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Sheltering Walls

Bare Trees in Fog

Robbing a Country of its Art and Soul

Schonhaussen Palace, East Berlin
Schonhaussen Palace, East Berlin

Art lives in our hearts and souls, ears, eyes, mind, and body. . . it is the heartbeat of a civilized society.


Cherished for all time, art lives well beyond one culture, time, and place. It never dies...yet, some try to kill it, or keep it for themselves.


That's what the Nazis did in Germany by labeling art pieces as "degenerate"* in order to remove them from the public and private collections around Berlin.


I visited Schonhaussen Palace in 2023 located on Tchaikovsky Strasse, far from the city center. It was completely spared the WWII bombings due to how far off target it was, making it the perfect hiding place for stolen art!

The Nazi's sold that art stolen for profit outside their country, or claimed it for themselves.**


There is more than one way to steal art!

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

When was the last time you listened to live music or walked through an art museum or saw a film on the big screen? Imagine if your favorite venue closed?


That day is here with the two-year closure of the world-famous performing arts center in the capital city of the USA on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence!***


Independence raises up art and music without which a country is robbed of its soul.


The Nazis stole more than art from its people and we would do well to remember that lesson. Robbing the people of its own culture by closing down the creative arts is one more way that authoritarians steal everything that makes a country great.



**The Air Bridge Between Berlin & Me by Lance Carden https://wipfandstock.com/9798385229536/the-air-bridge-between-berlin-and-me/



 
 
 

When Silence is not Golden

The National Basketball Players Association said it could no longer remain silent. “Now more than ever,” it said, “we must defend the right to freedom of speech and stand in solidarity with the people in Minnesota protesting and risking their lives to demand justice. The fraternity of NBA players, like the United States itself, is a community enriched by its global citizens, and we refuse to let the flames of division threaten the civil liberties that are meant to protect us all. The NBPA and its members extend our deepest condolences to the families of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, just as our thoughts remain focused on the safety and well-being of all members of our community.”



. . .In Little Village, Chicago, a man by the name of Baltazar Enriquez wakes up before sunrise on school day mornings because he has an unofficial bus route. He drives his own van that he calls his “Magic School bus.” Baltazar and other volunteers escort more than 60 students to school each morning. These are students from families who emigrated to the U.S.; some have green cards and some even have citizenship, but with the risk of unlawful detention at an all time high, standing at a bus stop is simply not safe for many parents.*




“Our country’s moral role in confronting evil around the world, sustaining the right to life and human dignity, and supporting religious liberty are all under examination,” said a joint statement from Blase Cupich, Robert McElroy and Joseph Tobin, respectively the archbishops of Chicago, Washington DC and Newark, New Jersey.

“And the building of just and sustainable peace, so crucial to humanity’s wellbeing now and in the future, is being reduced to partisan categories that encourage polarization and destructive policies,” it added.

“We seek a foreign policy that respects and advances the right to human life, religious liberty, and the enhancement of human dignity throughout the world, especially through economic assistance.”**


Last but not least, just days before Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered his powerful speech in front of the whole world, I said,

"Tank Man" Tianenman Square, China
"Tank Man" Tianenman Square, China

we need just ONE person to tell the truth.

In case you missed it, or want to hear it again, here is both the video and the full transcript of the historic speech written by Canada's leader: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/


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Bigger than life.

Some historical figures take on a bigger than life persona and encountering their legacy brings them to life again. It feels that way for me with Martin Luther King, Jr. because I have walked in places where he had---not once, but three separate times---first as a graduate student at Boston University School of Theology.


Sometimes when the halls were quiet, say on a Friday afternoon, I would imagine him bounding up the stairs, two at a time, when he studied in those same classrooms. I wondered if already he had sense of his profound destiny to come. What would it have been like to be there when he took his PhD, and then,Senator John F. Kennedy delivered the Commencement address? Sometimes, I would stop to think about the day I heard MLK was shot and killed. I was fifteen years old. My mother always had the TV on in the living room, and that evening I was standing there as she sat on the floor with needle and thread and yardstick to measure a hem on my new floral dress when the news broke. I watched the black and white screen flickering chaotic scenes. He was dead. My mother was silent. I cried.


Years passed, and I came to live in St. Augustine, Florida* where Dr. King had been jailed during the Civil Rights movement. He had come to sit with young, Black students who defied authorities by sitting at the local segregated "Whites only" lunch counter. The St. Augustine Four were not served lunch, but were arrested and jailed by local police. King himself was jailed when he sat down at the same Woolworth's lunch counter to eat.


When I first arrived in St. Augustine, that lunch counter memorialized the legacy that had led to violent outbreaks against Black people by the Ku Klux Klan in the Plaza de la Constitucion across the street. Today, Woolworths no longer exists and the memorial is long gone. For the past 41 years, each MLK Day, community organizers have led a silent march to that Plaza to commemorate the man who walked with hundreds of other Black people--- eventually resulting in the Civil Rights Act.


A few years ago when I visited Atlanta, I sought out the Ebeneezer Baptist Church where MLK had been a preacher alongside his father---and where he was baptized, ordained, and eulogized. His ethos fills the space. His voice recordings play in the silent sanctuary for visitors to sit and hear what he said when he moved through his life with purposeful hope that we need from a leader today:

All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.


The Ebeneezer Baptish Church is a National Park* as is the MLK memorial in Washington D.C., which up until today, offered a "fee-free" day for visitors on MLK's birthday (now replaced by DJT's own birthday). If you go, your spirits will be lifted by one man who spoke truth so eloquently.*** Martin Luther King's words ring in our minds just by thinking them: "I have a dream. . .I've seen the Promised land...I may not get there with you". . .

"Let Freedom Ring"





 
 
 
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