After listening to the past couple of news cycles I was thinking that it might be time to make a couple of additions to the Ten Commandments since many Christians aren’t able to comply with the golden rule. You know the “do unto others which you would have them do unto you”?

11. Mind your own business.

That is, make sure you are fully complying with the ten that came before. Particularly the bearing false witness and stealing ones. It’s all to easy to “like” someone’s viewpoint and endorse potentially commandment violating behavior because that person is spreading lies or ignorance and stealing away another’s reputation.

12. Do good works and help those in need without judgment.

But, wait, that directly contradicts #11 “mind your own business”. Not really. If there are people in need in your community, it is the community’s responsibility to lift them up. Need being defined as shelter, food, clothing, education, and appropriate additional assistance if long term illness or disability is the cause of their need. But if somebody does something that you find abhorrent, use your “I” statements and move on with your life.

For example, “I feel scared and sad when someone I admire commits suicide because I’m afraid that someday it will be me. I would like to engage in a meaningful conversation about mental illness and preventing future suicides.”

There is no reason to attack someone who is no longer able to defend themselves, and it is really cruel to impose that burden upon the survivors who are still reeling with the question, “why?”

The world has multiple humanitarian crises at the moment. There is the fighting in Gaza (when is there not fighting in Gaza?), there is Syria, there is an Ebola outbreak, there is the Ukraine, etc. Then there are the Central American CHILDREN who have risked life and limb, left everything they know and everyone they love, to try to seek ASYLUM here. In our country.

Asylum is a big deal ya’ll, and the most important of these crises for us to address as quickly as possible. Once we develop a plan and solution to provide for these children then we can focus efforts on the next most pressing crises and work our way down the list. These are not divide-and-conquer situations, most of them are unite-and-improve situations.

With respect to the children refugees, I would suggest the solution is not sending them back to raping, pillaging, and drug violence because we don’t want to plant the seeds for a wave of retributive semi-domestic terrorism in twenty years. If we send them back, some of these kids will survive, become war-hardened and focus efforts on those that did them wrong. We don’t need to creat a bin laden-like guerrilla leader on our southern border.

Our entire country was founded and developed by people trying to get away from persecution or war in their homelands. We did really bad things to native peoples in our quest to get away from bad things and create a society that provided safety for refugees whether they’re white, black, brown, yellow, or whatever other shade human skin tones come in. We cannot have a national mid-life crises and say, “I don’t want to do it anymore.” This is our identity and we must continue to provide sanctuary to peoples of different stripes and creeds.

We need to find ways to provide these children refuge with good shelter, healthy food, appropriate clothing, competitive education, and due process of law. We need to bring them into the fold and make them part of us. They’re children. Really brave children. Don’t punish them because they’re only children and can’t yet fix them problems in their home countries. They need our help. And they need it now.

Saw on Facebook someone standing up for their “god-given” rights to bear arms with an obligatory picture of a semi-automatic, high capacity magazine, rifle.

These are the arms that God gave us the right to bear:

Image found here. The artist has some really nice stuff.

And not everybody gets those. Granted, people who lose those arms later in life can usually blame other people for their loss.

But the right to possess and use guns is granted by government and the people who created that government. People ratified the second amendment. God had nothing to do with it. If the people, and the government they created and run, have decided that it’s time to take away the right to use guns, at least this will be an intentional process executed after due deliberation. And require a constitutional amendment. Unlike, say, an amputation due to land mines, car wreck, or injuries sustained after being shot with a gun.

People gave you the right to carry these:

Image found here.

God gave most of us these: