Give them hope!

I have to admit, I've not posted anything in the last couple of days, because while I've had some ideas...nothing has been quite fully formed. I've been seeing this picture bouncing around on my Facebook the last couple of days.

As I said on at least one of those posts: 

“'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

~Leviticus 19:33-34, New International Version.

Unlike a lot of such things, I eventually got to a post by the guy with the sign himself, with a link to his Facebook, and something in my soul told me to send a message. Well, when that something tells you to do something, you do it. (If you don't know what I'm talking about here, I can't explain it to you.) In any case, it happened that I spoke with the man's husband via Facebook and he relayed the message I'd intended to send. That's good.

I'd like to stress that from what I saw of their respective Facebook pages, I got the sense that they are religious men, Christians, and both are comfortable with looking at things from a perspective I myself learned in Church. Just because a person is gay doesn't mean they can't have that perspective. I've known lots of gay Christians, many of them without question are more conservative or even Fundamentalist than I was.

But here's this dude, holding up a sign to offer comfort to his neighbors. Now I've shared this post separately, and you can find it on my feed if you want. But I'll say it again here; This is how it's done, son. It's like I have said for years, if you can't lead by righteousness, don't lead. If you seek to use Man's law, or manipulation or persuasion...oh yeah, you might make some changes. But, bet your ass that those changes will be gone as soon as you are. Guys like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela...they led by righteousness. Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy...hell I'll even give Ronald Reagan some credit here, and damn it, I'll bet that history will add Barack Obama to that list as well

If you lead by righteousness, the changes that you seek to make will stay in effect after you are long gone. I learned this from my great friend Timothy Wong, who is a Christian, and an African American shaped by the Black Church and with whom I had a great many theological discussions (among many other topics) over about eight years of him riding to work with me. (He's epileptic, and can't drive...and it was cheaper for him to give me a few bucks for gas now and again than to pay to ride the bus every day just to go to work.)

So, I learned...or perhaps re-learned something...from him.

Just as the gentleman with the sign reminds me, and should remind us all, that we are one nation, we don't have a shared culture or language or religion or a thousand years of history. All we have is what we want to be.

Be that guy, please.

Please, compare and contrast the above photo to that of these men:

Is it just me, or does Mitt look like he got caught doing something wrong, and for that matter, like he's pissed off that he has to be there in the first place?

That's what I thought. Don't be those guys.

I'm just sayin' at least the guy with the sign looks like he *Wants* to be present in that space.

I know a lot of people have been a bit down lately, myself included. Maybe it was (oddly enough) the recent death of Fidel Castro that stirred it up in my mind, but something made me think about (given that I've spent a lot of this last election feeling trapped between far-left and far-right, like I'm some person caught in the middle on the Eastern Front in WWII, or something) but I've been thinking about that. I've wondered, what must it have felt like to be a young Russian soldier at Stalingrad, especially when Order No. 227 was given "Not one step back!" A lot of those guys had to be feeling like they were going to die...and a lot of them did.

But they fought back from the brink of defeat, and pushed through and won the ultimate victory, not just the battle but the war. Before it was over, the Hammer and Sickle was raised above the Reichstag in Berlin. How many of those boys at Stalingrad could ever have imagined that?

This is a great many of us right now too, the Resistance, as some are already calling it:

One of my favorite films about this period of history is 'Enemy at the Gates.'

All was lost...but yet it was not...and after that, the Germans never won a major battle again.

Nikita Khrushchev: [addressing a roomful of Soviet political officers] My name... is Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. I've come to take things in hand here. This city... is not Kursk, nor is it Kiev, nor Minsk. This city... is Stalingrad. *Stalingrad*! This city bears the name of the Boss. It's more than a city, it's a symbol. If the Germans... capture this city... the entire country will collapse. Now... I want our boys to raise their heads. I want them to act like they have *balls*! I want them to stop shitting their pants! That's your job. As political officers... I'm counting on you.

[he looks at one man]

Nikita Khrushchev: You. What's your suggestion?

Sweating Officer: [visibly nervous] Sh-shoot all the other generals who have retreated, and their chiefs of staff, too.

Stammering Officer: [Khrushchev moves down the line to another man] Make some examples. Deport the families of the deserters -

Nikita Khrushchev: [turning away] Yes, that's all been done.

Danilov: [from the back of the room] Give them hope!

[Khrushchev turns around and strides down the line to Danilov]

Danilov: Here, the men's only choice is between German bullets and ours. But there's another way. The way of courage. The way of love of the Motherland. We must publish the army newspaper again. We must tell magnificent stories, stories that extol sacrifice, bravery. We must make them believe in the victory. We must give them hope, pride, a desire to fight. Yes... we need to make examples. But examples to *follow*. What we need...

[he glances quickly at Khrushchev]

Danilov: ... are heroes.

Nikita Khrushchev: [Khrushchev looks around, then leans in closer to Danilov] Do you know any heroes around here?

Danilov: Yes, comrade. I know one.

It may seem a small thing, but thanks, Gary and Justin, ya'll gave me hope today.

Be blessed, guys.