Cliff in Shirohama, Japan

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

--Leonard Cohen

I took this photos in Shirohama, Japan, the day before I came home. The growth of flowers and vegetation along the seam of the volcanic cliff seemed intentional, as if someone had planted a garden there.

As I sat in church contemplating all that is happening in my life, I thought about the sensation and texture of sadness and how it feels like what was good and whole is falling away. Separation is a natural part of life, but oh, it's so damned painful and so full of hard, hard lessons. What could be the blessing in that?

Because of course there is blessing in all that happens. All one needs to do is look and see that a great crop of blessing and grace is happening all around us at all times. As my heart breaks, it opens up little seams where new things can grow, like the flowers on that cliff in Shirohama. Seeds of hope and transformation, love and joy, are already planting themselves in the freshly opened cracks in my heart. Grief's tears are purposeful, urging the seeds to sprout, so all that was lost is replaced. Not as it was before--God never promises that--but new and different and reminding us of goodness' constant presence in the face of loss.

No Regrets

Saying you have no regrets is popular in our culture. Most of us want to feel we're in control of our lives, that we make good decisions, and those decisions don't have a negative impact on others. Feeling sorrow and remorse for something we've done that results in harm to others is also painful. This often motivates people to take corrective action, whether it's offering a heartfelt apology or taking a course of restorative justice. Only when you take these steps with humility and sincerity can you say you have no regrets.

The first weekend in May, Pamela Geller of the American Freedom Defense Initiative hosted an event in Texas she called the Muhammed Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest, with a $10,000 prize for the winning cartoon. She knows full well that Muslims consider blasphemous any depiction of their prophet, so the very premise of the event was regrettable. What could go wrong? The event attracted the attention of two unbalanced individuals identifying themselves as Islamic freedom fighters. They arrived armed, wounding a security guard before police shot and killed them.

In an Associated Press interview after the shootings, Ms. Geller said she has no regrets about holding the event, predictably citing her right to freedom of speech. (Many eloquent and learned people contributed to a terrific survey on the rights and responsibilities of free speech.) She says she's already planning similar events in the future. Holding the first events was borderline sociopathic, but insisting she'll organize more of them leaves no doubt that she has psychiatric issues.

To say she has no regrets is also an incredibly entitled statement, as if her lack of regret is of first and foremost importance. People were shot at, one was wounded, and police killed the gunmen. There was a lot of avoidable trauma that occurred because she set up the conditions for people to take offense, and two fools took the bait. How can the person who hosted the event not have regrets about what happened? Does she think that not having regrets makes things right for the wounded security guard? After what happened, having no regrets is a luxury she can no longer afford.

Ms. Geller has a history of sticking her finger in the eye of those she considers enemies of freedom, namely all of Islam. Her organization Stop Islamization of America did its best to stop the development of a Muslim community center near the World Trade Center site, calling it the "Ground Zero Mosque," though it was neither. Here are some of the posters her organization sponsored on subways across the country:

No one with a conscience could post such things.

Ms. Geller says she will wear a bulletproof vest at the future events. Will she offer them to security and attendees, too? Actually, anyone who would attend one of her contests is either terminally naive or looking for a fight. As a practical matter, no insurance company would ever underwrite another conference of this kind. She's clearly blowing smoke.

There are citizens of our country who equate this drivel about having no regrets with leadership. They say they want a leader who makes a decision and sticks to the letter of that decision, no matter the consequences. They want a leader who, in the words a Daily Kos' editorial used to describe the presidential candidacy of Ben Carson, says the Affordable Care Act "is the worst thing to happen to America since institutional slavery." This is not considered a gaffe by the same groups egging on Ms. Geller. "It's considered speaking truth to power," the DK editorial continues. "These are things that a vast swath of the conservative base believes in their bones, and they're damn happy to have someone finally willing to say it out loud." Ms. Geller certainly falls into this category.

OK, so this happened. I actually agree with something Donald Trump said about the debacle in Texas.

"What are they doing drawing Muhammed? Isn't there something else they can draw? I'm one who believes in free speech, probably more than she [Geller] does. What's the purpose of this? She's taunting them."

If Ms. Geller was so inclined, now would be the perfect time to change course. An organization that is for something rather than against Islam and Muslims is likely to be more durable. She could accomplish this by creating and encouraging dialogue between those who are concerned about security and moderate Muslim leaders who share similar concerns. There are plenty of organizations already doing this work, including Free Muslims.  Ms. Geller could rehabilitate her reputation and do good work by teaming up with them.

