FINDING LIFE'S WAY

E Stanley Jones used a familiar illustration to make a timely point. While travelling in Panama, Jones approached the Pan-American Airport and saw a “seeing-eye door” by which to enter the facility. The seeing-eye door opens as you approach to come in or go out. However, when Jones tried to go out the door marked “entrance”, nothing happened. The eye did not see him and paid him no attention.

Jones could have responded by getting angry and feeling picked or like he was mistreated. He could have called on God to open the door but nothing would have changed. When he retreated and entered the other aisle, however, the eye saw him. The door opened and Jones walked through and into the facility. When he obeyed the nature of the reality, things began to happen. And so it is, concludes Jones: “When I obeyed the nature of reality, things began to happen. It is so everywhere in everything for everybody

The way of the Bible and of God is not merely the way of salvation; it is that, but it is much more.

Life is made to work in God’s way and only in God’s way. If you try to work it some other way, it works to its own ruin. Jesus is the door, not only to salvation; He is the Door to everything. Everything opens when you come in His Way.

Thus we affirm today this word from Jesus: “I am the Gate; whoever enters by me will be saved, and he will go in and out and find pasture”  (John 19:9 Moffatt) In God’s world , we walk with doors flung open as if we were royalty, which in Him we are, and this is

walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

OMAROSA

“The Secret Service was not involved in the termination process of Ms Manigault Newman or the escort off of the complex. Our only involvement in this matter was to deactivate the individual’s pass which grants access to the complex.” So writes Omarosa, who happily admits, “I’m eternally grateful that the Secret Service had my back. Thank God they issued that statement, because things were getting crazy!”

             (UNHINGED/Omarosa/Gallery Books/NY/2018)

Describing her surprise call to the Situation Room to meet John Kelly, she found herself in a locked room, not allowed to leave, confronted by lawyers, falsely charged on trumped up charges that were no charges at all and she easily disproves, unequivocally fired, led off the premises without even being allowed to pack up her stuff or receive an explanation—she reports on her firing.

This beautiful young black girl that grew up in the poverty of Youngstown, Ohio’s post-steel era came from a good Baptist family, won a beauty contest and a college scholarship  and earned several degrees in journalism , communication, and business. She followed that by successfully pursuing the glitz and glamour of adult  life and  Reality TV. There she became well acquainted with Donald Trump, she ended up on his team, serving as his Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison, after helping elect him.

During this time, this beautiful, sturdy, steady, tough Black lady lost her husband in death and had an encounter in which she felt her Baptist Call to Ministry. I was prepared to like her and not ready to believe a Baptist Preacher would stoop to offer a falsely written book of sensation and intrigue. She had to be well-detailed to provide the story she has written, but I confess my ardor eventually cooled and I learned how controversial she was and how eventual book sales were disappointing.

Now that I have finished my reading;

I am (1) glad I read the book.

I am (2) questioning how she could figuratively prostitute herself, as she obviously did, and close her eyes and sell her shriveling soul to the Devil, then turn about face and reveal (describe) the things she does, many of which are contrary to the person she purposed to be. Her work was sufficiently convincing to get her idol elected to the most powerful office in the world.

 The time came when she could no longer gaze upon her idol and blindly ignore what was so obvious to other discerning individuals. Her turn-around seems to have begun with the Charlottesville struggle with White Supremacy:   “My blind spot was shattered during that press conference, though I could see with my own eyes that Trump had no idea what people were upset about. He just did not grasp it. He was disconnected from reality” (285).

The difference she would conclude, between Trump and world leaders who may be a tad bit narcissistic is  that “he can’t function unless everything is about him. He has to be at the center of everything. If he’s not in the middle of it, he’ll force himself in the middle. So, it’s not that a young woman died in the Charlottesville rioting, “it’s that her mother liked his (Trump’s) tweet” (287).

Most people who read this book are going to take one of two positions:

(1) They’re going to sort out all the anti-Trump and say, “There; I told you so!” This was my greatest temptation; I admit!

(2) Other readers are going to select all the pro-Trump nuances they can find and defend their support of The Donald.

I choose to take a different option by repeating the back cover that suggests “While watching that interview, I realized that something real and serious was going on in Donald’s brain. His mental decline could not be denied. Many didn’t notice it as keenly as I did because I knew him way back when. They thought Trump was being Trump, off the cuff. But I knew something wasn’t right.”

This is a statement of perceived fact given by one who arose out of Westlake slums in an impoverished Youngstown neighborhood where she withstood every kind of slight, abuse, and tragedy that a young black Baptist Christian could experience. Her statement comes out of twenty years of political experience where she cultivated a loyalty that blots out, diminishes, and diverts every weapon of imperfection thrown at her or her employer, and always shines the idealized spotlight of perceived perfection and is calculated to win whatever debate or election is at hand, whatever the personal cost.

