Trail West Dispatch #14 December 27, 2025

 

“Establish a private life.  Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around.  Scrub your computer of malware on a regular basis.  Remember that email is skywriting.  Consider using alternative forms of the internet or consider using it less.  Have personal exchanges in person.  For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble.  Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you.  Try not to have hooks.”                                                                                                           --Timothy Snyder

I freely admit to experiencing a lot of dissonance related to this advice.  While I am fully on board with the last sentence, I do scrub my computer of malware, and I recognize the danger of being known to “nastier rulers,” I still can’t figure out exactly what establishing “a private life” should mean for me.  So, I engage in an uneasy juggling exercise of tossing some of the advice and reaching for other parts of it.

In the past few years especially, faced with increasing limitations, and the realization that I will need to say no to many good and appealing options, I have settled on repeating to myself and occasionally to others: “I will do what I am able to do.”  What is the remedy when doing what I can do also potentially puts me in harm’s way?  Is avoiding harm the main point in life?  What about all the gender and societal considerations of initiating personal exchanges instead of using email?  What if the internet is the most affordable way of accessing news and the most accessible way of connecting with others when one seldom travels far from home?  What if transparency is a virtue?   Can a clear conscience provide an armor against fear—if not against danger?

I can think of many reasons why some rich, famous, and powerful people wish they had not left a trail of records of their wrongdoing.  If you’ve been following the news on the Epstein files, you’re seeing this play out.  Even Herculean efforts to keep the records “private” have not been successful, and the evidence trail can potentially incriminate those who may be guilty of heinous crimes like sex trafficking children and murdering people who might have spilled the story earlier.  The last has not been confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt, but testimony by people who apparently had direct knowledge of it have spoken out. I have not personally tried this, but others report that the heavily redacted text of the already-released Epstein files becomes “unredacted” by using some simple and routine copy/paste text-manipulation functions.

Also, if you’ve followed the saga of the publicly-scheduled-and-then-canceled CECOT prison exposé in a TV program, you know that efforts to conceal wrongdoing can backfire spectacularly.  In this case, the “canceled” program accidentally aired in Canada, and was freely shared from there with people in the US.  It turns out that the chief law breakers involved with CECOT were likely not the incarcerated ones.

The SS lesson for this week from Matthew tells us about the trial of Jesus in a legal system that was bent toward injustice.  Rulers protected their own position and power.  Citizens lied in their accusations.   The enforcers punished with excessive cruelty.  Guards at the tomb “guaranteed” that those in power would have the last word--until the Kingdom of God triumphed over all of it. 

The guards were apparently knocked out cold with the force of the triumph.  The women who came to the tomb transitioned swiftly from puzzlement to animation and eagerness to communicate.  Over time, all the disciples who were left carried on with new confidence and joy.  This triumph is no less operative today, and following Jesus faithfully in the perplexities and hazards of this moment in time is possible because of it.  It makes possible living transparently, both in private and in public.     –Miriam Iwashige