New York City is one of our sanctuary cities. That is a designated American city (usually by their individual mayors and/or governors) that immigrants may go to and not, necessarily, be harassed nor asked about their legal status (as a means to deport them). Still, it’s not the yellow brick road of the past when Trump wasn’t the president. Trump has threatened to send a great majority of the hordes of immigrants infiltrating our southern boarders, legal or otherwise, to these cities of refuge in order to alleviate their influx.

These immigrants (mostly seeking political asylum) are from Latin America countries and Mexico. They are fleeing their countries for lack of jobs and/or fear of being killed by drug cartels and crooked police forces. They literally pay thousands of dollars to underground resources for illegal passage and/or walk through whole countries, with little or no food. to reach our southern boarders. I suppose they reason they’re better off taking a chance on a potential death march to America than staying put in their respective countries and withering on the vine. All the boarder arrests, family separations and likely deportations are nothing compared to the hell they have just walked away from.

Well hello, things aren’t so hunky dory in America either. Our students fear for their very lives just to attend our schools. Arming teachers is now being condoned. And a simple tail light infraction may easily result in your death, especially if you happen to be black. Are you immigrants jumping from the frying pan into the American fire? Who’s to say? Time will tell.

Yes, that’s our Lady Liberty doing her level best to wield an AR-15 assault rifle. Maybe you interpret that as America’s continued vengeance on the terrorism that perpetrated 9-11 and beyond. Maybe America’s indigenous Indians interpret that rifle raising to the overwhelming fire power of America’s cavalry that took away so many of their lives along with their land and freedoms. And many of America’s economically challenged individuals may interpret the forgoing as the inequality of our justice system to execute our laws fairly (especially if you happen to be African American).

Unfortunately, gun possession in America is as prevalent as apple pie. Especially so in Florida, where the “stand your ground policy” allows you to shoot first, legally, and get ask superfluous questions later. Yeah, our constitution allows citizens to bear firearms, but the present administration (Trump’s) is in bed with the NRA, who’d like nothing better than to arm all humanity-for profit!. It’s the Wild West revisited. I liken the belief that gun possession is necessary for survival in America to an athlete’s belief that he or she feels compelled to taking performance enhancing drugs just to level the playing field to those who thrive on such substances. Overcoming steroid damage is nearly impossible to reverse, and too many guns in the hands of too many people results in WMD.

In case you didn’t recognize it, that’s some remaining wreckage (somewhat abstracted) leftover from 9-11 that’s a dead ringer for Trump’s purposed infamous wall of ill will towards any humanity of much lesser means and status than we natural born Americans. These bombed out 9-11 walls (of the Twin Towers) came tumbling down by the hatred of the terrorists. I would hope, that instead of hate motivation giving way to American isolationism (Trump’s make America great again slogan), the emphatic love from Americans towards any of their fellow men never should allow these walls of separation to ever be built in the first place. There are obvious (good?) reasons for building different walls, but the want for freedom for all oppressed people has never been more exemplified in the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. You don’t build walls for freedom; you tear them down.

I understand we can’t just let everyone who shows up at our doorstep boarders to automatically enter. That’s a given, but surely we can and should express more compassion to those less fortunate than ourselves. And any compassion is certainly more than initially shown by Mr. Trump! Matthew 11:28-30 supersedes what’s inscribed at the base of Lady Liberty. America beckons the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to be breath free. Two thousand plus years ago, Christ beckoned sinners to live free of their sinful selves by committing to Him via baptism. And He continues today to wait for the lost at the doorstep of salvation. Meanwhile, may God bless and protect those of us who wait patiently for His second and final arrival.

But in all fairness for Americans and other democratic countries similar to ours, to be free to execute our God-given free will, we have to sell-out, much too often, to physical violence in order to neutralize those who seek to physically control us. So, in one sense, the firearms that seem too accessible (especially to the criminal element in America), are the very vehicles necessary to fight those home-grown and foreign terrorists who want to chain gang our freedoms. I suppose you just have to surrender to fighting fire with fire. Like we Allies did against the Axis powers seeking world domination in WW11. Theoretically speaking, had the Axis powers prevailed, would Germany and Japan had to have a run-off war to determine a winner? Thank God it never came to that! Why? I surmise because God was working providentially behind the fighting scenes to carry our His intentions.

I draw a similarity between immigrants seeking after a better life in America and Christians eagerly awaiting Jesus second coming. The first group’s quest is to meet their immediate physical needs. The second group’s focus is to substantiate their life beyond death. Both groups’ intentions are valid in their own right, but the second one is clearly exponentially more important than the first. It’s almost like buying your burial plot (on Earth) before you die, as opposed to the Christians’ plots (for life eternally) that have already been reserved in heaven. On the other hand, the lost should realize that by not choosing to follow Jesus when they had opportunity, their post-death destination is in hell with Satan and his tainted angels–forever!