Did you know that more than 43 million people worldwide are now forcibly displaced as a result of conflict and persecution, and several million remain dislocated because of natural disaster? In my worst nightmare I could not imagine my home being destroyed and having to run for dear life…yet that is the reality for many currently.
I was moved and surprised by an article I read in the Wall Street Journal lately about the extreme measures people employ to escape their circumstances and make their way into our country. “Ahmed Hassan staggered through dense Panamanian jungle, crazy with thirst, his rubber sandals sliding in the mud, fearing he would die thousands of miles from his homeland in Somalia.
“’I told my family I would go to the U.S. that was the plan,’” said the 26-year-old as he took off ahead of the militants who were attacking his village. He had some money, and bought a plane ticket to Brazil. From there he had to make his way, largely by foot, over some of the most foreboding terrain imaginable. While there was no water, but there were snakes.”
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“’I told my family I would go to the U.S.’”
He was dreaming of America.
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The point of the article was to explain the great lengths to which migrants go in order to reach the U.S. Ahmed had to make his way through half of South America, up through Central America, and the gamut of Mexico, only then to have to fight his way over our southern border. He wasn’t content to just get away from the militants; to do that he could have remained anywhere along the route. Clearly he was dreaming of America.
Despite the expense and dangers, the article reports that people are lining up to do just what Ahmed did. “Migrants go to extremes for new beginnings. Honduran families put children on northbound trains. Hundreds of Africans recently drowned braving the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats. People cross the deadly Sonoran Desert to get from Mexico to Arizona.” In addition, they have to fight criminal organizations which prey on them. What they go through in search of a better life simply rends the heart.
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As I think about all of those people like Ahmed, I fear that we are undermining the very thing that is drawing them to our shores, first and foremost, who we are as a people. Despite erosion in our Christian foundation, 83 percent of Americans still say they are Christian, per ABC News – obviously we haven’t totally abandoned our roots. Over the course of my lifetime I have come to realize the truth of what Christ had to say, and that his words yield the best conceivable life. As I grow older I don’t want to see us throw that off in favor of secularism, and its undermining power to destroy what made us both strong and good.
In Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 annual message to Congress, he referred to America as “the last best hope of earth.” We were the last best hope then, and we remain so today. Our foundation is strong, but today, as always, we have work to do. There is no room for despair, only the sober reminder that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Prior generations fought and died to pass to us what we enjoy; let it not be said of us that America was lost on our watch.
After the Charleston massacre, Columnist Daniel Henninger remarked, “In the North, on campuses and in sophisticated circles, we are rapidly becoming unchurched, secularized. Which raises the question: Where will a predominantly secularized society learn virtue?” Answering his own question, he stated, “…if there is a road away from hateful racial bigotry, it will require a few things. It will require politicians able to accept the possibility of racial progress. It will require a lot of people learning what the members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church knew a long time before the night of June 17.”
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At the end of the day, I remain optimistic because I have observed in life that truth wins out. We are, at our core, an applied, caring people, and our nation’s underlying goodness will ultimately see us through.
Art Hall
From the Bible: If you follow my ways, will be happy. Listen to my teaching and be wise;
don’t ignore what I say. From Proverbs 8
Court House – 10% to 27% of non citizens are illegally registered to vote and it is projected that 5% to 13% of them will illegally vote in Nov – it is not legal for non-citizens to vote in elections – do you hear…
