Did you know that today, June 20, is World Refugee Day?
    If we are to acknowledge that God is there and is, in vastly unfathomable ways, working in the cosmos, mysteriously granting love and purpose to all things in the compass of his largely inscrutable and ultimate vision, then why are we not treating refugees more Kindly?  The Jewish Bible (Old Testament) overflows with admonitions to help the foreigner and stranger.
     Don't we all want better lives for the children of the world?
     Sure, I know about Romans 13:1, that God holds final authority over all laws and rulers, and I recognize that we ensure an orderly society when we obey the law, but what seems to be missing in this awful debate over the fate of migrant children--refugees--who come to the southern borders of the United States is the notion, a notion given especial prominence by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., is that, as Jesus pointed out long ago, it is compassion that is at the center of God's heart.  And if a law is not promoting compassion, then it is missing the mark.
     Jesus never rejected a child, and Jesus didn't separate children from their parents.  Why are we?