top of page

Sheltering Walls

Bare Trees in Fog

Voice of America


“Of course you’re going to have your handful of politicians, a small group of activists and a lot of paid bots on social media trying to gaslight you,” Perez told [Florida] house colleagues.

“But we know that truth matters, and simply saying that something is terrible over and over doesn’t actually make it true. Threatening others to get your way isn’t leadership, it’s immaturity.”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/01/ron-desantis-florida-immigration-schools

********************************************************************************************

"Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said he would ban US companies from provincial contracts until the tariffs are removed.

He added: “US-based businesses will now lose out on tens of billions of dollars in new revenues. They only have President Trump to blame.

“We’re going one step further. We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with [Elon Musk’s] Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy.”


********************************************************************************************


"In 2023, the first full year after Roe fell, the US saw more than 1m abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortions and restrictions on the procedure. It was the largest number recorded in more than a decade . . ."


"The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says doctors should advise patients about “reversible alternatives” such as vasectomy or other forms of birth control, . . .Respect for an individual patient’s reproductive autonomy should be the primary concern guiding permanent contraception provision and policy,” the ACOG says.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/30/sterilization-women-roe-v-wade-trump

********************************************************************************************


“If you can see in the social media, people are angry, angry, and writing: ‘No way – this is not gonna happen again’.”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/26/panic-and-defiance-in-panama-after-trump-threatens-to-take-back-canal


********************************************************************************************


These quotes are taken from full-length news reports not sensationalist headlines used to distract from the truth. It is incumbent upon each of us to seek the truth to set us free from fear. In so doing, we will find each other to join hands with across our country.


This fifteen-year-old sang her heart out rising above angry boo's, then the game was played as always. We are the VOICE OF AMERICA!


The Capitol where our representatives work has a main phone number to directly connect you with each Senator: (202) 224- 3121. Put in in your speed dial!


As my Spanish teacher used to say before each exam: "Don't be a-scared".  The more we speak, the easier it becomes. You are welcome to test the waters in the comments section to join in solidarity with those who are "hellbent" on speaking the truth.

 
 
 

One Lone Voice

One!


On January 21, 2025, one lone voice said what so many others were thinking. Demonstrating that old cliche"Truth to Power" while the world stood as witness, Bishop Budde from high in the pulpit spoke truth to a powerful bully*. She went first - alone - out on that proverbial limb before being followed afterward by a letter written to the membership by the Episcopal Church.** The following day, the National Catholic Reporter headline read "Bishops condemn Trump's immigration orders for stoking fear, anxiety". ***



The one and only who spoke that day did so with one voice as a means of uniting against wrongs and standing with others about to be (and since) torn from their own lives. Just like that!


Bishop Budde has smiling crystal blue eyes, but her tone conveyed and contained all that she knew in her heart that goes against the principles of a free country and a powerful institution that she herself represents. I wonder if she saw herself as a lone woman that day?


Powerful institutions have a moral obligation to speak up for the weaker voices among us. It has been months on end waiting for them to do just that! How come?


While these very powerful church institutions have been bearing witness to injustices forever, most recently those holding positions of power within the institutions have been silently watching as a faction and a fraction of people tote wooden crosses up the stairs of OUR Capitol in the name of Christianity like twenty-first century crusaders on a crusade to avenge themselves. The capital "C" church has always had much to answer for with its bloody history. There have been some inroads into righting past wrongs for which those in power ought to be held accountable, but not nearly enough. Scandals at the highest level weaken the authority of any institution. And, here we have to imagine that keeping silent against blatant co-opting of their own symbol, i.e., the Cross, is in part due to a loss of moral authority. What if your "brand" was being used to align with hatred and malign through violence? Wouldn't you speak up against this with all your might?


One voice in the wilderness can move others to respond. The institutions found their voice because of Bishop Budde's unflinching courage when she showed us what it actually looks like to speak Truth to power. I am reminded of the young man known as "Tank Man" standing in front of a moving tank in Tianenman Square against the Chinese Government in

1989**** Bishop Budde did nothing less.









 
 
 

Current Events

Updated: Jan 20, 2025


The 50 doves that form Free at Last, a sculpture inspired by the memorable words of Martin Luther King, Jr., in his “I Have a Dream” speech, soar upward toward a glowing midday sun. The sculpture, created by Chilean artist Sergio Castillo, was erected on Marsh Plaza in 1975. Photo by John O’Rourke
The 50 doves that form Free at Last, a sculpture inspired by the memorable words of Martin Luther King, Jr., in his “I Have a Dream” speech, soar upward toward a glowing midday sun. The sculpture, created by Chilean artist Sergio Castillo, was erected on Marsh Plaza in 1975. Photo by John O’Rourke

I must have walked by this sculpture hundreds of times on my way to class.

Sometimes it gave me pause if I wasn't late and the wind wasn't whipping off the Charles River as was often the case on this Boston campus.


Martin Luther King, Jr. attended B.U. School of Theology some decades before I walked the same halls. His ethos permeated the place, and sometimes his words echoed, too.


This preacher-activist-student steeped in civil rights of the 1960's amidst violent protests for justice and against war, lived well beyond those current events when I was coming of age at that time.


"Current Events" was a required class in my high school and one that I looked forward to having been an avid news watcher alongside my mother in front of the TV in the evenings. Information came into the little living room via one of three networks. She had her favorite. I trusted what I heard. It bore out in the classroom. The news wasn't easy listening in the 1960's when violence was escalating across the country from campus to campus. Leaders du jour were combating well-entrenched beliefs about "others" who did not belong in American civil society. "Civil Rights" became the catch-all for those who tried to break through barriers that segregated and separated people into categories. On the evening news, I saw students my own age and younger firehosed by Boston police on their way into schools just blocks away from the BU School of Theology where the student, Martin, worked out his thoughts that would propel him into a life we remember each year on January 20.


Years and years later, when I walked the long and dank corridors of that oldest building, the cornerstone of BU's founding, I tried to see this black man bounding up the stairs. Could he have imagined himself going forward from that place to take his place as a leader in a concerted fight against age-old discrimination? Could he see himself jailed in such places like St. Augustine, Florida (where I live now) which he said at the time was the "most rascist city in America"? Did he understand how his own words that stirred the hearts of so many also stoked the anger of those opposed to his non-violent message? Would he have known in his own heart that he would meet with an untimely violent death? Much can be read into his famous "I Have a Dream" speech to shed light on his private thoughts and prayerful beliefs. It is well worth our time to see and hear his prophetic message at such a time as this, most especially this January 20. https://vimeo.com/35177221


Once in a while between my classes in conflict resolution and practical theology, I wandered up to the third floor of the Mugar Library to see some of Dr. King's papers held there in perpetuity. His typewritten words appeared like any other student's dissertation, except those words have been immortalized, like the young black man who captured current events then and now.


book excerpt timothysnyder

 
 
 
bottom of page