But, just around the corner, Gaza is an ongoing atrocity that continues to require our attention.

Within the landscape of post-war Gaza, a jagged silhouette of pulverized concrete and twisted rebar, a fragile canvas tent stands in defiance of despair. The ground beneath it is not a polished classroom floor but packed earth and rugs, yet within its flimsy walls, the air vibrates with a rare sound: the rhythmic recitation of the Arabic alphabet. This is the Ru.Gaza Education Tent, a grassroots sanctuary designed to stitch back together the shredded tapestry of a generation’s future.

To understand the significance of the Ru.Gaza Education Tent, one need only look at the desolation surrounding it. By 2026, the cumulative impact of years of blockade, a global pandemic, and successive bombings has caused the total collapse of education in Gaza. Gaza’s concrete classrooms have been systematically destroyed: over 95% of school buildings have sustained damage; nearly 90% require complete reconstruction.

The statistics of the Gazan scholasticide—the systematic destruction of its entire education system—are staggering. By late 2025, more than 18,000 students and 780 education personnel had been killed (with countless more unconfirmed deaths), while tens of thousands more were left with life-altering injuries. Universities that once served as the intellectual heart of Gaza, such as the Islamic University and Al-Azhar, have been reduced to hollowed-out shells or temporary shelters where displaced families burn books simply to boil water or stay warm. Within this void, children have lost more than five years of education since 2020. And they are no longer just students; they are survivors, often described as “the living dead,” too weak from malnutrition to play, convinced by the unrelenting terror that they will die young.

The crisis in Gaza is not merely a loss of literacy; it is a profound psychological and social rupture. Children aged 7 to 12, who should have already mastered the ABCs (or their Arabic equivalent), are instead grappling with severe and constant anxiety, aggression, and withdrawal. Without the routine and safety of a classroom, a generation may be lost forever.

The Ru.Gaza Education Tent was born from the realization that Gazan children need to return to learning immediately to prevent irrevocable damage to the social and economic fabric of Palestinian society. The project identifies two core, inseparable goals: fighting illiteracy and healing trauma. It acknowledges that a child cannot learn to read while their mind is locked in a state of fight-or-flight. Therefore, the tent provides not just paper and pencil education, but also psycho-social support through art, play, and nurturing adult guidance. It is a space where the identity of a student can supersede the identity of a displaced person.

The architect of this hope is Ruwaida Kamal Amer, a woman whose own life story mirrors the resilience of the people she serves. Ruwaida, a dedicated and experienced science teacher, is also a frontline voice for major international outlets like Al Jazeera and +972 Magazine. Her pedagogical background remains the foundation of her worldview, evident as well in her journalism that documents the lived realities of Gaza before, during and after the war.

Ruwaida’s war experience was one of repeated loss and miraculous survival. She faced the same harrowing displacements as her neighbors, fleeing from Khan Younis as missiles fell and resources vanished. As a reporter, she often focused on the stories of women and children—ignored narratives of those who unfairly and disproportionately bore the brunt of the humanitarian crisis. She wrote of newborns freezing in tents and children crying from hunger, all while she herself struggled to find a square meter of land to pitch a tent for her own family.

One of the most poignant chapters of her story involves her sister-in-law, Sahar Amer. When Sahar’s tent “home” was destroyed during the war, her daughter Rital kept asking, “When will we go home?” and “Where are my toys?”. The horror and suffering reflected in the eyes of children like Rital deepened Ruwaida’s resolve. She realized, post-war, that while she could not stop the bombs (and they do keep coming), she could create a weather-safe tent where education could resume.

Today, the Ru.Gaza Education Tent operates as a grassroots initiative, seeking to provide stability for children who have lost everything. For a modest budget of $72,000 USD per year—a fraction of the cost of a single modern classroom in the West—the project aims to provide daily meals, winter clothing, and salaries for five staff members who act as teachers, mentors and healers to its one hundred plus students.

In a territory where everything is scarce and costly, the value of Ruwaida’s tent is immeasurable. It is a testament to her conviction that education is the ultimate form of resistance. Within her canvas sanctuary, the children of Gaza are not just learning to read; they are being given the tools to reclaim their childhood and, insahallah, to rebuild the world that was taken from them.

You can make a tax-deductible donation to the Ru.Gaza Education tent here. 97% of your donation goes directly to Ru.Gaza.

For information about making larger donations or donations of stock ($1000-$10,000), contact kclark84@yahoo.com.

The fog of peace may not be the best time to take stock of the casualties of war, but when the fog lifts, after the celebration and the self-congratulation, we should never forget that this was a war without honor.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing about 1200 innocent people and taking 250 hostage. When Israel responded militarily, I defended Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. Hamas was shockingly brutal and violent, targeting and terrorizing innocent Israelis. Hamas’s greatest shame, using Palestinians as human shields, showed an utter lack of concern for the lives of Gazan citizens. No honor here. Hamas should get what it deserves.

Sam Harris, among many others, painted the resulting war as black and white, rejecting any claims of moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel. He wrote:

At this moment in history, there are people and cultures that harbor very different attitudes about violence and the value of human life. There are people and cultures that rejoice, positively rejoice—dancing in the streets rejoicing—over the massacre of innocent civilians; conversely there are people and cultures that seek to avoid killing innocent civilians, and deeply regret it when they do—and they occasionally prosecute and imprison their own soldiers when they violate this modern norm of combat…

In short, there are people and cultures who revel in war crimes—and who do not hide these crimes or their celebration of them but, rather, proudly broadcast their savagery for all the world to see. Conversely, there are people and cultures who have given us the concept of a war crime as a sacred prohibition—and as a safeguard in the ongoing project of maintaining the moral progress of civilization.

In a similar vein, Mike Huckabee, US Ambassador to Israel, claimed that Israel-Gaza is a “battle between heaven and hell, between good and evil, between light and darkness.”

Harris and Huckabee alike painted Arab (Islamic) cultures as bad and barbaric, Israeli civilization as good and honorable (I added “Islamic” because of Harris’s and Huckabee’s historic Islamophobia).

As the war progressed, Israel’s response became increasingly disproportionate and vengeful and even vicious. Israel’s rulers and citizens, chanting “Death to Arabs,” reveled in the destruction of Gaza. Israel ceded its moral high ground by its excessive killings of innocent civilians.

I have friends in Gaza who were bombed from home to apartment to tent to the beach. I haven’t heard from one of those friends for several weeks. I hope that just means that she has lost internet access; I fear it means something else. Everyone I have heard from recently is starving, desperate for a small scrap of bread.

I had many conversations with Dr. Wael Nasrallah, a Palestinian pediatrician, about life in Gaza since the start of the war. He has fought tirelessly to save the lives of the innocent and maimed children, too numerous to count, brought into his hospital—victims of missiles, cluster bombs, fires, snipers and starvation. Some Israeli snipers deliberately target Gazan children, killing many with just a single, well-aimed bullet to the head or the chest. One little girl, Hind Rajab, came in with 335 bullets in her tiny body.