It's entirely possible that she and those who follow her lead may be unrepentant haters. But I can't and I won't stop dreaming of days when the voices of harmony drown out the voices of dischord.

Vulnerable and Half-Baked

When I was working in restaurants and catering in my early twenties, I must have baked a thousand cheesecakes. Cheesecake is easier to make than most other cakes. There is no sifting of flour, separating of eggs and precise mixing. You put all the ingredients--cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, sugar and flavoring--into a standing mixer. It's even easier than pie. The traditional graham cracker crust requires no rolling, and some recipes forgo crust altogether. There are no-bake recipes, too, but none compare to the baked versions. Dress up a cheesecake with glazed fresh berries, and it's an elegant dessert.

The difficulty with cheesecake is in the baking. It's all about achieving the desired consistency. Cheesecake is supposed to jiggle, to have give. A half-baked cheesecake will jiggle, but not in the right way. Too much jiggle and it's runny and impossible to sell. This is an easy problem to fix. You simply bake it longer. Too firm, and it dries out. I suspect that's one reason why glazing it with fresh fruit came to be a thing. Shiny, happy fruit covers many sins.

At that time in my life, I felt I was myself half-baked. Too much jiggle in my life, not enough solid ground beneath my feet. This may have accounted for why I erred on the side of baking my cheesecakes too firm. I estimate I ruined ten cheesecakes before I knew by sight whether they were baked to perfection. Luckily there were always prep cooks and dishwashers ready to eat the evidence.

People in public life who unfailingly present themselves as confident, competent, and invulnerable  amaze me. These confident performers apparently never walk around, as I do, feeling as vulnerable and half-baked as my first-effort cheesecakes. I'm not thinking of House Speaker John Boehner, who is known for tearing up during speeches, or even President Obama. Though known for his eloquence and cool, the president liberally sprinkles uhs and long pauses in some of his impromptu addresses. These jiggles make both leaders more human. If you like your politicians to be human. Some voters do not want their leaders to show any human frailty.

The late Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations who brokered the Dayton Peace Accords, is an example of someone who was authentically confident. He was the guy you wanted to set things in order in tough places like Bosnia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He had the education, Peace Corps experience, directness, and the diplomat's uncanny ability to balance listening and speaking. He was properly firm, never half-baked. Confident as he was, even the good ambassador turned out to be vulnerable. A New York Times column attributes his death at age 69 in part to the elusiveness of peacemaking in Afghanistan.

For other reasons, I'm also thinking of Alex Rodriguez. Such a talent. Such a hard worker, dedicated to the sport of baseball and his performance. Such a physical specimen. Always so well-dressed, well-groomed, unflappable, smooth. Not even when Yankee fans heckled him did he loose his cool. A-Clod when he fumbled ground balls as he transitioned from playing shortstop to third base. A-Fraud with his high salary and mediocre performances in the World Series.

Not surprisingly A-Rod was extremely competitive, willing to do whatever it took to stay on top of his game. You don't get to be in professional sports without it. Turns out that one crucial thing behind A-Rod's confidence was a warehouse full of performance-enhancing drugs. Add A-Roid to the chorus of taunts. He had the cojones to deny it until a court of law forced him to confess under oath. In the end, A-Rod's cheesecake rating: overdone. 

Like A-Rod, Bill Maher is another confident performer whose aggressiveness threatens to undermine his status. He regularly mocks all religion, but heaps most of his scorn on Islam. Maher insists there is something fundamentally wrong with Islam and is unmoved by experts who object to how his schtick inflames Islamic extremists and Islamophobes alike. Maher's cheesecake rating: same as A-Rod's. Overdone. Inedible and undigestible. Give it up, Bill. Find a hungry busboy to eat the evidence, and start over again already.

Many people accept that confidence is a "fake it until you make it" proposition. Presenting a facade of invulnerability is the same as being invulnerable. Do whatever you have to do to prove yourself right, even as the evidence keeps stacking up against you. The trouble is, this isn't confidence. It's bravado. Confidence is much more solid and authentic. It is also about knowing one's limitations and choosing whether to accept or transcend them. Confidence can be trying something new, when all else has failed, knowing you don't have total control over guiding the outcome.

