduate school, he of the sonorous voice and imposing countenance, teacher of Old Testament for more than thirty years when I met him. He gave me the confidence to believe I could be a pastor and serve God’s people. Mr. Mehegan, an Irishman with a wicked wit, taught political science to me in the 10^th grade. He lit a flame within my heart for public service, gave me passion for understanding how government works. That when it works well, the people thrive. When the government works poorly, it can crush a nation’s soul.

I’ll never forget Sister Anne in parochial grade school…well, I can’t really remember what she taught me. But her simple kindness and patience made me feel safe. She accepted me for me. Even when I insisted on coloring outside of the lines. Even when I tried to draw true to life illustrations of Adam and Eve…she always exuded God’s grace and care.

Who are the teachers that still go with you today? Whose voices still echo in your memory? Whose lessons still continue to inspire you?

This is the season that we celebrate teaching and education, as our children and teens and young adults graduate, move up, move on, some with sheepskins in hand, ready to take on the world.  Ready to discover who God made them to be. But to get there? They needed dedicated teachers.

Maybe the greatest gift of teaching and learning is that it never has to stop.  If we look, if we listen, if we learn, we’ll find teachers to teach us right into the days of growing older, teachers so good that they can teach an old dog, even teach this old dog, new tricks.

At the age of 50 I joined a local adult choir here in eastern Massachusetts, having never, ever sung in a formal or organized group. You see, I was scared to warble out any notes in public. I feared I’d be way off key. That I’d drive away my fellow basses and baritones. But I was determined to sing and know the joy of making music in community. Fourteen years later, choir is still one of the most life-giving and fun parts of my life. Because of my fellow choristers, yes.

But also because of another great teacher I need to thank.

Our choir’s conductor, Ethan, makes me want to sing, to sing well, to sing with energy, and to sing my heart out.  He’s the kind of teacher that brings out the best in all of the people he instructs.  He challenges us to not just sing the easy or obvious stuff, but to also sing the tough stuff too, the songs that confound us but ultimately make our notes soar, maybe even all the way up to heaven. 

In my faith tradition, Jesus is known by many names and titles but the one I affirm and believe the most is that of “Rabboni;” rabbi in Hebrew, meaning teacher.  Yes, teachers, the ones we never ever forget, they always somehow find a way to lift us up, to inspire us to be so much more than we might think possible. Great teachers somehow embody the transcendent.   

So, in the days ahead, let’s all thank the teachers in our lives, the ones past and present.  We are who we are this day because they taught us the way.    

Thank you Ethan. Thank you to all of the teachers in my life.

I am who I am because of you.

(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

     

Is Nothing Sacred? In These Strange Times, Who Knows?

“We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.” 

 -- New York State Catholic Conference of Bishops

Is nothing sacred?

One of the distinctions theology and religion draws in viewing the world is between the sacred and the profane. Between that which is holy and beautiful and divine and that which is base, indecent, and disrespectful.  When we try our best to live in the presence of the sacred, we recognize the inherent worth of all that is made by God.

To live aware of the sacred teaches humans to move through this life honoring the dignity of all, declaring that all humans matter, in large part, because each of us is created in the image of God. But to live aware of or even in the thrall of the profane teaches humans to, instead, move through this life uncaring, even mocking humans and the human condition. Living within a profane worldview encourages humans to believe that some children of God are in fact, unworthy, less than, and therefore easy to treat with contempt, disrespect, and even hatred.

The sacred or the profane? It’s an ethical and spiritual choice we make every day. Will we choose to look up at the stars in the heavens with awe or instead, will we spend our time down in the mud on the earth, viewing life with cynical derision?  Mocking even, that which is clearly holy and sacred?

When the President chose recently to post an AI generated image of himself as if he were the pope and did so within days of Pope Francis’ death, it made me think, “Now that’s profane.” But not really surprising, given that when asked by a reporter who he thought should be the new pope, he, of course, replied, “Me.”

Funny, huh? A laugh riot!

Of course, folks in the President’s camp were quick to defend him, rationalizing his mean-spirited behavior and middle school humor by essentially saying, “Hey—can’t you take a joke? He was only kidding.” But the damage was already done and the “Insulter in Chief” had once again demonstrated that either he is completely tone deaf and lacks any mercy when it comes to the feelings of other people, institutions, and beliefs or (and this is even scarier), he actually believes that he would make a good pope.

