Kaldi and the Dancing Goats is a story from Ethiopia. Kaldi was a goatherd, who one day was grazing his goats on a mountain side, but by the end of the day he could not find them.
Kaldi searched, and he searched, and he searched. Finally, he found them dancing around a bush whose red berries they had been feasting on. Kaldi decided to try the berries and found himself inspired to dance.
Kaldi took the red-berry treasure to some monks in a nearby monastery. One monk felt the red berries were a work of the devil and flung them into the fire. The fire brought out such an exquisite aroma from the red berries that the monks rescued the berries, ground them and made the hot, black drink we know as coffee. What they at first thought was a work of the devil, they later decided was a gift from God because coffee kept people awake during their prayers.
Some people feel that allowing a short, easy path to citizenship without economic burden for immigrants is a work of the devil. However, many immigrants are Christians fleeing from places of persecution and/or poverty to places that treasure things like freedom, equality and economic opportunity.
Religious freedom is not a reality in northern Nigeria. Also other parts of Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, have absorbed about as many people fleeing from northern Nigeria as they can help. Nigeria is about 50 percent Islam, 40 percent Christian and 10 percent other faiths.
One tradition says that the reason Abraham of the Bible had to immigrate from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan is because he was being persecuted. God will use persecution and other situations to move us from one place to another for a good purpose. Genesis 12 records that Abraham coming to Canaan would be a part of his family being a global blessing to people.
The Brazos River flows through the middle of the American state of Texas. This river was originally named Los Brazos de Dios (In the Arms of God). Creyentes (believers) serve a big God whose arms are so big that they could never be too many people for Him to hug. Creyentes are God's physical arms on earth. Hugging immigrants is a blessing to us and to them.
Christian Minister and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King, Jr., says, "[People] often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other; they do not know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated." Demonic fear is designed to divide and to destroy people.
An East African proverb says, "When minds are the same, that which is far off will come." If we stay in fear, we cannot unify and do the great works God said we are to do.
Demonic fear produces irrational thinking. Imagine the extensive psychiatric problems in China due to China's one child policy with forced abortion and forced sterilization. Inflicting psychiatric problems reduces productivity. Productivity is essential for people to survive and thrive.
The idea of killing people and/or disfiguring them for social advancement is ancient and modern. In America and in other countries abortionists kill unborn baby girls and baby boys. Sometimes abortionists also kill babies born alive after botched abortions, adolescents and women. Abortionist LeRoy Carhart killed Christin Gilbert, a 19-year-old who had Down syndrome, and her baby. Gilbert is not the only woman killed by Carhart, who does late-term abortions. People with disabilities are discriminated against in the womb and out of the womb. Robert Ethan Saylor, was a young man killed in a movie theater because people didn't understand someone with Down syndrome.
We must learn to distinguish among foreign invaders/enemies and the potential friends of immigrants and people with disabilities.
Share some stories of immigrants and persons with disabilities overcoming discrimination. Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, VA 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30. Recommend this article on Google.
Enjoy Memorial Day on Monday.
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