RAUL RODRIGUEZ'S REVOLTING REALITY

"Open your mouth for the speechless, In the cause of all who are appointed to die.  Open your mouth, judge righteously, And plead the cause of the poor and needy."  (Proverbs 31:8-9 New King James Version)

Exactly one week ago today, I heard a true story on a radio broadcast that upset me to the core of my being.  I have no words to express the sadness and bewilderment I felt after hearing of Raul Rodriguez's plight.  His "revolting reality" (my words) has been going on for almost two years.  I am very surprised I knew nothing of it until February 15, 2020.

I will write the details below, but for better or for worse, I felt I needed to begin with what could be called a "Disclaimer".  Frankly, in this hostile and supercharged political environment, I'm writing this piece with fear and trembling.  I have many friends on the political left- some of them way over on the left.  And I have many friends on the political right- some of them way over on the right.  Many of you know I'm a registered Republican and generally I tend to flow much more right than left; but I refuse to live my life in isolation from those with whom I disagree with most of the time.  On the one hand, I voted for Donald Trump, and I expect to do so again in November.  On the other hand, I sometimes disagree with President Trump, and I listen to a lot of broadcasts on Public Radio.  Yes, most of what you'll hear on Public Radio has a definite liberal/progressive bias.  However, there are some really good programs on Public Radio, especially the storytelling programs.  And, some of you may know I've been a featured speaker on Public Radio's The Moth Radio Hour.  I don't consider Mr. Raul Rodriguez's story and problem a conservative issue or a liberal/progressive issue or a pro-Trump issue or an anti-Trump issue.  So, bluntly, I ask those of you who may become very upset at me for what I write here, please don't bother with hostile or condescending comments or emails because I won't pay any attention to them.

Public Radio's This American Life on the weekend of February 15-16 featured as its "Act 2" presentation the story of Raul Rodriguez which they entitled, "Nowhere Man".

Raul Rodriguez is of Mexican heritage.  He lives in south Texas, not far from the border.  He was raised by an Aunt in south Texas.  His parents live in Mexico.  As a child, he'd always hated living away from his parents, but it was explained to him that his mother had slipped into America to give birth to Raul so he could grow up as an American citizen and have a better life than she and her husband had.  He's in his early fifties.  He's a U.S. Navy veteran.  Mr. Rodriguez worked for many years as an Officer with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.  He had an exemplary record, both in the Navy and with Customs and Border Patrol.  Rodriguez actually was sent to Washington, DC at one point to be specially honored for exemplary service.  He was known as "strictly by the book" regarding those crossing the border and residing in the States illegally.  He even turned in a friend at one point.  I don't use profanity, so I won't write words most of his friends and coworkers would use to describe him, but he was very tough and didn't let anybody get away with anything.

One day in the Spring of 2018, a couple of V.I.P.s from Customs and Border Patrol showed up at the local office where he worked.  He was asked to come in and meet with them.  To his shock, he was asked to surrender his gun and badge and was walked out the door.  He could not understand what he could possibly have done to cause this to happen!  A couple of weeks later, he was called in to a special meeting with some men from the Customs and Border Patrol hierarchy.  They produced a Mexican birth certificate and stated it was Raul's birth certificate!  The date and year of birth was different from the date Raul had always known as his birthday.  But the paper contained his name and his parents' names.  Mr. Rodriguez had a proper U.S. birth certificate which said he was born in Brownsville, Texas.  He'd had that birth certificate for probably forty years or more.  There had to be some mistake.  Arrangements were made for Raul's father to be brought in from Mexico to explain what was going on.  Tearfully,  his father said the Mexican birth certificate was valid.  His Dad explained the whole story of Raul being born in America was false; that he and his wife had cooked the whole thing up to give Raul a better life.  Raul Rodriguez was shocked, devastated, confused, and deeply hurt.

His wife Anita is an American citizen.  Raul felt he could at least apply for a green card to become a legal alien.  That process took over a year for him, and he was turned down.  He has an attorney and his situation is going through the appeals process, but it's very possible this U.S. Navy veteran; this exemplary U.S. Border Patrol agent, will eventually be deported to Mexico.  Of course, Mexican drug cartel folks would just love to have the opportunity to kill a former U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer- so deporting him could actually be very dangerous and even fatal.

