Lessons from the Judgment of the Nations
Two weekends ago, my Aunt Susie passed away.
One of the first female chemists at Parke-Davis and later DuPont, Aunt Susie approached death with her signature mix of intellectual curiosity and stubbornness. Near the end, before cancer overtook her entirely, she wrote a piece for her own funeral, a meditation on dying, spirituality and meaning. Listening to her words, I wished I could have just one more conversation with her about any of those things. Especially now.
In one part, she listed what she will miss about living: the books she won’t read; the conversations to which she won’t be able to add her two cents; the election results she won’t see roll in.
I don’t know if my aunt knew Donald Trump was elected president. She took a turn for the worse shortly after the election. I never got a chance to talk to her about it, but I think I know where she stood; she was quick to remind us that Joe Biden was once her boss (she worked for the State of Delaware following her chemist career). He sent her a Christmas card every year, as she told us every year.
The scripture read at her service was, like Aunt Susie herself, out of the box for a funeral: “The Sheep and the Goats,” also known as “The Judgment of the Nations.”
“Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.’
The righteous, in response, ask Jesus when they had help him in this way. He replies, “Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'”
As the priest read this passage, I thought about how many Americans are being so blatantly ignored. Whether you’re religious or not, this parable offers a clear message that all humans should take to heart: the good in this world gives to “the least of [its] brothers” while the evil in the world ignores their pain.
Just to emphasize an important line from that passage: “I was a stranger and you took me in.”
Trump campaigned on a message that immigrants (both legal and illegal) are a threat to our democracy and economy. Even if he never fulfills the promises of his campaign — the wall, the Muslim registry, the isolationism — he was elected in part because he promised these. And that adds up to a worrisome picture of America and its future.
Yes, Americans need to take care of ourselves, too. Of course we do. But when care for ourselves overrules the care we give to others, our moral compass goes off-kilter.
In my last column, I glossed over something important when I talked about unemployment rates.
While unemployment fell to 4.6 percent at the end of Obama’s term from 7.6 percent when he took office (and from a high of over 10 percent during the recession’s peak), Fayette County did not see the same drop in unemployment.
Here, unemployment at the time of Obama’s election was 9.5 percent. As of November 2016, it was 8.4 percent — the highest in Pennsylvania.
I get the frustration. The gains America has seen don’t necessarily translate to this area. It’s easy to blame this on failures of the Democratic Party and to turn to Donald Trump as the one to fix it. (With a cabinet full of more billionaires than any in history, it seems unlikely, but that’s another column.)
But I hope we can remember that there is more than one kind of suffering. For some, suffering is a loss of economic opportunity, while for others it’s worrying that one’s family will be separated due to mass deportation, or fearing for one’s life daily in a war-torn country like Syria.
All suffering is deserving of empathy. And to the extent that we can give it, help.
Jessica Vozel is originally from Perryopolis and, after attending graduate school and teaching in Ohio, now works as a freelance journalist and copywriter in the Pittsburgh area.