Civic Center
What If Heaven Is Not That Place We Imagine?

What if heaven is not that place we imagine? What if it’s reserved for the persecuted, abused, and dispossessed members of every society?
And, what if it also welcomes the countless others who tried to help them?
What about the faithful who remain faithless? That is, those who instead of being faithful to their innate holiness, devote themselves to ungodly institutions and ideas that seek to impose harsh judgments and punishments on others.
Are those who applaud such judgments and find comfort in them held to account? Or are all forgiven and handed a free pass?
What about Christians who believe the only necessary pre-qualification to enter heaven is believing in Jesus. "Believe, and you shall be saved!"
Picture a gang member, the back of his skull tattooed with a large cross. Or a drug lord, that heavy gold cross dangling around his neck. They prayed. The priest took their confession…and maybe a fat roll of one hundred dollar bills. But do they really believe they’re favored? Does the priest? I don’t know.
I don’t believe there’s any pecking order based on the amount of one’s hail Mary’s, or donations, or one’s eminent standing in any house of worship. Good works, apparently, don’t really cut it either, unless such work is firmly rooted in love—but love and judgment are like oil and water. They just don’t mix.
Two months ago, Nory, a Los Angeles honor student, and her mother, Estella, were unceremoniously deported to Guatemala during a routine immigration appointment. For ten years they followed all the rules as asylum seekers who had escaped gang violence at home. Returning was not an option. They knew gangs would track them down.
Adding insult to injury, Estella also had her blood pressure medication taken away while in ICE detention. Why would any responsible human being do that? Her pills were never returned to her, and in Quetzaltenango, the village she returned to, her specific prescription could not be filled.
Both Nory and Estella were judged and dispossessed—booted out by a rigid, self-proclaimed Christian, white-nationalist order that, in its fervor to cleanse the blood of our nation, praises the Lord with every new deportation.
Estella passed away on September 8, perhaps due to lack of medication or broken heart syndrome or both. Her daughter, Nory, isolated in a village so foreign and unfamiliar to her American upbringing, now struggles alone without any friends, still believing God will help her. It’s the only thing that can.
From her lips to God’s ears. That's my wish.
Desert State
Sadly, we are in hell right now and losing the battle to redeem ourselves to be able to enter the kingdom of God and the beauty of the afterlife.
Evangel
There are two different understandings of what the Christian faith teaches. Evangelicals are leaving the church in droves because they've lost faith in its anti-love, anti-compassion viewpoint. Many want to leave but feel they'd lose their family and community in the process. They feel trapped. But they have the truth in their heart. We can all do what we can to emphasize God is love whoever we speak to, wherever we speak. To me, that is the greatest protest or act of rebellion we can engage in.
Slipstream
Very sad and tragic. And there are so many more stories like this one. God, please help them. Amen.
Evangel
It is. And many complaining about the rotten produce in the stores being inedible now that so many farmworkers have been deported.
Wilsons Grave
Also sad and tragic is losing the battle against human trafficking, child pornography, Russia's political influence campaigns in our elections, and homegrown terrorists, now that Ka$h has disbanded mission critical task-forces and transferred 20% of the FBI's force over to immigration enforcement just to catch mind-your-own-business people like these unfortunate women. Real criminals defrauding and harming everyone everywhere isn't seen as a problem anymore. Makes no sense to me, but apparently makes perfect sense to Trump and company.
Evangel
Right. I understand a new administration would want to make changes. That's their right. But as it moves their dark-skinned "criminals" out, it has also opened wide the floodgates of corruption for all others who favor Trump and have money, especially corporations.
Well Street
Watching this story, I literally felt a wave of nausea pass over me as I considered the emotions these women must have felt as they were unjustly removed. Now Nory is facing a future of utter uncertainty alone.
These tragic stories will forever be part of this country's legacy, and deportations like Nory's have been carried out over multiple administrations. While he's regarded by many as a great leader, Obama's title as Deporter-in-Chief was well earned. It wasn't until his second term that his administration shifted its focus toward primarily deporting those with criminal records, and away from long-settled immigrants.
I join in your prayers and wishes that God will uplift Nory and the thousands of others who've been forcibly removed.
Evangel
I know how you feel. I wanted to adopt her and bring her back here legally so she could be reunited with her other family members.
And you are so right about the Obama administration. No doubt he did that as a quid pro quo to get the conservatives in Congress to vote for the Affordable Care Act. Deportations have been going on since before I moved to Los Angeles decades ago. I learned back then that the detention centers are horrible places where people are abused and barely fed. At that time, I was told by one such facility's officers I should be careful if I intended to investigate any further.