Many Americans believe our country can have its way with the world by threatening military action, and they are frustrated with President Obama for not using it. I am more frustrated with him for using alternative forms of warfare, like drones and intelligence overreach. Military action would seem to be "working," except that it hasn't achieved the country's national goals since the end of World War II, or at least not the goals that were originally stated at the beginning of each conflict. Spinmeisters take over the messaging of the war once it's clear that the stated objectives will remain unmet. Because war is inherently so confusing, they get away with it. Invading Iraq in 2003 was originally about eradicating Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. When no such weapons were found, the mission morphed into rebuilding Iraq, casting the same military that had just invaded the country as humanitarians, even though Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously said at the beginning of the war, "We don't do nation-building."

Check out this bit of Newspeak from the fork-tongued Rumsfeld:

Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq again have all ended in draws, or worse. No one could seriously argue that the American war machine made any lasting positive difference in these countries. All have been very costly, economically, socially, politically, morally and to our country's standing in the world. Nor have threats or the actuality of American military might deterred countries from picking fights with their neighbors (Russia and Ukraine) or killing their own citizens (Syria).

This is why Holbrooke is my guy rather than Cheney. Talk is cheaper than war any day.

I'm enjoying President Obama's approach in the last two years of his second term. He's tried joining those who oppose him, giving away too much in my opinion. Because no matter what he does he hasn't won them over. I'm glad he tried, but enough already. I trust that he cares enough about the country to work with his opponents if and when they show a willingness to collaborate. In the meantime, he needs to do what he can as the chief executive of the country. He is taking a tack that makes sense to me. He's summarizing what he's been doing all along, and that is turning more than a few pages between the belligerent approaches of the past as he works toward his vision for a less conflicted world. Many of his policies, of watching or withdrawing from fights rather than getting involved in the internal political affairs of other countries, are challenging the idea that American military action begets peace, or if not peace, order. Believing that violence begets peace, or that the chaos of war begets order, is as absurd as believing that hatred begets love. It is clear that peace is more, much more, than the absence of war. Making peace is a series of creative acts, and with every creative act, including making cheesecake, there is no guarantee of success. Obama's policies could very well end up as jiggly as half-baked cheesecake. Remember, though, that the fix for an underbaked cheesecake is to bake it longer. If someone could explain to me in ways that make sense--no fair using silly obfuscations ala Rummy--how Obama's approach to Syria, Russia and Iran could be worse than getting involved in a couple of more wars, I'm all ears. Because if there's anything good that can be gleaned from the Iraq War, it would be a healthy skepticism of the arguments for future military action.

It's no accident that Dick Cheney has turned up the vitriole and the volume on his attacks on President Obama. Cheney sees a way of moving through the world, a way he personally helped perpetuate, as being exposed for what it is--purposeless hostility without end. It's destroying his health, and these attitudes and their implementation are a threat to the integrity and well-being of our country.

Many have been critical of how President Obama abandoned candidate Obama's calls for change we can believe in. I believe he has upheld that promise, at least in part. Much has changed, and is changing, whether Obama initiated it or not. A vocal portion of the electorate doesn't believe in the changes he's made, and they are digging in their heels against any additional change. The unwillingness to move and be moved--to experience together the jiggle and vulnerability of change and evolution--is at the root of our conflicts. To try new things is frightening. So is changing old habits, even whey they're clearly not working. Some believe our government and our military must act decisively and make sure our opponents exploit no opportunity to attack our vulnerabilities. Another definition of strength is one tai chi masters teach: The tree that bends will not break. Our definition of strength needs to expand from force and firmness to include responsiveness to change . That involves not just the willingness to work toward a more just future. Being vulnerable isn't weakness. It's a fact of life that is best faced with courage and confidence.

Do You Want to Be Healed?

 

Covered in colorful Mexican blankets I use in yoga classes, I keep an old couch in our dining room. When we moved into this house fifteen years ago, Don's friend and co-worker donated the couch to us. She'd had it for some years, and since then, we, our kids and the cats have sat on it regularly. One evening Don gave it a good once-over and suggested it was long past due a cleaning.

"We can't do that!" I exclaimed. "It's the dirt that's holding it together!"

Sometimes I feel that way about my life. It's the dirt and gunk of my tensions holding me together. If I were to let them go, I would disintegrate. Who and where would I be without my anxieties, opinions and controversies?