Dr. Nasr now, even after the declaration of peace, barely clings to the living. Within just a week, he lost his parents, two siblings, his wife Noura, his daughter, Aliya, and his only son, Bilal, from the onslaught of the Israeli army. His last surviving daughter, Safa, offered her comfort: “Daddy, I’ll be by your side, I don’t want to see you burdened with sadness.” Thirteen months later, on August 5^th, 2025, Safa died in his arms. Dr. Nasr wrote:

They left before they could even speak life,

before their dreams were written,

before anyone could say to them: ‘You’ve grown.’

My children…

Smoke stole them before air,

bullets before words,

war before childhood.

No one can explain to my heart

how to live without them,

how time can pass without them in it.

I grew old suddenly in their absence,

as if tears became my only language.

They now sleep in the arms of the sky,

and I miss every moment—

a voice I can no longer hear,

eyes I can no longer see.

Oh Allah, hold my hand,

for I no longer have the strength to live without them.

As Safa’s life—Dr Nasr’s last light—has flickered out, in the unbearable darkness and unspeakable silence, he wishes he were dead and reunited with his family.

Death #40,877 has a name, Safa, a five-year-old girl who deserved a better and longer life.

I have many friends—some Israelis, some Americans (mostly evangelical Christians)—who are staunch defenders of Israel’s war in Gaza. They tell me that Israel’s war in Gaza, from beginning to now, was a just war and then offer reasons why. Let’s consider those reasons.

“Hamas is entirely responsible for all of these deaths because they started it.”

The Hamas attack was brutal and barbaric, and Hamas merited a severe military response. Yet Israel’s military response, once justified, soon became brutal and barbaric. According to just war theory, any response should be aimed only at the legitimate targets in war (i.e., soldiers, not civilians). But Israel’s overwhelming response has poorly discriminated between combatants and non-combatants. Israel has deliberately and directly aimed at women and children, hospitals and schools (both protected under international law), tents of refugees in designated “safe” areas, and rescue operations. I don’t know the golden citizen/combatant ratio—but Israel, in bombing hospitals and sniping children, has violated that ratio. While Hamas is clearly responsible for some Palestinian deaths, even deaths of civilians, Israel is responsible for every excessive death that surpasses the golden ratio. Please don’t tell me that #40,877, Safa’s death, is justified simply because Hamas started it (or is covered by the golden citizen/combatant ratio).

“Palestinians demand the ethnic cleansing of Israel’s 7 million Jews.”

Israel’s desire not to be bordered by a country that demands its cessation is legitimate; Israelis have a right to live in peace and security. But while it’s true that Hamas, the de facto leaders of Gaza, demands the cessation of the State of Israel, it’s not true that Palestinians, one and all, demanded the ethnic cleansing of Israel’s 7 million Jews. Long before its brutal attack on innocent Israeli civilians, Hamas had squandered its moral leadership in Gaza. Many of the billions of dollars that were given to build up Gaza were diverted by Hamas into secret tunnels, weapons, and personal bank accounts. Moreover, Hamas subverted a democratic Gaza: it hasn’t held an election since 2006 (in which Hamas received less than 45% of the popular vote). Little wonder that before the invasion, 72% of Gazans believed that Hamas was corrupt and only 29% trusted the Hamas government. While Hamas has the power, it long ago relinquished the right to represent Gazans. And any claim that Hamas represents the views of “the Palestinians” is simply false. Please don’t tell me that Safa deserved to die because she was a Palestinian (who, as such, demanded the ethnic cleansing of Israel).

“You’re being anti-Semitic because you criticize Israel but don’t criticize Russia, the Congo, and Sudan.”

I grieved with my Israeli friends over the Hamas attack. I also grieved over Russia’s attacks on my friends in Ukraine (and have written against Trump’s scurrilous support of Putin). I feared for my Iranian friends when Israel and the US recently bombed Tehran. I have not, however, written about the needless deaths in the Congo and Sudan. This is not to my credit—I should care. But it’s a big world and there’s only so much time; so I’ve focused on the places where I have friends, friends who are suffering. And it is not anti-Semitic that my care for Safa (and Dr. Nasr and his only son and his wife, etc and etc) kindled my belief that the Israeli government has gone too far.

“You should expect a lot of deaths in modern combat in civilian population areas.”

Maybe I should have. But this many? Over 65,000 mostly innocent Palestinian civilians (though I suspect we will learn, when the rubble is cleared and the dust is settled, that the number of innocent deaths is vastly greater)? At any rate, to those who argue thusly, give me the number of civilian deaths that one should expect—you know, just the right number of dead Safas—so that I can adjust my moral expectations.

“You did it, too, in Japan, Germany and Iraq.”

Yes, we (USA) did it, too. We needlessly killed countless innocent civilians by dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, fire bombing Dresden, and “shocking and awing” Iraq. Shame on us, too.

I wish the defenders of Israel’s devastation would tell me what is just the right number of friend-deaths in Gaza—how it goes all the way to 40,877 and beyond.

But I don’t really want to be argued with. Safa’s death is not the conclusion of a good argument; Safa’s death should not lie hidden under the rubble of rationalizations or obscured by the fog of peace. We all should sympathetically understand Safa’s death. As Dr. Nasr wrote:

No one can explain to my heart

how to live without them,

Please, please don’t argue Safa away.

While Israel had some initial justification for its military response, those justifications evaporated sometime between dropping that first bomb and death #40,877. And #40,877 has a name.

From the sniping of children (a practice which started prior to the war which certainly contributed to Hamas’s frustrations) to the bombings of hospitals and schools and tents in sanctuary camps to the attacks on rescue vehicles to the blockades of food to the extra-judicial bombings of the Hamas peace delegation in Qatar (all war crimes)–somewhere between that first bomb and #40,877–Netanyahu ceded the moral high ground, attaining the moral status of terrorist and war criminal.

Sadly, Netanyahu and his enablers will likely walk off proudly into the sunset, lauded in Israel and the US as a conqueror, unprosecuted for violating norms of combat. And all those nations complicit with the war crimes–including the United States–share in the shame (sadly, again, to no consequence). Defenders of Israel’s war will think that the end justified the means. But it does not. There is no honor here.

Hamas should get what it deserves. Netanyahu and his enablers should, too.

It is with great sadness that I report the early death of my dear friend, Helen De Cruz. I have known her since she was a graduate student. We became fast friends, sharing mutual interests. Our friendship was cemented when we spent three weeks together in Oxford (eating meals together in the "Harry Potter Dining Hall"). I got to know Helen and her husband, Johann, and her wonderful children in the years that followed. She was creative, brave, insightful, expansive and gentle. A huge loss personally and professionally. Why Helen is worth remembering:

Helen once wrote that she was surprised to find out that many people have told her that one thing they like about her is that she plays the lute. So, I’ll start with that.

