What's Inside Your Heart?

Most people I know have a very troubled heart these days. It's not just the brutality of ICE that's disturbing. It's the alarming deadness of soul the agents exhibit when dragging people, including children, through broken car windows, hurling peaceful protesters to the ground, pepper spraying them, or killing them. Their militant body language and accompanying backhanded remarks speak volumes: they are power-tripping under the assumption no accountability awaits them. They are mistaken.

Just because they've abandoned God, doesn't mean God has abandoned them. And, though our country fell into the hands of godless leaders, it sure doesn't mean God has ghosted us. 

For those whose hearts remain open, God is speaking loud and clear—through our willingness to protest, witness, advocate, and do whatever it takes to come to the aid of the tens of thousands who are being targeted and dispossessed. 

Earlier this week, I learned there are American communities I'd never heard of where people are protesting ICE's plan to seize and refurbish abandoned warehouses in their neighborhood. Apparently, the administration is planning to temporarily warehouse 80,000 immigrant detainees in these locations before shipping them out of the country for good. 

In a separate news story, I heard that a quota has been placed on ICE to detain 3000 new people per day. Crimes aren’t prerequisite, just bring 'em in!

Those of us who feel disgust and heartache understand that we're living through a time of crisis and being tested spiritually. My recourse is to sit quietly in prayer every morning and ask, how can I serve today? I then listen for words and, to the best of my ability, follow any prompt or suggested action.

So, when I heard the word "westerbork" the morning after the news about the warehouses, curiosity got the best of me. What is westerbork? What does it mean?

To my surprise, I learned through Wikipedia that Westerbork was a Nazi transit camp in the Netherlands used to temporarily house Jews, Sinti, and Roma detainees ultimately destined for concentration camps where their lives would end. One of its prisoners was Anne Frank. One survivor, Jona Oberski, published a book about his experience there which was later made into the Italian film Jonah Who Lived In The Whale.

I can't say for sure how I was supposed to act on the information or if it was just a reminder of how history repeats itself. What I can say with certainty is, the seemingly all-knowing voice within is offended by ICE's criminal behavior and scoffs at those who condone it while calling themselves faithful to any religion. 

God, I will assure anyone if asked, is within us. But we can choose to pretend otherwise. We have free will. We can kick Him to the curb, look the other way, plug our ears, but His omniscience is a given—a pilot light for our conscience. 

In 1980, a week before his assassination, Archbishop Oscar Romero celebrated mass at a packed church in El Salvador. He asked his parishioners to read the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

"I urge you, sisters and brothers, to read this Parable in your homes, in a church, or in some silent place, but always thinking about yourselves and the many times in your lives when you have foolishly abandoned God with the illusion of finding happiness far from the Father. 

"As long as you have money and health and opportunities to advance, you will have friends who offer you everything, but then what we thought was "our everything" or "our god"—whether it was money or power— comes to an end. We realize that we were only worshiping idols, and we experience a harsh awakening before the reality: 'Ah, that wasn’t a god! Ah, money couldn’t give me every satisfaction! Ah, I couldn’t do what I wanted with the power I had!' How foolish we feel! "

To all the ICE agents out there, remember, chickens always come home to roost. Don't let a quick buck be your god. It isn't worth it.