As a person of faith, as one who grew up in the Roman Catholic tradition, I get why so many Catholics were hurt and insulted by this mocking of a holy office and in a larger sense, of a holy faith and people.  Though I left the Catholic Church for another faith tradition many years ago, I remember still, how much the pope was and still is held in high esteem and love by his followers.  How that office of Saint Peter, in place on earth for more than 2,000 years, is held as sacred, and not just by Catholics but by millions of other Christians, millions in other faiths, even by many of no faith.

And yet, one who wields more power, perhaps, than almost any other secular or religious office on earth…that person intentionally chose to put down, to deride, and to ridicule someone who embodies for so many, goodness, and the spirit of God on earth. And that just breaks my heart, so disappoints me. I’m sad not just for my Catholic friends and family members, but for any of us who hope and expect so much more out of the President of the United States.  And that goes for whoever sits in the Oval Office: Democrat or Republican, Catholic or Protestant or Jew or Muslim. You see, some of us who love our country still actually believe in the human virtues of simple decency, honor, respect, and care.  And we expect our leaders to embody these essential moral ideals for living.

But I guess that is just too much for us to hope for in these strange days that we are living in. Days when the line between the sacred and the profane seems to be up for grabs, perhaps even being erased, removed, or obliterated, and all for a bad joke.  

Is nothing sacred?                

The sacred still matters in this world. I believe with all my heart that there are still sacred ideas, sacred beliefs, and sacred institutions that try their best to reflect the goodness of God on earth, like the pope just deceased, Francis, and the newly elected, Pope Leo. Religion does not always succeed as it should and yet, I thank God, that faith keeps trying to keep the faith. And people keep trying to respect the sacred.

Do not mock us, Mr. President. Do not mock us.

(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

 

 

 

   

    

       

In Life's Marathon, Always Cheer For Your Fellow Runners!

“Therefore…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us….” –Hebrews 12:1

It’s my new April tradition, a personal way for me to mark the unofficial start of spring in this part of God’s Creation. On Patriots Day in the morning, I mount my bicycle that’s sat so forlorn in the garage all winter, clip in, and then pedal my way to Route 135 in Natick so I can watch and cheer on runners in the Boston Marathon.  This year it was my very first ride of the season and my very first ride on the new hip I received last October.  No matter what my physical condition is each April, after all those snowy and cold days, I always wonder and worry if my body still works. If I can still make it up that first hill out of Sherborn and into Natick. 

But climb and conquer it I must, because I had a job to do along with tens of thousands of other spectators: to cheer on people we’d never met and may never, ever see again.  To applaud with joy as strangers ran by, ordinary folks who did something extraordinary. They ran 26.2 miles, and almost all of them were also running to raise funds for charity.

They ran for Boston Medical Center and care for the poor and indigent. For the Dana Farber Institute, so that no one gets turned away from world class cancer care.  Folks ran for the Women’s Lunch Place, a Boston shelter dedicated to helping women experiencing homelessness, hunger, and poverty.  Two members of the church I serve, Kevin and his daughter Emily, ran for a respite center and a group that empowers girls in sports. Thousands of women and men, seniors, and teens, of all colors, all backgrounds, ran for others, through the sleepy suburbs of Metrowest to the blacktop avenues of downtown in the city.  Last year runners raised $71.9 million for charity.

They deserved to be lauded, to be applauded, to be encouraged as they took some 55,000 steps and strides on their way to the finish line.  And I think all the folks who lined the route last Monday and cheered loud, cheered until they were hoarse (those women in the “scream tunnel” by Wellesley College!); they deserve a pat on the back too.  What kind of people show up to encourage total strangers, anonymous, unknown neighbors? What kind of people hand out extra waters, and even beer, and play music for the runners, hold up handmade signs, and shout out, “You can do it! GO!”?         

I’m biased but the people who did such things are, I think, just good people, doing what they could in their own small ways, to bring some encouragement, some hope, and some support into this rough and tumble world.  They were being kind, something that can seem so countercultural these days when we are being led by a person in the Oval Office who seems intent on being as mean, as nasty, as vengeful, and as cruel as he possibly can be, while his supporters cheer him on as he tears down people and values and institutions with glee.  That’s the complete opposite of what happened at this past Monday’s marathon.   