The yoga center where I learn yoga and how to teach it offers a technique called tension release Swami Rudrananda developed. It's very simple, like most of the teachings, and very effective when done regularly and sincerely. Sit down on a meditation cushion or a chair. Close your eyes and release your fingertips to or toward the floor. Inhale, drawing air in through the nose around your heart. As you exhale, release the breath through your nose and say to yourself, "I consciously wish to release all negative psychic tension." As you say this, you may feel your fingertips tingle. Imagine that you're draining away your accumulated tensions through your fingertips. For more on the subtleties of tension release practice, I recommend "Sacred Journey: A Guide to Meditation in the Shambhava School of Yoga," by Swami Kripananda.

I have been doing this exercise regularly for the past four years, and I'm happy to report that not only have I not disintegrated, I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. Many of the tensions I'd been carrying around are released or releasing. The anxiety that I'm not good enough. The resentment about sharing life and the world with a bunch of assholes. Vague and specific fear. I can simply sit down and let my breath and intention remove them through my fingers. Or if not remove them all at once, begin to move them.

Being freer from the inside has a positive effect on the externals of my life. Strangers smile at me. I don't waste energy I don't have chasing after those things I can't control. The people in my life are nearly always happy to see me, because they sense my happiness.

Jesus asked the man who had been an invalid for 38 years, "Do you want to be healed?" That's as pertinent a question as it was when he asked it 2,000 years ago. Making ourselves whole is within our power. Healing does not mean that all wounds are healed or all missing parts restored. One image of wholeness is the china plate that split into several pieces and is lovingly put back together. It may be missing a few slivers of porcelain, with clearly visible fracture lines. But it is whole enough to serve your dinner on it.

The blessings of meditation

Today I went to teach yoga to my neighbors, a couple in their eighties, for our regularly scheduled session, only to find that L had taken a terrible fall in a parking lot late last week. She landed on her face, and though she is healing quite nicely, she was in no shape to do even the gentle class we typically do. She has balance issues and has taken several less serious falls in the two years we've done yoga together. I suggested that she needs to make sure she's not putting herself in situations where there is only a narrow space to walk in, because a wider stance improves balance. I also suggested that they consider having at least some of their groceries delivered, to avoid icy parking lots. L is a sweet, soft-spoken woman, but my innocent recommendation touched a nerve. She launched into a tirade about how she'll never have groceries delivered, because she isn't ready to be chained to an armchair for the rest of her life.
When I came home from our visit, I started thinking how grateful I am that I have an established meditation practice. I am thankful to my teachers, especially Sri Shambhavananda, for so generously sharing the gift of silence. Twice a day I practice sitting, doing nothing other than opening my intention to the Divine Guide. If I am forced to sit in a chair or stay in a bed because of some catastrophe, I feel confident my practice has prepared me to deal with these restrictions as gracefully as I can.

The cultivation of silence and stillness is totally countercultural. Students have told me they won't or can't do pranayama because their minds race and it makes them feel bad. They believe they need a more active practice that allows them to escape the menace of their thoughts. This complete connection to doing at all costs, linked with a fundamental inability to be with oneself, is to me totally sad. Because what happens when they get to the place in their lives where they can't do an active practice of any kind, when perhaps even going about doing their daily chores is too big a challenge? Because if they're lucky enough to live a long life, they're going to get to that between a rock and a hard place.

If you've successfully set up your life to avoid facing and taming the rollercoaster of your own mind, you're going to be ill-prepared when you can no longer hop onto all the carnival rides the world offers you. Even then, there's time to begin to meditate and learn to understand and calm the mind's fluctuations.

But why wait? It's as simple as sitting in a chair, closing your eyes and paying attention to your breathing. Start with at least ten breaths, because that is the minimum needed to reduce the circulation of stress hormones. The goal of meditation is not to cease all thought. Thoughts are inevitable. Let them pass by as if you're watching clouds float past your window.

This will likely be so welcome you'll want to continue. When you open your eyes, you might find that five to ten minutes have passed. For one month, commit to practicing every day in this way, first thing every morning. Over time, it's best to build up to thirty minutes of sitting. I guarantee you'll feel more open, relaxed and able to face the world, receptive to all its joys and challenges.

Once you get a taste of the pleasure that comes from being better acquainted with the rhythms of your mind and breath, you may want to consider joining a meditation group. I find it enormously helpful to meditate with the yogis at Eldorado Mountain Yoga Ashram and with my yoga students. It's like linking train cars to a mighty engine--the shared momentum allows everyone to roll along with ease. If you're lucky enough to live near a yoga center, you can receive instruction from experienced teachers there. Some recreation centers offer meditation classes. Most also offer yoga classes. Not all yoga teachers are meditators, but ask if any of them also teach meditation.

