My dear friend Luis reminds me that Good Friday is still part of Lent and he thinks I am cutting our messages short. Now, I will not engage in the debate on when Lent ends. Everyone from Little Rock knows that it ends after taking communion on Good Friday at noon. This is gospel according to the maternal patriarch of the Worthen family which is certainly equally as infallible as anybody else. Nor will I comment on the fact that Luis’s and my church have seen fit to combine Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday and Good Friday all in one day. Let’s just say last Sunday was a difficult service to get a handle on, and shortening Lent by a day is only consistent with this new Ecclesiastic dogma. So why not end on Maundy Thursday?
But the Easter Bunny does hide a few eggs, and so after my first Lenten season of not going off message, even once, I plant an egg, or two. Here goes:
I believe when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties… they lead their country to a short route to chaos.” — Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons by R. Bolt.
Being in this country to make a living, to support one’s family, to escape torture or genocide is not criminal.
Immigration issues are not easy. I have been there, when INS reported to me, as well as other departments at Justice, I tried to keep in mind that I was making decisions about humans not numbers or statistics. It is easier to dehumanize, but easy, is not what those in authority are called to do. Human lives are not partisan issues, and from either side of the political fence, I say, determining human lives based on a popularity poll is what Sir Thomas More warned.
When one’s decisions are grounded in our “conscience” they are not impossible. When we bring to the political arena concerns of the heart we are at our best. When we bring to the political arena concerns of power we are at our worst.
Now as citizens of a proud and prosperous country, we face a crossroads. I suggest that we consider the following question. Everyone of us, except American Indians, are descendants of immigrants. How would we want our ancestors to have been treated if they were in this country today? That is a question of conscience. That is something to think about on this Good Friday.
On Easter Sunday, God embraced humanity and said, “ All shall be well.”
Are we willing as a Nation, to say to all who live, work and breath here, regardless of origin that “all shall be well?” If so, I believe we may have taken a leap toward truly becoming, “ One Nation, Under God.”
Webb.
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