I don’t really care much for lute music and, in all honestly, I never cared much for Helen’s posts of her lute-playing. By her own admission, she was a mediocre lute player. I’ll resist the eulogist’s temptation to turn an ordinary person into a saint and simply note that she played the lute and was not great at it.

What I did like, though, was that playing the lute online mediocrely was just one more way that Helen shared her vivacious humanity with her friends. In that respect, Helen modeled a life that was different from that modeled by most academic philosophers. Here’s one difference: when philosophers greet one another, the first question asked is often, “so, what are you working on these days?” Then, after that’s been thoroughly discussed, silence ensues. As if the sum total of a person’s life (who happens also to be a philosopher) is philosophy work.

Helen self-consciously sought to cultivate the virtues of a well-rounded, well-lived life. That included being a good parent, wife and partner, friend, artist, art lover, novelist, friend, and lute player.

Helen, of course, worried about what other philosophers thought of her work. But it’s a sad fact of an impoverished life that the philosopher’s sense of place in the world would depend so heavily on what other very critical and begrudging and sometimes arrogant people think of us. So Helen worried that she worried about what other philosophers thought of her and her work. She increasingly sought, for better and sometimes for worse, a sense of self and self-worth independent of the opinions of philosophers.

Helen’s opinions of other philosophers, it is worth noting, were routinely generous. I’ve attended more than my fair share of dinners with prominent philosophers who spent a great deal of time discussing which philosophers “are really smart.” A name pops up, a debate ensues, and a judgement is reached – that philosopher (though quite well known) is not really smart. Helen never entertained such debates—I got the sense that she thought that most philosophers are really smart and that she thought of other philosophers, including those she disagreed with, as people she could learn from. She was never party to elevating herself by putting other philosophers down.

Helen’s self-image as a philosopher was quite different from the typical contemporary philosopher. For one thing, Helen worked on topics well outside the mainstream of contemporary philosophical fashion. She worked in the philosophy of religion, derided by secular academia, and on the cognitive science of religion, held in suspicion by philosophers of religion. And she, often with her life and professional partner, Johann, also worked on science fiction, indigenous philosophy, animal cognition, and awe and wonder. You might think that she played the academic lute.

Secondly, I think Helen was more keenly aware of her, our epistemic limitations. Many professional, academic philosophers (or so it seems to me) seem to fancy themselves as disembodied minds hovering above soiled contingency, coolly sorting through the evidence that, guess what!!!, supports their own dispassionately rational worldview. Everyone else, then, is not just wrong, they are irrational, immoral or even crazy. You may not hear this when you read a philosopher’s paper (everyone is better on paper than they are in life). But you will hear it in the derisive snickers over drinks after a talk.

Helen, however, treasured the soiled contingency on which she trod. Her work in cognitive science made her keenly aware of our human believing foibles, our dispositions to think fast and, even for philosophers, seldom to think slow. And she was keenly aware of the philosopher’s vice of self-congratulation through post-hoc rationalizations, in a word, epistemic pride. Helen embraced our epistemic finitude, or, to speak theologically, our creatureliness and all that entails: we are not epistemic gods. Heck, we are not even epistemic angels. We are, as Darwin noted and Helen studied and wrote, more apes than angels. So Helen sought to cultivate intellectual humility and generosity and compassion.

And she modeled her various struggles to fight against intellectual pride for her friends. Helen thought out loud and honestly and often online of her various struggles to flourish as a human being—she struggled with the two-body problem, being a good parent and partner given academic demands, body image, gender-identity, faith, and the afterlife. I knew Helen mostly as a fellow Christian but she clearly struggled with faith near the end of her life, moving I think to agnosticism, and yet hoping for hope in an afterlife as the end creeped closer and closer.

Helen’s life-project, though, came to an early end. I think she hoped for more clarity, more resolution, concerning her quest for a life well-lived. She conceded that she was at best half-done with her struggles with self-worth, self-image, and self-knowledge; she took those struggles with her to the grave. And while she strove for a virtuous life well-lived, she was unsure of its attainment.

So, again, I’ll resist the eulogist’s temptation to turn an ordinary person into a saint and simply note that Helen played the lute and was not great at it. I also won’t proclaim that St. Helen successfully translated on a chariot of fire into eternity as an intellectually humble, well-rounded person with the vocation of a philosopher who lived a well-rounded life. But, damn if she wasn’t better than most of us.

As I reflect on what’s most deeply wrong about the US deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador’s draconian Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), I think of Trump’s flouting of the law and the constitution and the judge who ordered the flight to return, the denials of due rights, and the deportation of innocent people. I think all of these, especially the latter two, are wrong, inexcusably wrong. I’ll get into those. But what I’ve found most deeply wrong is the barbarity that the leadup and the response to the deportations have revealed of the heart of America, the hearts of Americans, especially in the hearts of many so-called Christians.

In a facility self-consciously designed to terrorize and strip away dignity, CECOT prisoners are sadistically crammed into windowless cages of 65-70 prisoners (each allotted about 6 sq. ft.; the Red Cross recommends a minimum of 37 sq. ft.). Prisoners are never allowed outdoors and are forbidden opportunities for recreation or rehabilitation. Cristosal, a human rights organization, has reported massive evidence of human rights violations including abuse, torture, malnourishment and lack of medical care. CECOT’s design—its towering walls, minimal natural light, and emphasis on dehumanization—echoes the barbaric dungeons of medieval tyranny rather than modern justice.

Chickens are treated better in Michigan. Farmers are required to provide chickens with both indoor and outdoor environments, “enrichments that allow them to express natural behavior,” and adequate space per hen that allows them to freely lie down, stand up and move around. What Michigan requires for chickens is denied for human beings in CECOT.

According to the 8^th Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment,” no human being under any circumstance should be housed in conditions such as CECOT’s. The 8^th amendment requires provision for humane conditions, adequate food and medical care, and the safety of the inmates. Even if everyone sent to CECOT had been a felon (which they were NOT, many had NOT violated any laws in the United States), deporting them to CECOT is prohibited by the constitution.

Many Americans endorse and even enjoy the barbarism. Comments on an article in Breitbart on the deportations reveal the delight its readers take in the barbarity of the punishment. So we read from AmericaOneNationalUnderGod, Pureblood and GodFamilyTexas:

• Fly them out at night, and let them out at 30,000 feet.

• Forcibly remove their gang tattoos. Try a rotary sander.

• Now that’s justice.

• I disagree. Justice is a .45 cal. to the temple

• Love it! That place looks like Hell. Can we build one here

• Please....somebody....make a full length movie of this. It would be a BLOCKBUSTER!

