Let us applaud Alexei Anatollevich Navalny.  If Navalny's name isn't familiar to you, consider him to be one of the most prominent and certainly one of the bravest Russian dissidents to appear on the scene in the past decade.  Seemingly fearless of arrest or repression, Navalny has repeatedly challenged the twenty year reign of Vladimir Putin to change its ways.  Over and over, he has stepped forth to lead the Russian people in contesting the steady erosion of democracy in Russia.  For this, Navalny has endured numerous, arrests, imprisonment and, most recently, poisoning.  Putin seems to stop at nothing to prevent Navalny from encouraging and leading protest against his ironclad rule.

    

     Now, finally, he did.  Holding, trying, and convicting Navalny of a fabricated parole violation, Russian courts have recently sentenced him to two years in a Siberian prison.  But, Navalny says, he is not afraid.  And his wife supports him fully.

     For those of us in the West, people who every day enjoy and appreciate the liberties democracy affords us, we ought to admire Navalny greatly.  We ought to pray for him every day, and support him any way we can.  Repression is not the natural state of humanity.

     The fact of God ensures that every human has inherent dignity and the right and capacity to exercise choice.  I hope and pray that Navalny and his movement continues to inspire all of us to work to realize the push for the full expression of these things in every person across the world.