We’re tired.

The 24 hour news cycle has worn us all out, and we’ve gone “back to normal,” letting pundits be pundits and Facebook be the place of innocuous and sweet family photos.

Normal is good. It’s good for the blood pressure and the extended family dinners out. It’s good for sleep patterns and long term mental health. I’m not being sarcastic when I say that normal is good.

But.

It’s not good for refugees.

It’s not good that we normalize unfounded fears.

It’s not good that we vilify certain people in large groups in the course of normal conversation.

It’s not good that we figure that large-scale human suffering is normal, as long as it’s not in our backyard.

It’s not good that we pretend not to hear the disturbing political discourse behind the static that we tell ourselves is normal.

There’s a weariness to this journey.

No one feels it more, I would imagine, than the refugee who just got caught in the system and may never get back to normal again.

Today’s executive order is, perhaps, more legally fortified. It’s perhaps less shocking, with fewer immediate teeth. It probably appeases some businesses and lays to rest some fears that permanent residents have.

But.

It’s no less harsh to the least of these – the refugee. Once more, the most vulnerable people group in the immigrant community suffers most because they do not have a voice.

This should not be normal, my friends.

Not on our watch.

Not when followers of the God who bestowed dignity by making men and women in the divine image and then sent His beloved to fight on behalf of the broken – every last one of us – look on.

Please read what my friends at World Relief have to say. Please consider giving to them. https://www.worldrelief.org/press-releases/world-relief-responds-to-revised-trump-executive-order

Please – let’s make standing with the most vulnerable a non-negotiable.  Can we make it normal?

Thank you.