Lenten Reflection

I am not going to give up donuts, chocolate or beer this Lent. Not while Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez remains in detention. Not while Daniela Vargas is targeted for revenge. I will not assuage my private sense of being a 'good' Christian while hatred rests on our land like a choking toxic cloud.

We're a nation that has an undeniable self-defining history of hyper-violent white supremacy. But what makes us so dangerous is that our brand of white supremacy has been melded with a national theology of exceptional divine providence that guides, protects and calls us. Few people are as capable of this amount of destruction with a simultaneous self-congratulatory celebration of righteousness. As a result we're simply incapable of honestly assessing who we are and how to repent and heal. If ever a nation needed a truth and reconciliation process it would be America. Instead, we're on flight MAGA with no landing gear and both engines on fire.

This Lent I am calling for justice to flow through our land like a mighty river. My Lenten prayers and self-reflections will focus on these words from Amos 5: 
'I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies (civic/religio services) are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness (public justice) like a never-failing stream.'