It doesn’t take a religious scholar or theologian to know that the essence of all faiths, the best versions of religion, always puts love and respect at the forefront of faith in practice.  Last time I checked the Ten Commandments there was no “Thou shalt be a jerk, especially to the hurting and innocent” or “Thou shalt work to humiliate anyone you perceive as an opponent.”  It may feel like in these strange and frightening times we are living in, that some folks are actually trying to change moral law or just ignore it, and that is happening.  But there are still some of us who remember and try our best to practice, in humility, the golden rule taught to us in houses of faith and around the dinner table.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  And for good measure, this as well:  love God, love neighbor, and love yourself. Will the world change overnight because a bunch of Bostonians and Bay Staters took the time to cheer on those crazy folks who actually had the stamina and will to run 26.2 miles? Probably not.

But I think it is a good start to remembering that when we are a nation and people of mutual care and encouragement, we always cheer one another on. We each try our best to live good lives in the deepest sense. And that best life, at least for me, always involves living for others, and not just self alone.

May our God of perseverance give us the commitment to run the race before us and to run with kindness and compassion. That is a marathon I’d love to run!       

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

Have They No Shame? Leadership and Amorality.

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.   --Jeremiah 6:14-15

It’s one of the most human and instinctive emotional responses to external stimuli.  To blush. Blushing. That’s when our cheeks turn red, when we feel ourselves flushed with warmth, when we are embarrassed by or feeling shame about something that we have done or not done. Some realization that we are wrong or made a mistake or just screwed up and so when we blush, it is our bodies way of saying, “We went too far.  We crossed the line.  We were wrong.”

Years ago, from the church pulpit one Sunday morning, I decided to make a joke about the wedding I’d officiated at the day before, to get some laughs by telling worshippers about how the wedding party was so late to the altar. But just when I’d finished my storytelling I looked down into the congregation and saw, sitting right in the pews, the newly married couple I’d just mocked. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more embarrassed and ashamed at what I’d done with my cutting words and self-serving joke making.  

And boy, did I blush.

I felt deep shame about my cheap shot. I knew immediately after the words left my mouth that I had done wrong and been hurtful to another. At coffee hour after worship, I apologized profusely to the couple and to their credit, they were gracious and kind in their forgiveness.

What a jerk I was!

But what happens when humans “do not even know how to blush,” in the words of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah? He was writing about government leaders of his day, who were bringing great suffering down upon the people by their actions, but those same leaders were completely unashamed of what they did. They did not give a damn about the pain and hurt that they caused.  They knew their actions were wrong. Yet they were so arrogant, so uncaring, so drunk with power, and so blind to the effects that their actions had upon the people, that shame was just not in their emotional vocabulary.

And certainly not blushing.

In the eleven weeks since our current President took office, it is head spinning, and overwhelming to think about all of the societal and democratic norms he has either ignored or destroyed. With strokes of his pen, he’s laid off tens of thousands of federal workers, with no clear plan, and no compassion for these folks, many of whom have given their lives to public service.  He’s threatened judges and his billionaire buddy Tommy Tesla actually posted personal information about the families of those judges online. The president jokingly (or maybe not jokingly) talks about running for a third term even though this is clearly unconstitutional. And now the president’s tariffs are singlehandedly threatening to crash the economy.

I could go on….

Yet the truth that really scares me the most about this man and the minions and sycophants he’s surrounded himself with, is that they all seemingly do know how to blush. They seem to be completely unashamed of the chaos they create, the people they hurt, the immigrants they deport without due process, the families they split apart, or the government programs they lay waste to.

No shame. No embarrassment. No blushing. None.

You see to blush, you actually need to be centered in some type of moral world view, to be led by an inner moral compass, to embrace and practice values that align with what is communally understood as good and right and true. You have to have a sense of decency in how you treat others. But if you are immoral or amoral, if naked power is more important to you than service to the nation, if your only guiding principle is to do whatever it takes to petulantly punish your enemies, if you believe that you are ALWAYS right, then of course you do not feel shame or blush.

You are without shame. 

To seek to believe in and practice a faith in God means the opposite.  To practice what we preach, folks of faith try our best to live out the values of our faith, in my faith what I’d call “Jesus” values.  Be humble. Care first for the most vulnerable and innocent and powerless.  Be gracious towards your enemies and work with them for the common good.  Recognize that wealth might buy you everything on earth, but it will never get you into heaven.  The best life is about putting others, and not yourself, at the center of everything. Love your neighbor. Treat your neighbor as you want to be treated. 

There’s lots more to this moral code but the point is that it is actually a code. A philosophically coherent way of life. A way of understanding who we are supposed to be in this God-given life and how we are supposed to treat others. And when you break this code or fall short (which we all do) we may blush, knowing what we have done is wrong. And that’s ok.

