Mayor Rob Marlowe
There have been reports from the middle east regarding plight of a young family. After their country’s ruler started murdering his own subjects, they fled across the border.
Fortunately they found sanctuary in a foreign land for a few years. This in spite of the fact that their new country practiced a far different religion.
They were eventually able to return home. The husband went back to his old job as a carpenter. The wife raised their young son to know not just the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law.
As we watch the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the middle east today, we need to ask ourselves how we treat today’s refugees… people who flee oppression and murderous regimes simply to find a safe place to raise their families. We have leaders who would have us turn our backs on them and lock our borders.
How different would our world be today if the Egyptians had turned back that family two thousand years ago?
Would that child have had a chance to grow up and become the greatest teacher the world has ever known?
Would he have had the chance to teach us that how we deal with strangers, the poor, and the dispossessed is far more important amassing wealth and trying to make ourselves look better than everyone else?
Would that child have had the chance to grow up and offer himself as a sacrifice to atone for our sins, failings, and shortcomings?
Food for thought.
Best wishes for a very Merry Christmas.
Rob Marlowe, Mayor