There are no failures in meditation. Even if you stop for a while, it's always there for you. The worst that can happen is that you get to know yourself better. 

The Point of Spiritual Practice

I recently unfriended a Facebook friend who persisted in posting hateful articles and comments about the latest war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel. I don't unfriend people lightly. After six years on Facebook, I have unfriended three people out of more than 350 friends. This particular person is someone I've known as another serious yoga student for close to a decade and who lives in the same community as I do. I have known her to be a kind, caring, compassionate person. I once witnessed her speak soothingly to an emotionally disturbed woman who attended our meditation group, and her words made a big difference to the woman. But what I saw her post on Facebook over a four-day period confused and ultimately alienated me.

Here's where I draw the line--if a friend posts something hateful, I call them on it. If they respond with more hate and vitriol, I unfriend them. There is enough hate in the world. I don't want it on my Facebook page.

I was attracted to tai chi, yoga and meditation because I was seeking balance in my life. I believe the same is true for my yoga buddy. I know she cares about politics, having grown up in a country rife with racial and political problems. Over the years, I've noticed her take a few extreme positions. But because I've been known to do the same, until someone or something reels me back in, I didn't think much of it.

Our trouble began when she posted without comment an article from the Hollywood Reporter that featured Jon Voight calling Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz anti-Semites for denouncing what they called Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people in the lastest war in the Gaza Strip. I wrote back, "Does it make me anti-Semitic to question Israel's tactics?"

"No," she wrote back, "but it does make you uninformed."

Uninformed? I make an effort to read news from a variety of sources, so that wasn't computing. So I asked her what news sources she read. She volleyed back with excoriation of how the news organizations unfairly cover the Israeli government. The Israelis wouldn't be the first to complain about unfair news coverage. So I tried again, asking her to forward me some news sources she trusted and telling her some of mine. She offered no sources, but more of what felt to me like condescension, as well as a critique of how The Guardian has never run a pro-Israel article. After my next request, she sent me a link to a blog post. In the first paragraph, the author referred to Hamas fighters as "Hamassholes." I didn't see much point in continuing to read it.

She also sent along a Tablet article by Matti Friedman, a former AP reporter, criticizing the AP and other news organizations for getting it wrong on Israel. He makes a legitimate point when he writes that the press overemphasizes the Israel-Hamas conflict, while Syria and Iraq burn. It is also a diversion. And condescending. Is everything we read about the Israeli military's tactics, which the U.N. is calling war crimes, all wrong? The U.N. is also looking into hauling Hamas before the War Tribunal in the Hague. The U.S. gives Israel $3 million a day in defense aid. As far as this American taxpayer is concerned, the recent bombings that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, a quarter of them children, are not what the aid is intended for. Dropping mortars on twelve-year-olds playing soccer on the beach and on schools is not self-defense.

Later my yoga buddy posted that Palestinians are ultimately responsible for the deaths of their children as they place them in harm's way. This echoes a statement attributed in 1957 to Golda Meir. "We can forgive Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with them when they love their children more than they hate us."

It is an understatement to say these remarks are problematic. The assumptions Prime Minister Meir made are insulting and condescending. Responding to an ad that appeared in the Hollywood Reporter featuring PM Meir's image and the words above, Wallace Shawn responds more effectively than I can.

I am no political expert. But here's where I come down on this issue. I use the words of my friend Carol Mickelson: "I'm not pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. I'm anti-killing."

Kris Kristofferson's song "In the News" articulates my view on what he calls "billion-dollar bombings of a nation on its knees."

In the context of this argument with my yoga buddy, I've been wondering if there's a point to having a spiritual practice, or even worshipping regularly in a spiritual community, other than it being an end unto itself.

I am convinced there is. I do not accept that meditation practice and regular worship are a means to justify me in my prejudices. It is not about me having power over others, having more privileges and more gifts, or worse, believing I'm better than others by virtue of my meditation practice. Someone like my husband doesn't have a formal spiritual practice, unless hiking, beekeeping and gardening count. He is already one of the kindest, most emotionally balanced people I know. Someone like me, whose emotional underpinnings are less stable, NEEDS a daily practice. It's no accident I was drawn to it as a 20-year-old!

If done sincerely and consistently, my practice destroys my preferences and replaces them with what the world and I need most. I have practiced meditation for more than 30 years. It is doing what it promised, transforming my life, slowly but surely. And its work isn't done. As my teacher Sri Shambhavananda said in a recent interview, "I feel like I've come a million miles, and I still have a million to go." A spiritual practice is only as effective as the fruit it bears in your life. For a chronic overreactor, consistent practice has slowed my reaction time. I am more deliberate about what I say and do and allow myself to think. I am less concerned about being right and more with doing right. I'm more apt to put my ego in timeout like the demanding child it is.

A spiritual practice with meditation at the center is about practicing daily, whether you're sitting on a cushion, interacting with your family, friends and co-workers, and standing in line at the supermarket. It's about putting the virtues meditation reveals into practice. In the yoga classes I teach I speak about the value of using pranayama to circulate all the good stuff you glean during the course of an asana practice. The same is true of a meditation practice. It's of no use to anyone to keep all the good stuff to myself. I share, probably less than I might, with an eye toward giving more.

They Need a Miracle

Young Central Americans traveling north on train top

Jewish kids traveling to England by Kindertransport during World War II

When news broke of the Central American kids showing up at the U.S.' southern border, I thought immediately of a friend's mother, who escaped Nazi Germany at age six with her slightly older sister and younger brother. Their parents had seen the certainty of their family's persecution and decided to give their kids a chance to survive. Several European countries passed on taking them in. Eventually they got on a ship in northern Africa headed for the United States. All three lived to old age, because people in New York state agreed to take in three children fleeing from violence and certain death. Their parents' assessment of the political situation was correct. They died, likely in a Nazi death camp, along with a younger son.

The kids from Central America are facing similarly bleak odds, as the drug cartels who de facto run these countries are recruiting elementary school-aged children to deliver and sell drugs and to do other criminal activities. It's horrifying to put myself in the place of their parents, many of whom are living in the U.S. without legal immigration documentation. They left their kids behind with grandparents and other relatives, hoping to provide from afar a better life for their kids. These parents have assessed the deteriorating political situation in their home countries and scraped together enough money to send their kids north. Having made their own way north via coyotes, likely enduring egregious indignities, these parents clearly decided that their kids stood a better chance with human smugglers than staying in their home countries.

Surely even the hardest-line anti-immigration supporter would be hard-pressed to ignore these childrens' plights. It turns out, they can. There have been ugly protests along the border as some of the kids were transported by bus to detention centers. Aided and abetted by elected U.S. officials and demagogues posing as journalists, anti-immigration protesters have greeted busloads of these kids with angry faces, chants and signs.

"They have to come here through legal channels," a neighbor told me on the Fourth of July. Uh-huh. Such high-minded rhetoric ignores the reality that these kids are living in war zones. If my friend's mom and siblings had waited to go into other countries legally, they likely wouldn't have survived.

People who otherwise call themselves Christians are demanding that the Central American kids be deported immediately. They came here illegally, so they don't deserve the benefit of American due process. I get the logic here. But the question is, how do these people square their mercilessness with their Christian beliefs?

I don't know the answer to this question, because I struggle with it myself. This situation is very complicated. Clearly something needs to be done, and quickly. Immediate deportation is not the answer, as many of these kids say they will return to the U.S.

I've heard people say that Jesus was not interested in social justice. His concern was in salvation. I believe that helping others is part of my salvation. Jesus didn't just sit on a mountaintop to pray for his own salvation and for those he loved. He got his hands dirty touching lepers and bleeding sores. He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He hated injustice so much he got violently angry with moneychangers in the temple who were ripping off their neighbors. Jesus didn't say to those who came to him in need of healing, "Sorry, you'll need to pay cash in advance before I do my thing." Nor did he say to the wedding party in Cana, who ran out of wine, "Sorry, poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. Besides, don't you know that drinking wine is bad for you?"

You might rightly say, Jesus performed miracles. Mere humans don't. But are miracles only the province of Jesus and enlightened masters? Maybe. But should that let the rest of us off the hook? Time and time again people have pooled their talents and their hopes to do things that benefit others.

Being a good Christian isn't just about helping those we already know and love. A truly saving love includes helping those we don't know, much less particularly love. Sometimes it's a miracle just to do the right thing. I don't know the answer to this question. But I do know that helping these young people who are escaping violence and political and economic instability is the right thing to do.