trish hermanson

Why Was Anne Frank Denied Entry into America?

11/16/2018

Imagine that Anne Frank had been allowed to immigrate to America. She’d be eighty-nine now, perhaps penning a memoir of her escaping from Nazis, settling in Boston, and fulfilling her dream of becoming a writer.
     Her father tried desperately to relocate his family into the United States, but the gates into our country snapped shut.   Trapped in Amsterdam, the Frank family hid for two years in rooms concealed behind a bookcase. When discovered, they were shipped to concentration camps where Anne died of typhus at the age of fifteen.
     “I don't want to have lived in vain…,” Anne wrote in her diary while in hiding. “I want to go on living even after my death!” Her dream came true after the war when her notes were discovered and published as “The Diary of a Young Girl.” Anne’s wrestlings on paper about life and death have been translated into more than sixty languages and turned into a play and movie.    Why was her family denied entrance into America? The public feared that foreign Jews might be criminals and argued we must look after our own first.
  Anne’s story makes me shiver as we wrestle today with complex immigration solutions. I wonder how many in danger from gang violence or poverty are denied safety because of unfounded fears and an America-first policy. While we bask in prosperity, have we forgotten the value of every soul?

Dr. Seuss, a political cartoonist during World War II, captured the sentiment of the country then - and perhaps now.

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Is He a Traitor?

11/9/2018

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On the one hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I, I recall this veteran marching quietly in a parade. He received scant applause, while uniformed war re-enactors drew cheers and whistles. Why the difference? Because some Americans view veterans who demonstrate for peace as traitors.
But are they? These vets have tasted more in war than re-enactors ever will. They understand the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of the World War II Allied Forces. “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity.”
I’m grateful for those who have served, including my dad who skippered a submarine chaser in the Pacific in World War II. He’s no longer living, but I’ve studied letters he wrote to my mom during his military service. He didn’t glorify war. He was just doing what needed to be done. And he realized that whatever good that a warship accomplishes, it also leaves a wake of destruction.
That’s patriotism with humility.

My parents, Grace and LeRoy Huether,
who married during World War II
before he shipped off to the Pacific Fleet.

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Not a Beautiful Day in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

10/29/2018

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It was not a beautiful day in Mr. Rogers’ actual neighborhood when a gunman killed eleven in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Like a brutal slap in the face, this atrocity smacked of all the evil Fred Rogers sought to dispel. Yet after years of modeling kindness, Mr. Rogers had grown disillusioned near the end of his life, a recent documentary revealed. Despite his best efforts, the world had grown worse, not better.
     Why is that? Why can’t we bring about the peace we hope for? The compassion we long for? I think it’s because we have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. We operate under a shared human dilemma, trying to be better people so we can make a better world - a futile task.
     What’s the solution? Ezekiel, an ancient Hebrew, explained we don’t need our hearts rehabilitated through greater self effort; we need heart transplants. First-century Jewish teacher Jesus expanded on this, explaining we must be recreated into completely new beings. Then, he said, a powerful dynamic transforms us, God’s Spirit.
     Radical, I know. It’s not about getting nicer or performing better, which is like a caterpillar struggling to fly. Instead, the caterpillar must be transformed into a new creature, a butterfly.
I embraced this metamorphosis. Sometimes I still try to wing myself through our broken world with my own efforts. What a waste of energy. And as Mr. Rogers did, I long for the day when this shattered world is fixed, not through our best efforts, but through the dynamic of God’s Spirit.

***
Portrait of Fred Rogers by Don Sondag at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, which Rogers attended.

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Finding Beauty in Brokenness

10/26/2018

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Could I recover beauty in brokenness? When I first spotted these chairs, they were nothing but wobbly legs, tattered upholstery, and scarred wood. They once belonged to our retired neighbors Lyle and Nan. He was the center of attention at block parties, cracking jokes and snapping photos, while she was his grinning sidekick. But seasons passed, and Lyle and Nan’s steps faltered. They shifted to the sidelines at social events, then stopped attending. No more jokes, no more photos, but still smiles when we visited next door.
     A daughter moved in to provide care. Duane and I would get a frantic call - Lyle had fallen - and run over to help pick him up.
     Then Lyle died. Nan couldn’t connect the dots anymore and moved to assisted living. When their family began disposing of a lifetime of accumulation, I spied these two chairs and saw potential. Duane forced glue into joints, and they firmed up as though they’d had calcium injections. I applied stain to thirsty wood, and the pockmarks took on a respectable patina. We reupholstered the seats with a soft teal fabric.
     Now in our living room, these ancient chairs don’t take center stage, but from the sidelines, they radiate a tarnished beauty like elders who have earned their wrinkles and wear them with dignity.
     As Lyle and Nan did, and as I hope we radiate when we become side chairs in life.

Nan and Lyle

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Am I Two-Faced?

10/19/2018

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I was seated in a modern living room, but the conversation transported me back to the the world of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in the 1930s. In that book, a Southern ladies’ missionary circle sips tea and chats about how to raise funds to support a missionary working with an uncivilized tribe in Africa, while they complain about having to pay their “darkie” maids.
     As in that scene, I was gathered with decent people who genuinely care about the world. One woman urged us to “pray for the Guatemala missions team,” reminding us that these volunteers traveled there using their own money to build a house for a homeless family. The conversation drifted, and someone mentioned immigration. Another shot back, “It’s illegal, and that’s all there is to it.”
     What? I thought. It’s not all illegal, and there’s much more to it. Although some view immigrants as criminals who steal jobs, studies reveal that in general, immigrants are more law-abiding than native-born Americans, and they fuel our economy, rather than sapping it.
     But I was too shocked and tongue tied to say anything. We all bowed our heads to pray, yet I couldn’t quiet my swirling mind. Why do we feel great about being charitable toward needy people at a distance, but turn our backs when they grow desperate and flee here? Are we as two-faced as those 1930s ladies? And here’s the scary question: what hypocrisy am I blind to?
     Solutions to our immigration crisis are complicated, but one thing is clear: Whenever I care for “the least” in this world - the hungry, the thirsty, strangers, those needing clothes, the sick, even those in prison, Jesus said I did it for him.
  Am I willing to put aside my prejudices and do good for Jesus?

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Croutons...
Chew on these seasoned bits of life for a little hope and humor along your highway.

JOIN ME ~ I’ll send brief, occasional posts to lighten your backpack. We're on this journey together.

Why Was Anne Frank Denied Entry into America?

Is He a Traitor?

Not a Beautiful Day in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

Finding Beauty in Brokenness

Am I Two-Faced?

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