• Who cares about how they are treated? They have proven they are low life animals and should be caged like animals in a zoo.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem shamelessly used CECOT prisoners as the background of her most recent photo-op. Finally, God himself is given the glory for the barbarism:

• Has GOD written all over it.

• WHAT A BEAUTIFUL SITE TO BEHOLD, GLORY BE TO GOD!!!!!

While barbarically imprisoning immigrants may slake our thirst for revenge, enjoying the imprisonment of any human being in such barbaric circumstances is morally repugnant.

                This, then, is the deepest wrong: 
       treating people worse than chickens and enjoying it.

If it is cruel to house any human in CECOT, it is unspeakably cruel to house humans whose only crime was being an illegal immigrant. After all, living illegally in the United States is not a felony. US punishment theory, rooted in biblical justice, holds that the punishment should fit the crime (and no more).

Yet MAGA insists: “they are ILLEGAL, what more do you need to know?” But just as not every crime merits the death sentence, not every illegality merits CECOT. Again, US punishment theory, rooted in biblical justice, holds that the punishment should fit the crime (and no more)—the barbaric CECOT punishment for those whose only crime was living illegally in the United States is morally repugnant.

If you think, as the id of MAGA does, that immigrants are, and I quote Breitbart commentators, animals, vermin, pure evil, savages, demons, beasts, monsters, scum, and termites, then you can feel good about your barbaric cruelty. However, if immigrants are, as the Bible holds, created in the image God, creatures of inestimable worth, then it is deeply wrong to degrade and dehumanize them and then to delight in their destruction.

Some of the deportees are innocent people—we can be pretty sure that they include a gay barber, a man with an autism tattoo in support of his brother, and a father with protected status (even Trump admitted this whoopsie)—who were deported to deplorable prisons in complete defiance of the process of due rights. Why did our founding fathers consider due process to be a natural God-given right, due to all human beings, not a right of simply of US citizens? To protect the innocent. Benjamin Franklin, one of the authors of the US Constitution wrote that “it is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer.” Now we love us some severe punishment of them illegals, even it if entangles many innocent people.

Tom Homan, Trump’s Border Czar, has both admitted and endorsed deporting innocent people, “many collaterals,” to CECOT. Consider the casual cruelty when Fox News hosts laughed about the gay barber who was deported to CECOT. In response to Jessica Tarlov’s protestations against imprisoning an innocent man, Jesse Waters flippantly replied: “Jessica, come on. It’s just a gay barber,” and Greg Gutfeld quipped, “He’s not into you.” Such loathsome and cruel comments demonstrate that we are far removed from our civilized and civilizing belief that is “it is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer.”

Trump’s “genius” in painting immigrants as “illegals” and “criminals” and “gang members” has effectively dehumanized and demonized immigrants and barbarized American hearts, attracting us to cruelty towards all immigrants.

The United States, of course, has the right and the power to protect its borders and its citizens. No one, on the right or left, thinks vicious Venezuelan gang members should be allow to roam freely and rape our children and pillage our cities. Those who object to deportations to CECOT do NOT want our streets filled with criminals. When it comes to felonious non-citizens—deport freely (but not, of course, to CECOT).

Now I will speak directly to our Christian brothers and sisters.

America’s new barbarism desperately needs grace, the kind of Jesus-grace that
crown[s} thy good with brotherhood. Yet we have allowed ourselves to become accustomed to cruelty, to enjoy it even, in direct contradiction to the Jesus’s commands to cultivate empathy, as hard as it may be, for the alien (immigrant) and stranger. In Leviticus 19:34, God instructs, “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” While the US government may callously deport immigrants as it pleases, Christians should treat them as fellow citizens (neighbors, friends) with all that entails.

Jesus amplifies this message. In Matthew 25:35-40, he declares, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” To welcome the stranger is to honor Jesus; to cast them into a prison of despair is to reject him. Deporting Venezuelans to CECOT and delighting in it does not merely fail this test—it inverts it, transforming an act of Christian hospitality into one of calculated and self-degrading malice.

—Nico and the Velvet Underground

A beautiful life

Before my last visit with my 80+ year-old Grandmother, Anna Catherine Leech, lying in a coma on her death bed, I stopped by her house to rummage through her old photos one last time. I found a yellowed and curled black and white photograph of her at age 14, posing for a formal, perhaps coming-of-age, memory. I had always thought of my Grandma as old, wrinkly, and white-haired. Young Catherine, though, was beautiful and full of life.

As I sat at her bedside, death swiftly approaching, I was overwhelmed with feelings of sadness and loss and even shame at not taking the time to get to know her better. I wanted to shake her awake and ask her what it had been like growing up on a farm, the only girl, and no indoor plumbing. I wanted to know what school was like for her and what dreams her 14-year-old self had had for her future. I wanted to ask how she survived the Great Depression with four young children and how she managed those children when her husband died at age 44.

I wanted to shake her awake and promise, “This time I will listen.”

Grandma would not, could not, wake and talk that one last time.

Overwhelmed with feelings, I held her hand, stared at her face, and saw, for the first, beautiful Catherine.

Why, overwhelmed with emotion, did I see my Grandma’s beauty, her beautiful life?

The cognitive psychology of empathy and beauty

Empathy and beauty seem, at first glance, distinct: one is an emotional bridge connecting us to others, while the other is an aesthetic judgment that delights the mind and the senses. Yet, when viewed through the lens of cognitive psychology, empathy and beauty are deeply intertwined. This essay delves into the cognitive mechanisms—perception, emotion, memory, and social cognition—that underly empathy and beauty, and how they converge to enrich human experience.

Defining empathy and beauty in cognitive terms

Let us first define empathy and beauty.

Empathy is the ability to perceive, understand, and share the emotions of another person. Cognitive psychologists distinguish between two types: cognitive empathy (understanding another’s perspective or mental state) and affective empathy (feeling with or sharing another’s emotional experience).

Beauty is typically understood as an experience of pleasure derived from perceiving something—a face, a sunset, a piece of music—that aligns with an internal sense of harmony, proportion, or meaning. In cognitive terms, beauty involves perceptual processing, emotional responses, social influences, and higher-order judgments.

The cognitive machinery of empathy

Empathy, likewise, begins with perception. When we see someone crying or hear a tremor in their voice, our sensory systems relay this information to the brain. The process then splits into cognitive and affective pathways.

Cognitive empathy engages regions of the brain linked to perspective-taking and mentalizing. For example, if a friend describes losing their job, we might imagine their anxiety by drawing on our own memories of stress and loss. That is, we understand others by simulating their mental states in our own minds, relying on so-called “mirror neurons”—cells that fire sympathetically when we observe the behaviors of others.