But some public “servants” right now, the people we actually entrust to care for our country and we the people? Those “leaders?” They do not even know how to blush.

And that is terrifying.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

        

 

When Dissent Is a Crime No One Is Safe From Big Brother

"But always…there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always…there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face…."          --“1984” by George Orwell

At first I could not bring myself to watch the video of Tufts University PhD student Rumeya Ozturk being arrested by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on a neighborhood Somerville street, in the late afternoon, of Tuesday, March 25^th.  Unbeknownst to those ICE officers, the shocking encounter was captured in all its frightening reality by a nearby doorbell camera.

I just could not view images of someone being snatched off the street and then quickly taken away, for imprisonment. With no courtroom hearing to state her case. No chance to consult a lawyer or talk to a judge.  Not even a merciful moment to say goodbye to her friends.

But finally, I did watch, and it made me sick to my stomach. Made me wonder if what I was viewing was from present day America, or perhaps Germany in 1933, or Moscow or Beijing in 2025. Places and times where folks were and are regularly picked up off the street and spirited away, maybe never to be heard from again.  

In the video, Ozturk walks down the street on her way to share a meal with fellow Muslim friends, who are meeting to break their daylong fast. Ramadan is the Islamic holy month when devout Muslims fast from sunup to sundown as a religious practice, to deepen their connection to God.  But Ozturk’s journey was quickly interrupted by six ICE agents who swooped down, surrounded her, in their dark clothes and mask clad faces, and then handcuffed her and lead her away, as her cries of protest and fear rang out.

It all happened in less than one minute. Ozturk is a Turkish national who is in the United States legally with an F-1 student visa. Within hours she was flown to a detention center in southern Louisiana. Her “crime”?

At first that was not clear. ICE stonewalled all inquiries. Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar, is at Tufts studying psychology and working on her doctoral dissertation. She was one of four co-signers of a student newspaper opinion piece in early March 2024 that advocates for the university to divest from investments and actions that benefit Israel and its war against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Finally, Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained the rationale behind the arrest of Ozturk and scores of other student foreign nationals. “If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus….Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa."

It’s ironic to note Rubio’s family fled an authoritarian Cuban regime to come to the United States, for freedom and the right to speak up and confront countries like Cuba where rulers rule with intimidation, fear, and violence. Ozturk’s detention increasingly feels like the norm when it comes to how our present government handles any foreigner who dares to protest, advocate, or work for any cause that angers the powers that be. 

Did or does Ozturk directly support and advocate for the terrorist work of Hamas? So far, no proof to that effect has been produced. Like many, I believe it is legitimate to deport any guest of the United States who advocates for terrorism or violence against any country or people. But is it now a punishable offense to just speak up and out? To protest peacefully? To offer a narrative that challenges the storyline being pushed by the current United States regime?

Apparently, yes.

If that is the case in our country, then I fear we will be seeing more and more images of immigrants and non-citizens being taken away, without any legal process, by anonymous, faceless, government functionaries.  As a person of faith that worries me. What other “crimes” might evoke such a swift government response? The religion you practice?  Will that get you in trouble now? The innocent people you shelter because of your religious conviction. Is that up for suspicion? Will one day someone like me get in trouble because I dare to put pen to paper and fingers to keyboard and criticize the current administration, and its cruel policies?

 As a citizen, as a child of God, as a believer in fundamental civil and human rights, Ozturk’s arrest makes me wonder and worry if anyone is really safe anymore. And that is heartbreaking. Frightening too. 

Just watch the video.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

         

Welcome Spring! We Really, REALLY, Need You Right Now

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. —Hal Borland, writer

We interrupt this crazy world to bring you….

SPRING!

This season which officially begins today never ever ceases to surprise and delight me. I’m not sure exactly why. I could not give you a detailed physiological description of what exactly happens to human bodies when the temps get warmer, and the light gets longer and the trees bloom and the flowers bud and the grass comes back so green. Smiles certainly seem to appear more spontaneously among us. Hearts beat harder and lung “huff” deeper that first time you get on the bike or go out for a run or start prepping your garden on bended knees.

That’s to be expected. We are just emerging from a long winter’s hibernation after all.    

