Trail Mix

A grab bag of peanuts, M&M's, pretzels, and Chex cereal. Pick out your favorites. Leave the rest.
Browse past bellathemovie.com to preview an independent film that just won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival. The unspoken story? The man behind it is both "Latin America's Brad Pitt" and a bona fide Christian, turning down role after role in Hollywood to follow not fame but faithfulness.
Letting my medicine-soaked mind wander, I thought a funny novel to pen would be "coffeehouse cuisine," communicating the kinds of discussions that reign on soft, secondhand couchs over foamy espresso. Brain trails like, "marry, date or dump: Luther, Bonhoeffer, and Wesley." (for the record, I would marry Bonhoeffer, date Luther, and dump Wesley - his relationship track record is appalling. And Bonhoeffer was one of the cuter theologians of significance.) Or, "what would Maxwell books have been like in Middle Earth?" answer: "21 Irrefutable Ways to Lead Your Orcs," "The 17 Indispensable Rules to Relocating A Community of Elves," "The 10 Most Important Eras in Your Age," and, "The Vital Rules of Team Building: How to Make Elves and Dwarves Get Along." Similar coffee house discussion? "The Emerging Ent Movement: Ancient Worship in Authentic Forests," and, "Vintage Elf Hymns: How to Get Your Church Beyond Last Century's Rohan Trends." Of course, there would inevitably be controversial titles, too, like "Gandalf Is Not Great: Why Wizardry Poisons Everything," and, "The Sauron Delusion."
On to more distressing rants, that, while they may take place in a coffeeshop, are less likely to evoke laughter and giggles. A DISTURBING headline today:
"Latino evangelicals may ditch GOP over immigration reform" http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070905/29186_Latino_Evangelicals_May_Ditch_GOP_Over_Immigration_Reform.htm
This is disturbing because I spent quite a while writing to my Republican senators asking that they negotiate the recently defeated immigration reform compromise. I got nice form letters in reply for several days - form letters under the heading "immigration," I'm sure, because most of the letters were reassuring me that the senators were doing everything possible to stamp out "amnesty." Only one seemed carefully weighed and nuanced, and even that one voted against the immigration reform bill. Ok people, let's think about this:
Bush got 68% of the church-going Latino vote in 2000.
The U.S. economy would collapse in on itself if millions of people who work here and spend here were sent to Mexico.
Border security around the ENTIRE country needs to be enhanced and improved. Remember all those headlines about who were coming across the Canadian border?
Many other countries in the world do not operate like the U.S. does. For instance, you have two hungry children. Can you afford to take a day off work, go to a government bureaucracy, fill out paperwork, slip your national officials bribes to file the paperwork, and then wait six months to see if you're one of the quota of immigrants America officially admits every year?
These words were NOT penned for citizens only: "we hold these truths to be self-evident....that all men were created equal...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Those tenets were not only for citizens - citizens? At that time, the "citizens" of this country were actually "citizens" of England! Those were principles that Anglo and Hispanic alike were created equal and deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I am disgusted. If anyone is afraid of criminals coming over into the U.S., then we should also flush out the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. If we want a way to actually enforce justice in the migrant community, the best way is to create a way for immigrants to become legal without penalizing them. That way, when a Hispanic woman is raped, she can come to the authorities and report it without fearing that she will be deported and separated from her children.
The whole issue makes me consider registering as an Independent. Why? Well, for one thing, the principle behind the whole mess is this: "well, if you're born in America, you have a right to prosperity. If you're born in Mexico, that's not our fault, you should stay there until the right paperwork is stamped. Take your suffering elsewhere, we're trying to watch Survivor. We like to watch people try to survive for entertainment....." Yes. The problem exactly.
For the record: if I were struggling to feed my children and knew that a hundred miles away lie the solution to their hungry tummies, I would risk it. Whether there was a border there or not. If they went hungry on one side of it or were properly fed on the other side, I would tunnel, sneak, or crawl to get them what they needed to survive. I believe most mothers would. Immigrants are not bumper stickers. They are moms and dads. And if I had a church that could offer sanctuary, I would keep the doors open. Survivor, indeed.