Affective empathy, on the other hand, involves areas of the brain involving emotional resonance. When we wince at someone else’s pain or feel joy at their success, these regions light up. Such “emotional contagion” is automatic and primal, evident even in infants who cry when they hear another baby crying.

Yet, empathy isn’t certain: if we’re biased against someone or some group of people, our empathic response weakens—reminding us that social cognition and emotion are interwoven.

The cognitive machinery of beauty

Beauty, like empathy, starts with perception but follows a different cognitive arc. When we gaze at a painting or listen to a symphony, the visual or auditory portions of our brain process the raw data—colors, shapes, tones. This information feeds into the brain’s reward system, the neuro-places where aesthetic pleasure is born.

Memory and culture also shape beauty. A landscape might stir us because it evokes a childhood memory; a sculpture might resonate because it fits a culturally-ingrained ideal. As such, beauty relies on higher-order, social cognition, much like empathy’s dependence on context and perspective.

Where empathy and beauty intersect

The cognitive overlap between empathy and beauty is clearest when we consider how they amplify each other. Art, for instance, can evoke both empathy and beauty. When we watch a character in a film suffer, we empathize with their pain, while the cinematography—its framing, lighting, or music—can render that moment beautiful. Empathy, then, enhances our perception of beauty, while beauty deepens our empathic connection.

Another intersection lies in our neuro-reward system. Both empathy and beauty trigger dopamine release, creating feelings of satisfaction or uplift. Helping someone in need or witnessing a selfless act can feel beautiful because it aligns with our social values, activating the same pleasure circuits as a stunning vista. This suggests a shared evolutionary root: empathy binds us to others for survival, while beauty signals environmental or social harmony, both reinforcing adaptive behaviors.

Empathy as a lens for beauty

Empathy doesn’t just coexist with beauty—it can define and create it. Consider the beauty of my Grandma’s weathered face; while wrinkles defy conventional symmetry, we often find them captivating because they tell a story, the story of a life, stories of struggle and resilience. This can invoke both cognitive and emotional empathy: we imagine the life behind the lines and project emotions onto the image. Studies show that faces rated as “interesting” or “beautiful” often deviate from perfection when paired with a narrative.

Evolutionary and philosophical reflections

Why do empathy and beauty intertwine? Evolution offers clues. Empathy likely evolved to strengthen social bonds, ensuring group survival, while beauty may have signaled mate quality (e.g., symmetry as health) or environmental safety. Their convergence could reflect a deeper adaptive purpose: a world perceived as beautiful, infused with empathic connections, motivates cooperation and creativity.

When we find something beautiful, we’re drawn to care for it, whether it’s a person, a forest, or an idea. Empathy fuels this care and beauty sustains it, creating a feedback loop that elevates human consciousness.

The beauty of hair

I was recently invited to speak on empathy and beauty to a group of hair stylists (hair artists, really, this group), people skilled in the technique of beauty. The best hair stylists are not, of course, mere technicians; they are equal parts artists and listeners. As listeners, they ask questions, not all or even mostly hair-related, about a client’s life, needs, and desires. My stylist, Migena, who I’ve known for decades, has rejoiced in my victories and sorrowed in my defeats. Migena asks about my wife and children and life, listening carefully for a revealing crack or pause. She cares about me, not just my hair. Migena’s as much friend as stylist.

I arrived early on occasion to see Migena with other clients, clients with whom she has built long-standing relationships. I witness her see and hear their stories and through their stories their beauty. Then, no matter how many the wrinkles or how white the hair, I watch the technician realize the beauty she’s seen and heard in that life.

I wish Migena had styled my Grandma’s hair.

Conclusion

The cognitive psychology of empathy and beauty reveals a rich tapestry of perception, emotion, and meaning-making. Empathy lets us step into others’ shoes, while beauty transforms that journey into something transcendent. Through mirror neurons, reward circuits, and cultural lenses, these processes intertwine, shaping how we relate to each other and our surroundings. Empathy and beauty are cognitive cornerstones—proof of our capacity to feel deeply, think creatively, and find wonder in the lives of those we love.

“A poem cannot stop a bullet. A novel can't defuse a bomb. But we are not helpless. We can sing the truth and name the liars.” ~Salman Rushdie

In addition to Trump’s well-known hopes to deport Central American immigrants and legal US citizens (citizens by birth), he has recently taken aim at Ukrainian war refugees and others who were granted humanitarian parole under the Biden administration; those granted humanitarian parole are legal immigrants who cost the US government nothing. Sending such refugees back to their home countries would put their lives in peril. MAGA Christians have sided with Trump against what they call “illegal aliens.”

Which makes me wonder, WWJD: Who Would Jesus Deport?

But instead I started thinking, WWDJ? Who would deport Jesus? In the well-known Christmas story, baby Jesus, mother Mary, and Joseph escape to Egypt because King Herod was searching for Jesus to kill him. After they escape, an enraged Herod ordered the killing of all the boys in Bethlehem under the age of two. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, however, entered Egypt where they found refuge until Herod died.

What if, instead of this lovely Christmas story, Jesus, Mary and Joseph had been stopped by a wall? Or what if the Egyptian Border Patrol has been ordered to turn away all Jews? Or what if a local Cairo mob, call them MEGA (Making Egypt Great Again), had thrown Jesus’s family out of Egypt? Or what if Jesus, Mary and Joseph had been granted humanitarian status by a Pharaoh I who was sensitive to their plight, only to have their humanitarian status revoked by a new Pharaoh II?

Forced to return, Herod’s henchmen quickly find Jesus, Mary and Joseph and then kill Jesus.

What would you do (WWYD) if you had been a first-century Egyptian and Egypt had declared Jews illegal aliens? If you had been a member of MEGA, would you have insisted on following the law that forbids Jews from living within the Egyptian border? Would you have thought, as I’ve seen on many right-wing websites:

• Come legally or don't come at all.

• Distraught women, babies crying, etc....I don't care....GET THEM OUT!

• Put a bounty on them.

• Not illegal aliens, murdering border-jumping criminal scum.

• Just another pig at the trough.

• How can you defend ILLEGAL aliens?

Would you have said or done nothing to help Jesus, Mary and Joseph? Or would you have done something like complain about them Jews or report them to the authorities? Because the law.

Either way, with the enthusiastic endorsement of MEGA, Jesus would have been captured, deported, and shipped back to where he belongs and then slaughtered by Herod.

Jesus’s teachings on immigrants, which are typically translated as “alien” or “stranger” in the Bible, assume the Jewish tradition with which he identified. So we read, for example:

“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” –Leviticus 19:34

“You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as citizens of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.” –Ezekiel 47:22

The Leviticus text applies the so-called Love Commandment explicitly to immigrants—you shall love the immigrant as you love yourself. As far as I can see, no exception is made for whether or not the immigrant is legal or illegal. The text grounds the compassionate treatment of immigrants in empathy—the ancient Hebrews share or should share the feelings of the immigrant because they were treated shabbily (though legally) as slaves in Egypt. The Ezekiel passage not only claims citizenship for the children of immigrants born in their land, but also to immigrant, birth-giving parents.

In the New Testament, Jesus ties our eternal destiny in part to our loving treatment of the stranger:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” —Matthew 25

According to Jesus, the failure to invite the stranger into your home and feed them and clothe them is sufficient to disqualify you from entering into the joy of the Master. If you disregard or disempower or dehumanize or deport immigrants, you are doing it, Jesus asserts, to Jesus himself.

Now back to our original question? Who Would Jesus Deport?

Let me start with the obvious—no one granted humanitarian parole (granted to people who have demonstrated an urgent need for safety) should be deported unless and until the conditions in their home country permit a safe return. Jesus, after all, should not have been deported until Herod was dead. Although US law makes precisely this point, Trump and his henchmen, simply ignore the law. Since Ukraine and Afghanistan, for example, have not improved at all, sending Ukrainian and Afghani refugees back to their home countries will almost certainly put their lives in peril (many Afghani refugees were granted humanitarian parole because they assisted US troops against the Taliban, the current regime in Afghanistan).

Who would Jesus deport? Not, as Trump would do, immigrants granted humanitarian parole; they should not be deported unless and until the conditions in their home country permit a safe return.

What about birthright citizens who have every right of every US citizen because according to the 14^thAmendment of the US Constitution they are US citizens? Trump, in opposition to the Constitution, rejects birthright citizenship and seeks to deport millions of legal US citizens (by, with one stroke of the pen, declaring them “illegal,” thus deportable).

Trump, in defiance of both Ezekiel 47 and the Constitution, is seeking to force legal US birthright citizens to move from their home and country to a strange land.

Why would the Bible and the Constitution alike assert birth-right citizenship? Those born in the United States have no geographical and often no linguistic connection to their parent’s home country. They are no more, say, Nicaraguan than Trump is German. Neither could find their way around their ancestor’s neighborhood nor ask for directions. Trump would uproot US citizens from their homes and friends and family and country—the communities which have nurtured them and within which they flourish. But the Bible says—don’t do that.

Who would Jesus deport? Neither birthright citizens nor their parents. Both should be treated as citizens and given their part in the land.

I could go on with other classes of immigrants, but I’ll stop here and ask, what should Christians do if Trump and/or the laws of the land demand the deportation of an immigrant that Christians have an obligation to protect and defend?

Christians should do everything within their power to empathetically care for the immigrant, legal or illegal, and treat them as a citizen in the land. Christians should speak truth to power on behalf of the disempowered immigrant, protest against vicious laws that separate parent from child, pay for legal services to protect the rights of immigrants, and open up their homes and share their food and drink. All of that, at least for now, can be done within the confines of the law.

I think Christians should go one step further. Since their spiritual home includes their physical church, the doors of their church-homes should be thrown wide open to the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien. Says Jesus. Christians should reclaim the church as sanctuary—as a refuge and protection for the disempowered and the dispossessed (those people that Jesus commanded us to especially care for).

Trump recently posted on “Truth” Social, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” The original quotation came by way of Emperor Bonaparte, a tyrant who thought himself above the law. Trump, it is clear, thinks himself above the law, buoyed, in part, by a recent Supreme Court blunder ruling and by his enablers. The insidious rationalization behind Trump’s claim is that the ends (saving the country) justify any means the President deems fit (including breaking the law and firing and starving and infecting lots of people).

Tyrant-opposers (both liberal and conservative alike) have turned to the courts to curb the law-breaking of the Trump team. Trump and his team currently face 40+ lawsuits, many directly related to the Constitution. “Saving our Country” is ultimately at stake because our Country is based on the Constitution (to be clear—it’s not his Country, it is our Country). If Trump succeeds in standing above the law, our Country is lost. In fighting for the sanctity of the Constitution, we are fighting to save our Country.

I remember two MAGA tropes during the campaign—if Biden is elected, it will be our last election, and if Biden is elected, he will destroy the Constitution. None of that was true, of course, but it portrayed MAGA as the patriotic defenders of the Constitution. But now that the Constitution is actually under attack by the Trump administration, we hear nary a MAGA peep. Why? Because saving his country (the end) is justified by any means (even destroying the Constitution).

But Trump and his administration, try as they might, are not above the Law.

Since MAGA may think I’m exaggerating, let me offer evidence that Trump is acting in opposition the Constitution.

The founding fathers grounded the Constitution in the fundamental freedoms found in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This first and foremost amendment sought to enshrine our natural rights to freedom of conscience, religion, and speech in opposition to the assaults on freedom that they experienced under the King. The Law-Higher-Than-the-King enshrines but doesn’t ensure our most basic human freedoms.

Trump’s executive orders on DEI have had a chilling effect on speech that uses such terms as “gender,” “diversity,” “equity,” and “affirmative action.” While you might think that anyone, anywhere can still freely use such terms, DOGE is systematically (yet illegally) searching out those terms in government documents and institutions, private emails, and corporate documents with the aim of punishing anyone who values diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Censorship has countless ugly faces.

The First Amendment also protects the Freedom of the Press. Elon Musk was upset that various outlets reported the names of his DOGE team: Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kilger, and Ethan Shaotran. This unelected and unvetted DODGEY group has illegally gained access to the most secure and private documents in our government’s possession. Given the sensitivity of this information and the import of DOGE’s decisions on countless human lives, this group should be named and known. Musk, however, claimed that naming the members of DOGE and criticizing their work is a crime amounting to treason. It’s a thin, tyrant’s line between outlawing criticism of DOGE and outlawing criticism of the President.

The second threat to the Freedom of the Press concerns the White House barring the Associated Press (AP), one of the largest news organizations in the world, from White House press briefings and other official events. AP’s “crime:” AP refuses to call the Gulf of Mexico by another name; AP, instead, continues to use the naming convention used for centuries and throughout the world. Trump’s executive order declaring that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America is not, as the White House alleges “the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America” and it is not, as the White House Press Secretary claims, “a fact.” What, after all, are the relevant international laws regarding the naming of international bodies of water? And what would ground the alleged fact that that body of water is or is not named the Gulf of Mexico? But even if these silly Trump-centric arguments were compelling, AP is protected by the First Amendment.

If the press were compelled by the constitution to report only facts, FOX “News” would have long ago been forced out of business; but even FOX “News” is protected by the First Amendment.

Trump continues to flout the Emoluments Clause, which prevents all Federal officials from profiting from their actions. The Emoluments Clause was written to prevent corruption, limit foreign influence, and preserve the President's independence. Trump has his hand in so many money-making pots and so many billionaire's pockets (including Putin’s?), he has utterly compromised his independence.

