Dear President Trump, please have mercy

[Sorry for the second posting today but the report below is so very important it deserves immediate circulation. It is customary for a new president to visit and participate and worship at Washington’s National Cathedral. For once, he did not control the agenda or its content. Bravo Madam Bishop.]

The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, publicly called out Trump to his face today at a service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. This was some next-level Jesus-style calling out the powerful that you rarely see exampled anymore.

[Bishop Buddle] “Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you, and as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.

“I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God, for the good of all people, the good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen.”