She had proven her worth and ability already working for both Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Although she leaned to the left side of the political aisle, Donald Trump became her romanticized ideal of economic security when she made it into Reality TV and escaped the poverty she NEVER FORGOT. Mix it all together and you have the sad conclusion of a friend watching a beloved idol slowly diminish into a perceived slowly deteriorating meltdown.

Seeing her idol in this process drove home her own vulnerability, her misguided misdirection, and warped and wasted effort. That is a hard pill to swallow, especially someone that has been raised to honor God, live inclusively, and serve as an uplift in your world. Thus, she reveals much good and much bad about Donald Trump, depending on your political persuasion. She has written tactfully, accurately and correctively as a friend rather than an enemy; modestly without sensation; relieved to be free of the burden. The best of what anti-Trump readers will want to read is found in chapters 13-14.

When I read her take of the characters in Donald’s story, I am neither angry-at, dismayed-for, or disappointed-in, for we are all pretty much just who-and-what we are. That said, the political characters in this narrative are like most of us squirming about under the spotlight of public scrutiny—flawed human beings. 

I believe Omarosa is now in the right service--where she belongs. I don’t believe Donald Trump can pedal his tricycle fast enough to keep up with the Political Drama currently playing on the Washington Beltway stage, or in Moscow, or wherever else. The need is not for more or better politics but more and better “politicians”, people of honesty, integrity, humility, and cooperation. I am reminded of Old Testament Daniel (ch 9) when he hid himself in his place of prayer: “While I was speaking and praying … ‘confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God …’” 

The answer everyone wants is found in neither Republican nor Democrat answers but in putting aside our rights and wrongs and seeking the collective wisdom of the common good that frees all of us to allow “all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you (Ephesians 4:32 RSV).

Paul prefaced this with putting away falsehoods and speaking truthfully, being members one of another, giving honest effort and doing “only such as is edifying” i.e. building up one another of whatever color, creed, or culture. The present course of American politics is fundamentally cannibalistic; it is a strain of me-ism that allows only survival of the fittest; it is a suicidal, self-destroying cancer. I personally believe Jesus is the only resolution, but when I pray “Our Father…” I must-and-do allow “for others” into my circle and that includes y-o-u.

I had no idea where I was going when I started Omarosa, but here I am  and this is my take  on Omorosa … walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

People, Punishment, and Profitability

I had no more volunteer time until I met Jim! I agreed to listen to his presentation because I appreciated his hard work and the social contribution of his Mennonite denomination. His concepts led me to volunteer and begin working as a Case Worker with Victim and Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP) counseling young first-time offenders.

I was soon negotiating contractual agreements between offenders and their victims, bringing restitution between opposing parties. This proved taxing, but satisfying, frequently producing improved relationships, We often found solutions outside the box and beyond the norm, and before long I had several years invested, spending additional time serving with the Board of Directors.      When Michigan changed its state penal code and assimilated our VICTIM AND OFFENDER RECONCILIATION PROGRAM by creating new State for-pay jobs, it added supervision of in-house inmates and instituted a work release program that left VORP and its professional volunteers no option but to dissolve.

I continued my local church ministry and saw a growing Justice System that valued profit more than people. The State Department of Corrections (DOC) began working with young, first-time offenders, but failed to bring reconciliation between offenders and victims as VORP had done. They left no place for restitution and gave no consideration to issues of forgiveness

This new State effort remained void of the character-building moral and ethical qualities VORP had stressed. Area rehabilitation efforts quickly redefined downward while I continued to support President Reagan’s efforts to redefine America’s drug war as “the major problem.”

“Tough on crime” sounded right! Punishing bad behavior reflected accountability. Seeing prevention become secondary, however, raised other issues. I noted well-meaning people duped by a mindset that prioritized “making criminals pay for their crimes.”¹

Meanwhile; research was revealing social scientists compounding my questions. Author Hosea Anderson described “the hopelessness and alienation many young inner-city black men … feel, largely as a result of endemic joblessness and persistent racism.” It fueled “the violence they engage in” and resulted in behavior that confirmed for Anderson “the negative feelings many whites and some middle-class blacks harbor toward the ghetto poor.”  It legitimated the code of the street “in the eyes of many young blacks”

Anderson insisted, “attitudes on both sides will become increasingly entrenched, and the violence which claims victims black and white, poor and affluent, will only increase,”²   with each exposing “the depth of racial bias in the system.”

My Church Ministry had taken me into the cavernous depths behind electronic gates of maximum-security facilities where residents did “hard time.” I found working with prisoners was not easy, but. I knew Correctional Professionals were sometimes helpful and other times calloused. Prison Ministry had introduced me to converted murderers and 
multiple offenders. 