As Trump’s shadow president, Elon Musk should be subject to the Emoluments Clause (“and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States”). Yet Musk and his companies receive $8 million PER DAY from the Federal government. Moreover, Musk has moved to eliminate oversight of eleven Federal agencies that are involved in investigations, fines, complaints, and violations of four of his companies. The USA has never faced such a massive and consequential financial conflict of interest in its entire history.

The most dangerous violation of Constitutional Amendment is Trump/Musk’s usurping of the Constitutionally-protected power of the purse—Article I, Section 8, Clause 1:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debt.

Trump/Musk’s DOGE have illegally invaded government offices and agencies and illegally made decisions about funding which the Constitution restricts solely to Congress. Musk has refused to release funds that only Congress can approve. A judge has had the good sense to put the constitution over Trump/Musk.

Trump’s federal order rescinding birthright citizenship violates the 14th Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.

Trump’s toying with a 3^rd term would violate the 22nd Amendment.

Trump/Musk is in violation of several constitutional amendments, and Trump/Musk don’t really care because they think the constitution doesn’t apply to them because they think that the ends justify the means: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Sadly, MAGA doesn’t know and doesn’t care—because the ends justify the means.

Over 2000 years ago, the philosopher, Plato, predicted that the tyrannical leader would think himself above the law, and not to the salvation of his country:

Trump’s assault on the constitution proves that he thinks he is above the law. Considering the remainder of Plato’s definition of a tyrant, the tyrant’s shoe seems to fit.

If you repeat a lie long enough, people start to believe it. Maybe you even start to believe it yourself. If you happen to be a gazillionaire that people mistakenly think is a genius, then other people start to believe you. When you also happen to own one of the biggest social media platforms in the world, a platform on which you spew massive lies as established fact, lots of people start to believe you.

Elon Musk’s lies may destroy USAID, the U.S.’s humanitarian arm that, at very low cost, prevents massive starvation, provides HIV care for women and children, creates economic opportunities in developing countries, and supports incipient but fragile democracies (against the rise of tyranny and terrorism). If Musk’s lies are successful, millions of people will die.

Musk, with Trump’s permission (or vice versa), lies that USAID is like a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America” and that USAID is a “criminal organization” and that “it’s time for USAID to die.”

If USAID dies, people die. Millions of them. When Musk lies, people die.

In order to “prove” his lies, Musk and the White House have offered a laundry list of allegations that wither away under the slightest examination. But Musk and the White House can be sure that 49% of Americans can’t be bothered with the slightest examination; they like living in their musky house of lies.

I fear that simply by repeating those lies I will contribute to their uptake (MAGA will ignore that I am saying NOT true or UNtrue—they will just “hear” what conforms to their UNtrue worldview). I will repeat just a few lies that, again under the slightest examination are shown to be UNtrue, NOT true or MISleading. They have all been affirmed by Trump and his Press Secretary, widely circulated on Twitter and Truth Social and Fox News, and compounded with countless other lies and conspiracies. All of them UNtrue. So I sigh and try.

Musk lied that USAID awarded $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, and $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. These were in fact NOT funded by USAID, they received not one penny from USAID. They were funded by the State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Again, NOT USAID. But Musk and Trump and MAGA are not itching to kill the State Department.

Whether or not the State Department should be funding such things is a matter of, well, State, under the direction of Congress. And, of course, the President and Congress have the right to steer clear of such programs. However, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is usurping the authority of Congress as established by the US Constitution. Instead of Congress, which has sole Constitutional control of the US purse, Trump has turned that authority over to Musk and his post-adolescent minions.

Musk’s barely pubescent gang of five includes Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kilger, and Ethan Shaotran. It was a gang of six until DOGE senior citizen, Marko Elez (age 25), resigned from DOGE for his explicit racism (though Vice President Vance and Musk defended the racist). Just last year, Marko Elez posted:

• "Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool."

• "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity."

• "Normalize Indian hate."

Musk has vowed to rehire the racist.

Musk’s five remaining (ages 19-25) unelected and unvetted co-conspirators have, in violation of the Constitution, seized control of the US’s financial systems and are making disbursement decisions in defiance of the laws and institutions inaugurated by Congress. Trump has granted Musk’s minions the keys to the kingdom despite the fact that some have felony records, some are not US citizens, and some have connections to Russian security organizations and Chinese companies (there is evidence that some of MAGA and Musk’s anti-USAID lies are the product of Russian disinformation).

Let me now turn to two claims that may be true but were offered without any social or historical context:

• $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”

• $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam

The historical and social ignorance (stupidity) on display is massive. Serbia was the center of a massive multi-ethnic war throughout the entire 90s (look it up: it was bad); the need for reconciliation and inclusion among diverse and angry ethnic groups persists. Advancing equity and inclusion is entirely appropriate. And we owe Vietnam, a country in which we fought an unjust war that killed about 2,000,000 Vietnamese citizens and 1,000,000 Vietnamese soldiers, a big favor. Finally, the anti-science of the climate deniers is alarming and will unquestionably contribute to global climate disasters. Perhaps MAGA prefers ethnic strife and violence to detract from the world burning down.

This is why unvetted and unelected technocrats like Musk and his DOGE coup-conspirators, who lack maturity and social and historical awareness, should not have been allowed to invade USAID and make decisions about what is good for the world (or even the U.S.) because, again, this is the constitutional responsibility of Congress, not a bunch of snot-faced programmers, however awesome they are at programming and however “brilliant” their lying leader.

The lies of the Lying Liars That Lie have taken on a life of their own, aided by the Liar-in-Chief who, for example spouted that USAID spent “$100 million on condoms to Hamas” (evidently his previous lie of $50 million for condoms was not lie enough). Let me clarify a couple more lies: Chelsea Clinton did NOT receive millions of dollars from USAID, USAID did NOT covertly ship weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon in care packages, and USAID did NOT pay Jeffrey Epstein in 2023 (the pedophile died in 2019 and, ironically, his best friend, Donald Trump is more likely to have paid him), and….. Again, and it’s exhausting to repeat, a modicum of research will reveal these as, well, lies.

When I defend USAID’s pursuit of human values and life, I am accused of opposing transparency and waste. To be clear: I support transparency and despise the waste of taxpayer dollars (and I think there’s an astonishing amount of opacity and waste in the federal government). I also entirely favor the eradication of HIV and fascists and the Ebola virus and starvation (that is, the vast majority of the business of USAID). For example, USAID’s PEPFAR, instituted by Bush Jr, has prevented the scourge of AIDS, dramatically improved health care in over 50 countries, offered “homes” for aids orphans and widows, and saved well more than its modestly reported 26 million lives.

In short, I think the US should transparently and wisely spend some funds to relieve suffering and prevent disease and death around the world. Because, as Jesus said, that which you have done unto the least of my children, you have done unto me (assuming that Jesus, who sought to spread peace throughout the world, did not restrict “children” to “fellow Americans”).