I wonder what a psychologist might opine professionally about the diagnosis of “spring fever.” I know my soul soars a bit higher when I look up into a bright blue late March sky, one that seems to have sent packing the slate grey heavy-laden skies of deep winter. My spirit absolutely lightens and brightens just to be able to take an ice-free walk, no need to steer clear of frozen slush piles on the street. It’s all melting now, maybe even melted for good.  Yes, I know that in New England there are occasional surprise spring snowstorms.  In mid-March of 2018, a blizzard struck and upwards of 25 inches or more of snow fell here, with 17 inches recorded in Boston, and a tide so high the financial district flooded.

BRRRRRRR…..Enough of that!

Instead, let’s look ahead and look forward. Listen to the first call of the first at bat and first ball and strikes for a Red Sox player on Opening Day at Fenway Park. It’s just two weeks away. They might actually be good this year! Very soon I’ll take my mom to the Clam Box on Quincy Shore Drive in Wollaston. I’ll get a grilled hot dog and the best onion rings in western civilization.  She’ll get a cheeseburger and if it’s balmy enough we might even sit outside and look at the Boston skyline in the distance, over a blue and green expanse of the sea.

What rituals, what traditions, what events mark your opening day of spring? 

I hope that you are ready to revel in these rites of spring. Celebrate them with gusto. Enjoy them fully. For spring is a miracle, a guarantee that no matter how harsh the winter, or even the world we find ourselves living in…no matter what, the earth turns, and the sun comes back, and the resurrection season appears.

Nothing human can stop spring.  Not any executive order from the President. Not a budget cut from his minion Tommy Tesla.  Nope. Their fleeting powers pale in comparison to the Almighty, who was and is and always will be.  Kind of like the promise of spring.

I know I need spring more this year than in past years, to push back against the chaos in, and worry about, the state of our world right now. I need spring to feel the natural hope that underlies this time when the earth wakes up and seemingly, everything is new again. Anything seems possible.  Summer stands in the far distance but it is waving at us now and getting closer and closer by the day. 

Welcome spring.

Sure, we know you always come back to us, and yet, when you do appear again, God renews all of Creation. God rouses the world. God dares us to believe again, believe in renewal, believe in new life, believe in believing.  C’mon spring. We are ready.

What took you so long?

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He also teaches spiritual memoir classes. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

 

 

The Destruction of USAID: It's About Cruelty

“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.”― Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, Russian activist, and political prisoner

The cruelty is the point. That's all I can conclude.

The heartbreaking and people breaking cuts made to a wide variety of social services paid for by Uncle Sam—these seem designed intentionally to inflict as much pain as possible, especially on the vulnerable. To wildly cut federally funded programs for folks in need with no clear blueprint or coherent plan. Just slash, slash, slash, the slashing led by a person whose only qualifications seem to be that he gave a quarter of a billion dollars to get the new president elected.  

Why else pick The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as the very first government agency to be laid waste to? USAID is, or should I say was, one of the largest, most generous, and most effective funders of humanitarian projects in the world. Let’s say that again. Humanitarian projects. That’s doing good because we decide that our country is morally called to help the less fortunate around the world.

You know, the basics of helping. Like feeding the hungry. Housing for people with substandard homes. Working to provide clean drinking water to people. Helping refugees find new homes where they can be safe and thrive. How about helping to fight endemic diseases like malaria, Ebola, tuberculosis, and bird flu? Or providing HIV/AIDs treatment to mothers and children? Started under former President George W. Bush, that program saved or extended the lives of tens of thousands of people.  USAID funded polio vaccinations reached some 400 million children.

But now that work is wiped out and the fallout is awful. For example: according to the Associated Press, 600,000 women and children in Bangladesh alone will lose access to maternal health care, and domestic violence prevention programs.

Gone. All gone. 

Terminated contracts that awarded grant money to so many lifesaving programs.  Of 6,200 contracts, 5,800 have been ended. How many lives will be lost because of this cruel and callous action? Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands? Millions? Folks will die from malnutrition, disease, violence, war, and it’s all unnecessary because the money was already there and being spent to help people. To be our American compassion lived out in the world. American care in action.

It's not as if the $63.1 billion USAID 2025 budget and it’s zeroing out is going to put any kind of dent in the feds’ 2025 total budget of $6.75 trillion. USAID makes up .93 percent of that total figure.  Which tells me it is not really about sincere cost cutting or thoughtful belt tightening.

No. 

All I can surmise is that the current administration has adopted the golden rule. Not the one that says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Jesus had that right but I’m not sure his voice or teachings about kindness and mercy are being followed by many folks in power right now. Instead, they have adopted the modern golden rule: “He who has the most gold makes the rules.”   

