God has work for us to do

On nationwide television, Donald Trump looked sad and pathetic. He failed at justifying the unjustifiable war in Iran. He looked and sounded weak and old.

Everybody knows how critical of Trump I am. This time, I just felt sad. Sad for him that he has few true friends and allies. Sad for America that we have three more years of this. Sad for a world that has lost the America we have been.

Not having love. Not having a moral center shapes a person. Their full human potential is undeveloped. The body grows up and old, but the infantile core remains.

He was not surrounded by family or friends, only the flag he loved to hug. But does that flag hug him back?

Robert Reich, a former US Secretary of Labor, author, and political commentator writes about those things necessary for a well-functioning society. Economics, Politics and Morality create a three-legged stool on which our democracy stands. Without these values, we become something other than a democratic republic.

We become an authoritarian state.

Donald Trump has blown the legs off the stool. America is changing and Trump is leaving us without a leg to stand on. We have chosen lower ground on the world stage.

Trump has no moral center, as evidenced by the cruelty he is inflicting on immigrants and citizens alike. His Easter message was one of threat and intimidation to Iran. Thinking that Iran has no ability to protect itself or inflict pain on others is a huge miscalculation.

We are paying the price for Trump’s folly at the grocery store and the gas pump. We are at the beginning of the pain. With the Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping, everything is more expensive.

Talk is cheap, everything else is not.

Trump didn’t count on people turning against him. He has fired some at the cabinet level whose retribution skills were not up to par.

The April Fool turned out to be Kristi Noem’s husband. Balloon boobs pointed to a warp few of us understand. While it must have been a joke, it was tasteless and offensive. This was not a womanless wedding.

The stock market is high. Big investors continue to reap the benefits of the economy while the rest of us pay the price.

We have a shrinking middle class. We lost memory of the hard-working women and men whose labor built this America.

People still dream of a good-paying job and the ability to have a decent home. We all want to be able to pay our bills, buy insurance, and save for our retirement. That dream is becoming less achievable.

The old saying, “the rich get rich and the poor get poorer” is being lived out among us.

It is not okay for the rich to keep accumulating wealth while the masses struggle to stay afloat. Morality and the lack thereof impact people at the bottom negatively. Nobody is advocating socialism but hoping for an economy that takes care of the least among us is an essential to people of all faiths.

Justice assures all people have a place at the table. The Christian Nationalists have forgotten this foundational tenet of the faith.

A song from The Upper Room, Till All the Jails Are Empty, has a lyric that reads, “Till all the jails are empty and all the bellies filled; till no one hurts, or steals or lies and no more blood is spilled; till age and race and gender no longer separate; till pulpits, press, and politics are free of greed and hate; God has work for us to do.

Let freedom and mercy flow until we find the righteousness God wants for us. God indeed has work for us to do.

Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com