Yet, on social media, MAGA, contra Jesus, seems to oppose spending any funds to relieve suffering and prevent disease and death around the world. Consider some posts on PEPFAR:

• AIDS is the cure for Sodom & Gomorrah.

• There is only one cure for sin.

• Disease is a consequence of behavioral choices.

• Gaytards should die.

Evidently, the wages of gaytards’ sins are AIDS, Ebola, starvation, terrorism, and, again, death for the poorest women and children in the world (the least of Jesus’s children).

Musk’s and Trump’s and MAGA’s lies about USAID would preclude any U.S. humanitarian efforts, reducing U.S. influence around the world to economic coercion (tariffs) and the dropping of bombs.

If you are pro-life and anti-suffering and stand on the side of the poor, the widow and orphan (in God’s whole world), you might ask: what can I do in the face of these lies?? Speak the Truth. Get out and get in the way. Call your representatives, over and over, and plea for compassion (and let them know that you won’t vote for them unless and until they bravely stand for truth and peace (against the Lying Liars That Lie)). Speak with your Christian friends and remind them that God so loved the WORLD.

If we don’t resist Elon Musk’s repulsive lies with all our heart, soul mind and strength, millions of people will die.

Trump has shuttered USAID, declaring it on day one, “an obstacle to peace.” Elon Musk and his DOGE minions have invaded USAID and gained access to its computers and sensitive information. Any USAID leaders who resisted Musk’s coup were fired by Trump, who called them all “raving lunatics.” Musk reported that Trump aims to shut down USAID completely; he posted that USAID is “a criminal organization” and “it's time for it to die.”

Musk and DOGE, to be clear, are unelected, unvetted, and unapproved by Congress; they lack essential security clearance for handling such sensitive information. But I am not writing about Trump’s massive attack on our democracy.

I want to write instead about Jesus’s insistence that Christians should “do the things that make for peace.” Peace, for Jesus, is not the mere cessation of war (and so does not concern coercive, violent power). Peace, for Jesus, involves the healing of the world, the radical inclusion of everyone, for sure, but focusing on those typically left out—the poor, the orphaned, the oppressed and the stranger (the immigrant). The Kingdom of God on earth as it is heaven is inaugurated through repentance from the worldly ways of valuing and doing (based on wealth, social status, pride and power) toward the Kingdom Way of valuing and doing (based on justice, mercy, humility, and sacrifice). The Kingdom Way—feeding the hungry, healing the sick, welcoming the stranger—creates the conditions of peace (shalom) in which humans flourish within a community committed to one’s another good.

USAID is our most Jesus-like instrument of peace.

USAID is the US's official office of humanitarian assistance, global health and conflict prevention. It aims directly at healing the world and focuses on the poor, the widow, and the orphan--the things, as Jesus said, that make for peace. If we stop this aid, millions will die of HIV and wars and starvation, mostly women and children. Healing the world—caring for the poor, the widow and the orphan—do not, as Trump claims of USAID, “destabilize world peace," they are the Way of Peace.

USAID was begun under JFK who understood the virtue of helping and healing the world: “There is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations – our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy – and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.”

JFK's Jesus-like moral vision couldn't be further from Trump's national narcissism.

What does USAID do? According to its website: "We work together with individuals, communities, and countries globally to improve everyday lives. USAID’s efforts provide humanitarian assistance, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance, advance economic opportunities, and help achieve progress beyond programs. Our work benefits people around the world, including those in the United States. USAID’s investments help achieve sustainable development progress, advancing our collective security, health, and prosperity.”

Let me give just one example of the good work that USAID is funding throughout the world: PEPFAR. PEPFAR has saved millions of lives through HIV education, prevention, testing and care. Through PEPFAR, over 5 million babies have been born HIV-free and over 7 million vulnerable orphans have had a safe place to grow up. It is likely that Trump’s foreign aid freeze has already cost a few lives; it is certain that the elimination of foreign aid will cost millions of lives.

If foreign aid is cancelled—if the US stops funding HIV prevention, famine and drought and disaster relief, poverty relief, nets to deter mosquito-born malaria, etc.—the Republican Party, the so-called Pro-Life Party, will soon become the Pro-Death Party. It will prove once and for all that while it cares for fetuses in wombs, it cares not one whit for actually living babies.

Imagine a world without USAID. A world where the US's military is its main source of foreign influence (coercive power). Imagine our unjust 2003 “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq, where we destroyed Iraq's infrastructure--roads, bridges, communications, electricity, supplies, water and sewage systems, health care—without returning to rebuild. The “collateral damage” of the subsequent contaminated water, economic collapse, and lack of food and health care includes up to one million innocent Iraqi deaths. But if the U.S. hadn’t returned to help at all, imagine the righteous resentment the US would face from young Iraqi men (think ISIS on steroids).

USAID had funded countless organizations involved in the rebuilding of Iraq.

It's easy to destroy, it's extremely difficult to rebuild. And the US has been the world's greatest exporter of destruction over the past two decades (see, for example, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Gaza and Yemen) leaving no-peace in our wake. Little wonder the rest of the world considers the US the world's greatest obstacle to peace.

In some parts of the world, our only official, non-violent exercise of influence in the world—our only moral goodness—is through USAID. Without USAID, the US is ruthless and heartless, dropping bombs and issuing drones to deal death and wreak chaos. No peace.

Destroying without creating perpetuates a cycle of violence, which we've witnessed in the Middle East. For the past twenty years, we have spent more than a trillion dollars per year on war, vastly increasing our debt and vastly profiting our military industrial complex. Yet our wars have vastly decreased international security and stability. Most of all, our wars have not created the conditions of peace.

What has been the US's financial contribution to good in the world? USAID distributes about $40billion/year to heal the world, a tiny fraction of the trillions that have been dedicated to destruction.

This should worry us: Musk, who de facto runs our country, is funding rockets to Mars so that we have a place to go when we destroy our world. But his charitable contributions do nothing to help and heal the world.

MAGA will say, but we have our own problems, we can't afford to help the world. Yet Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg alone could jointly fund USAID with the money they will save from Trump's tax cuts for gazillionaires and corporations.

The USA has plenty of money to help and heal the world. But Trump and his billionaires simply don't care.

If the Christian nationalists who support Trump really wish to follow Jesus on the Way of Peace, they should call their elected officials and demand the restoration of USAID, demand that US do the things that make for peace—care for the all of God’s creatures (not just the U.S. ones) starting with the poor, the orphan and the stranger.

Although we should do the things that make for peace without consideration of benefit to our country or fealty to our leaders, I will make one more point that I think might appeal to MAGA. JFK notes that international aid is not politically irrelevant, “our political obligations [are] the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.” If we don’t help the world, China will (China is doing it already). And to their benefit.