Raul Rodriguez is literally a man without a country.

I've asked myself why I identify so much with Raul Rodriguez.  Why my heart aches for him?  Ten years ago this month, I was informed by my superiors that the little struggling church I was pastoring was closing and that I needed to step out of the ministry because I was emotionally and spiritually unhealthy.  (They weren't wrong.  I was emotionally and spiritually unhealthy.  The church had declined to the point that by early 2010 only about fifteen were showing up on Sunday mornings and some weeks it wasn't even that many.)   I was pretty well-known and pretty well thought of by a lot of people in Framingham, Massachusetts where I pastored.  I wrote guest columns for the local newspaper.  Twenty years ago, I was prominently featured on the local Christian radio station.  Suddenly, everything fell apart.  It's all way too personal to write about.  There are family members and friends who'd be upset if I wrote any more than that- so I won't.  I haven't pastored since them.  I've worked frustrating low paying jobs.  In the early days of my own "revolting reality" I was suicidal and under a psychiatrist's care.  Thank God, today I'm much happier and much healthier than I was in 2010.  I teach an Adult class at Bread of Life Church where Mary Ann and I worship.  I have a lot of good friends, and I feel in my own way, I contribute much to the cause of the Kingdom of God.  But that pain and loss experience never really goes away.  It's made me hyper-sensitive to a guy like Raul Rodriguez.  Twenty years ago, his story might have made no impact on me at all.  For the past week, I've thought about it constantly.

I don't know what can be done to help Raul Rodriguez.  But I will say bluntly that what he's going through is not right and something's got to be done!

I'm asking you to post the link to this blog post on your own social media and perhaps to even email the link to some close friends.  I believe that if a lot of us do that, eventually someone who can genuinely help Raul Rodriguez will step up and become involved.

To read about Raul Rodriguez's situation in The Atlantic Monthly magazine, go to the link below:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/a-former-border-agent-at-risk-of-deportation/606418

To hear the podcast on This American Life, go to the link below:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/694/get-back-to-where-you-once-belonged/act-two-3

SHOULD RUSH LIMBAUGH HAVE RECEIVED THAT PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL?

"Evil men do not understand justice, But those who seek the Lord understand all."  (Proverbs 28:5 New King James Version)

Last Monday afternoon (February 3, 2020) I saw a post that a Facebook friend had shared;  it indicated that Rush Limbaugh announced he has Stage 4 lung cancer.  That news stunned and saddened me.  A couple of hours later I saw a post on Facebook from Franklin Graham saying he'd be praying for Rush and inviting people to post comments.  Thousands of comments had already been posted.  I posted one quick comment:  "Praying for Rush".

The news of Rush Limbaugh's cancer brought back a flood of memories.  Although his national radio program began in August of 1988 I believe it began to be broadcast in the Boston area somewhere around 1990 or 1991.  His radio program in those days (in my opinion) was much better than it is today.  It was different.  It was entertaining.  It was funny.  And it was addictive.  I'd never heard of a radio talk show that played music until I listened to Rush.  There were a bunch of "update theme songs".  There was the "Animal Rights Update - Born Free";  there was the "Condom Update - Up, Up, and Away";  there was the "Peace Update - Una Paloma Blanca";  and there was the "Homeless Update - Ain't Got No Home".  Ain't Got No Home was done by Clarence "Frogman" Henry.  My kids were little in those days, and they loved "Ain't Got No Home" and would happily sing along. They also got excited (as did I) when we heard the sound of The Pretenders' My City Was Gone which was the opening music of the show each day.  I know this will sound "off the wall" to a lot of you, but those days of the early 1990s were, to borrow a line from Charles Dickens, "The best of times and the worst of times."  I cherish those days when my kids were all well under age 12 - cute little kids who liked to have fun.  I also cringe when I think of how bad things were financially for us in those days.  In the pre-1994 years, we were a one car family.  Our family finances were, well, terrible!  I remember the constant financial struggles and a lot of fear and depression, honestly.  Yes, we were Christians.  Yes, we did pray.  Yes, we did read the Bible. And, yes, the Lord saw us through those days, but they were extremely difficult!  I am a huge radio listener, and I'll tell you frankly that Rush Limbaugh in the afternoon and Larry Glick late at night over the airwaves put smiles on my face and comfort in my heart on many days that I was sad and scared.

