Moving to Canada

I got a voice message from a friend today telling me we should have lunch before she moves to Canada. She went on to explain that if Donald Trump is elected President, she's gone!

What once seemed and impossibility, Trump being nominated, is becoming, each day, less impossible and veering toward 'possible', if not 'probable'. And, if not the Donald, most experts say, the next in line is Ted Cruz, who is to me even more frightening since Cruz has no comic relief factor.

But something that happened this week that makes me feel 'northern bound' more than Trump and Cruz is the advice given to students at Liberty University by Liberty's President, Jerry Falwell, Jr. Falwell advised students of the school to get gun permits and guns to 'shoot Muslims' if they came to campus to attack.

I was having lunch on Wednesday with three ministers from the Higganum area--we did an ecumenical Thanksgiving service together at St. James. The Congregationalist minister brought up Falwell's statement and another minister from a non-denominational sort of Mega-church said, "I'm not defending him, but we should hear it in context...."

What context, I wanted to know. He didn't say to have guns to shoot white people who walk into a Black Church and murder people or to shoot people who walk into a Planned Parenthood office to murder people or a white man who walked into a school in Newtown to murder innocent children and their teachers. Falwell said 'Muslims'. And even that pales in light of having a college campus armed to the teeth!

I'll probably never go to that clergy meeting again, though that's part of the problem too. I should go back to engage that minister in a conversation about guns and college students and Muslims. He's otherwise a kind, good man. I shouldn't avoid him but engage him.

Part of the problem is that we seldom engage and have conversation with people we disagree with. We are so polarized and divided into 'sides' that there's no interchange across the gaps. I'm not sure Trump or Cruz can be reasoned with, but maybe this minister could be. Maybe. Perhaps I should try at least that before leaving for Canada--a country with more guns per capita than the US and almost no history of mass shootings.

But Canada is so cold....