As a pastor, I stayed in touch with various prisoners, occasionally reacting to the insulation some churches communicated. I met inmates that were solid “Christians.” Others no longer needed additional punishment. I watched first hand as God’s transforming grace transformed prisoner’s, I felt deep disappointment when prisoners went to their death in spite of compelling evidence to the contrary, their pleas for commutation rejected.

Karla Faye Tucker brought a tidal-wave of public opinion from politicians and citizens alike. Some I found more vindictive than helpful. Politicians offered solutions promising tougher sentencing guidelines and expanded prison space, while cutting funding for preventive rehabilitation. John Q. Public was often overwhelmed and sometimes surrendered to fear, ignorance, and pressure, forgetting that loving God remains the epitome of our faith.

I have never forgotten being “conned” by a brutal sex offender. A lifetime in prison for a former pastoral associate brings bad memories. While Prison serves a useful social function, it is not a “cure all” in every situation. Our Criminal Justice System can be improved.

Author Jerome Miller believed our criminal justice system alienated and socially destabilized our society. He found demands for arrest, jail, conviction, and imprisonment sometimes creating more problems than they solved. Theoretically, we all believe in personal accountability, but that suggests we become as accountable for the economy of human lives as for the criminals we catch and condemns.

Our “get tough” politics of the 1980’s increased federal, state and local expenditures for police 416%, for courts 585%, for prosecution/legal services 1,019%, for legal defense, 1,255%, and for Corrections 990%. It punished more but prevented less.⁴ Contrary to popular opinion, 76% of illicit drug users came from our white establishment, with only 14% from the Black Community,  and 8% from the Hispanic Community. Yet,, most incarcerated inmates were poor and minority.

The public sector railed against jobless minorities, lazy drug-abusing criminals, and the abuse of sex in making babies paid for by tax dollars. We agreed the Welfare System needed reforming, but most welfare clients were white rather than minority or poor. Since then, welfare has since been reformed, but little else changed.

The Criminal Justice System still criminalizing what it cannot control. It builds more prisons and punishes more than it rehabilitates. It clones criminals, and graduates them magna cum laude in crime. Recidivism shuttles inmates in and out of the revolving doors of  our prison system that protects itself but fails to help inmates build new and better lives.

So when will we quit criminalizing what we cannot control? When will we reform our ineffective system? When will we work as hard at prevention as punishment? When will we value inmate education as much as inmate-incarceration? When will we put people ahead of punishment-and-profit?

Jesus used the cross as his symbol for identifying faith. We reveal our vertical relationship by loving God supremely. We practice the horizontal relationship by loving our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus proclaimed the Good Samaritan as the ideal of our horizontal relationships (Luke 10:27). He focused on prevention rather than punishment and nothing short of providing rehabilitation will correct the crisis in our criminal justice system

Faith supports victim’s rights, but faith balanced consequences without surrendering to “hate hysteria”. An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure, biblically and pragmatically. Preventive outreach and proactive programming will recycle lives from our cultural trash bins without becoming political.

Economic stewardship and sound gospel call for better balance between punishment and prevention. Calhoun County Michigan boosted its income by up to a thousand dollars a day by introducing the Sheriff to the profits of housing federal prisoners.³

A spokesperson for Michigan’s Department of Management and Budget praised a neighboring city for being five-hundred jobs richer with “good paying jobs” at a local prison facility. The proposal added 2,500 new beds and he concluded, “That’s good for the state and for the taxpayers” (emphasis added).           Simultaneously, a newsman described abused prisoners in a privatized jail in another state, causing officials in that state to stop renting beds from the first state. Making punishment profitable may not be new or unreasonable, but it challenges and warps the purpose of our justice system!

Is our goal punishing people and making money, or rehabilitating people and improving society? We tax payers seem more interested in profit than people, but does punishment and prison fulfill our social obligation? With Michigan State Corrections spending “$130 million a year, employing 2,500 people in one system alone, while adding another $20 million in payroll when the next new multi-security prison opens,” I wonder where does it end?

Whatever we believe, our behavior tells the story. Thus, an alert editor suggested: “We’d like to see the public’s money put to more constructive use, by shaping people’s lives for the better, and providing the same positive choices for everyone.” I say “God bless that editor!”

Our focus on punishment recalls that Frank and Earnest cartoon where Frank announces, “Not only is Ernie going nowhere fast, but he knows a shortcut.” Punishment in prison provides our shortcut to profitability, but it takes us 

owhere fast. It costs more in general and leaves us with poor justice, poor economics, and a poor gospel!

This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

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    1 Jerome G. Miller, Search and Destroy. (Cambridge/N.Y.: Cambridge Press, 1996), p. 81. 
    2 Miller, p. 97.
    3 Karen Motley, Battle Creek, MI. “Enquirer News,” 2-10-98).

    4 Miller, p.2

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