Last Monday night, WBZ's Dan Rea on his Nightside program said he was sad that so many folks had already posted very hateful and cruel things about Rush Limbaugh and his diagnosis on social media.  I hadn't seen any of it at that point, but I sure did see a lot of negative posts over the next few days.  One post included probably about fifteen audio and visual clips of Rush Limbaugh through the years saying some very controversial, and in some cases, very cruel and inappropriate things.  Honestly, some of 'em weren't really too bad, but some of 'em were!  And there were written quotes.  One written quote had him saying something to the effect that there is absolutely no evidence smoking causes lung cancer.  And, there was a lot of cruel hatred in the responses to that one.

Wow.

Now, here's how I see that stuff.  Rush has been doing the national show since 1988.  He is bombastic.  He can be controversial.  He likes to get things stirred up.  And in doing so, did he say some things he probably shouldn't have?  Yeah.  But here's where I relate.  During my years of pastoring I preached hundreds of sermons, almost all of which were taped.  (Most of them are on cassette tapes, but if you can get hold of a cassette player you can still listen.)  And, I wrote a number of  Letters to the Editor to a few newspapers and wrote a number of guest columns for the MetroWest Daily News.  And I've been writing this blog since 2006.  Have I ever said anything during a sermon which was inappropriate and could even be considered hateful, insensitive or improper?  Yes.  And what about similar things in my writing to the newspapers and on the blog?  Yes.  Frankly, would I want some enemies parading all that stuff around in an arrogant manner and claiming this is who and what Bob Baril is all about?  I absolutely would not want that, nor do I think it would be fair or reasonable.

It's easy to kick someone when they're down!  Many of you know I pastored a church which closed ten years ago, and that I nearly had a complete mental breakdown and was under a psychiatrist's care.  I had to take low paying jobs which a lot of people probably would have said were "beneath" me.  I remember one day around 2011 or 2012 that I was handing out leaflets near the entrance of a big box store in Framingham. (The flyers were for the store's Optical Dept.)  One well known very liberal female political activist in the community confronted me and verbally let me have it.  She told me I had lost that pastorate and my stature in the community and was reduced to handing out flyers in a big box store because it just proved what a bad and pathetic excuse for a human being I was.  Can you imagine how I felt after that?  Well, it stays with you and you don't ever want to kick someone when they're down.

There's so much more I could say about Rush.  When he was a very young man, he experienced a number of personal failures.  Yet, he became very famous and a millionaire several times over.  He became an inspiration to a number of marginalized people, including me.  And, he became an inspiration to a number of people in "blue states" who are often the only conservative on their job or in their family or in their social group.  He made those people feel like they weren't jerks, nor were they bad and pathetic excuses for human beings, but that they mattered and their opinions mattered.  My father-in-law and I are very different people and don't have much in common.  But we finally bonded many years ago over (you guessed it) Rush Limbaugh!  Just the fact that it brought me closer to my father-in-law "Don" meant a lot to him and to me.

Now, I know there have been some great humanitarians and real "heavy hitters" who have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the past.  Is Rush Limbaugh on their level?  I don't know.  But I do know President Trump thinks he is and wanted to honor Rush.  I know many people will not agree with me, but Trump's reasoning is good enough for me.

The New Testament teaches we are to love our enemies and pray for them.  Check it out.  It does.  Now, I suppose a lot of you will say, "Well, Rush didn't love his enemies and he didn't pray for his enemies so why should I do that for him?!"  The answer is that number one, you really don't know if Rush did or didn't love and pray for his enemies.  But, number two, even if he didn't, you're still to do it because Jesus said to do it!  And even if Rush didn't deserve that award and even if he's a so-in-so (I don't think he is, but even if I'm wrong) there's no doubt Rush was touched and moved by receiving that medal and touched and moved by the fact that he has cancer and may not make it.  I hope and pray he does live but he may not.  But I believe Rush will think about all this stuff, and will go on to be an even better person.

I didn't like losing my position, and being disgraced.  I hated passing out leaflets and being told what a failure and a nothing I was.  But all of that stuff (and I hate to admit this) made me a better person.

You disagree?  Well read that verse from Proverbs 28 that I quoted above- read it again - and think about it.  Amen.