So, a billionaire asks another billionaire to cut, cut, cut. That’s not fair nor just nor Godly nor merciful. Nope. The folks suffering under these cuts to USAID are about far away from being a billionaire plutocrat as you can get. Plutocrat meaning, “a person whose power derives from wealth.”  Which leads to a plutocracy, meaning, “a society ruled by such people of great wealth.”

When you are that far up the food chain, when your best friends are mostly other millionaires and billionaires, when the closest you get to a poor person is whizzing by them in your limo as you get a vague glimpse of them through tinted windows, well, what can we expect from these cost cutters? Do they really even have the moral imagination or decency to recognize the human damage and human pain and suffering that they are causing? I don’t think so.

It has got to be about cruelty.

If not cruelty then willful blind defiance to take any responsibility for and to face the consequences of what the budget destroyers are doing right now. Jesus’ command was pretty simple.  “Whatever you do for these, the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.” Meaning that when we show mercy to fellow children of God, we directly reflect God’s amazing mercy. For those of us who are Christian, it means we are called in love to directly serve Christ. 

Feeding. Housing. Sheltering. Healing. Caring. Saving.

But now that’s gone. All gone. So cruel. So, so cruel.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

 

      

 

 

America in 2025: Defender of Liberty or Friend to Despots?

"Appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last."            --Winston Churchill

All history repeats itself, for worse, for better, for sure.

1938.  Germany, led by the fascist dictator and Nazi party founder Adolf Hitler, threatened to seize the Sudetenland, the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia.  British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went to Germany and negotiated, acquiescing to Hitler’s demand. In return, Hitler promised that Germany had no further plans for territorial expansion. Chamberlain then infamously proclaimed in a triumphant speech, “My good friends…[I have]… returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time….Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."

Less than a year later Hitler invaded and conquered Poland. Great Britain and France declared war.  World War II began, a cataclysmic conflagration that spanned six years, and plunged the globe into all out war. Hitler and his Axis allies were finally defeated in 1945. Human freedom and human liberty were defended. The United States became the de-facto partner and ally with Europe in defending against a new worldwide threat to freedom: the Soviet Union, aka Russia.

2022. The United States, sided with and helped to fund Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia which invaded and seized territory, costing hundreds of thousands of lives, many civilians. In the past week that policy has radically changed. We’ve now decided to acquiesce to the Russian dictator Putin. Vladimir Putin. The leader who regularly murders his political opponents, even on foreign soil. Putin, whose rise to power began in 1999 with the mysterious bombing of four apartment buildings, supposed terrorist events. Fear gripped that nation and laid the groundwork for Putin to seize power, and he did, ruthlessly.

Now Putin has apparently become our nation’s new best bud, a “friend” who can be trusted to be a person of peace. That is as long as Russia gets to keep the land they stole. Sound familiar? Representatives of the United States and Russia (I mean, why include Ukraine?) are meeting for talks to end the war.  To do as much as he can to prop up his pal Putin I suppose, our President now accuses the leader of Ukraine of being a dictator and also blames that innocent country for causing the war. Even though Ukraine is the victim here, not the criminal.

Is this who we’ve become in this new era in our history? An appeaser of murderous dictators? Fickle ally to Europe. Chummy with any country that strokes the ego of our appeaser in chief.

“Americans will always fight for liberty!” 

That’s the stirring sentiment of a 1943 U.S. government poster I have a framed and hanging in my living room.  It depicts three Revolutionary War soldiers standing at respectful attention as three modern day army soldiers march by, with grim determination written on their faces. They represent the fighting force that beat Hitler, and fascism, and violent dictatorial rule. Hence the hope then and now that our country will always fight for liberty.

We as a nation haven’t always gotten that ideal right.  But it is still our ideal. Our idealistic dream, in the least how we want to see ourselves, maybe even need to see ourselves.  As always being on the side of democracy and not despots, the oppressed and not the oppressor, the war-torn innocent and the not the war mongering bullies.

Which makes me wonder…is that cherished value—fighting on the side of liberty—dead? And if not dead, then seemingly on life support? What else can we conclude when our nation’s leaders abandon the country that was attacked to the country that did the attacking? The act of throwing Ukraine under the bus (or in this case a Russian tank) is immoral and obscene, and insulting to all of the American women and men who sacrificed their lives to actually defend freedom and liberty.

What does it profit a nation to gain the world but lose their soul? I guess we are about to find out. 

God help us all.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.