Meandering Thoughts

On this day fifty-nine years ago, at the age of 17, I enlisted in the United States Air Force. I took seriously the oath of enlistment that day:

“I _________, Do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me.

Later, in 1969, I took a similar oath as a commissioned officer (chaplain) in the United States Air Force:

I,__________ do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.  So help me God.

That is partly why my spirit sags when I read about this nation’s actions against Japanese citizens some 75 years ago.  My spirit sags when I read of our treatment of Irish and Italian immigrants in the early 19th century.  My spirit sagged when I heard Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) say today (reference the photos of the father and his daughter who drowned crossing the Rio Grande and the conditions she witnessed personally at the migrant detention centers on the Southern border):

“When you saw the pictures of the kids at these detention facilities.  When you saw the pictures of the father, the little girl drowned in the Rio Grande.  And if you didn’t feel shame, pain. If you weren’t appalled by these pictures, then something is dead or dying in your hearts and in the heart of America.”

Do you feel any shame?  Any pain?  Are you appalled by the pictures of the dead father and his daughter and those detained children?  Has something happened to us?  Is there “something dead or dying in [our] hearts and in the heart of America?”

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 

With a glory in His bosom that  was meant to transfigure you and me.