Trail West Dispatch #15, March 2, 2026

“Contribute to good causes.  Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life.  Pick a charity or two and set up autopay.  Then you will have made a free choice that supports civil society and helps others to do good.”    --Timothy Snyder

Recently in our Sunday School class I requested prayer for the people in concentration camps in the US, many of them innocent.  I can’t remember what else I said, but I tried to show restraint in what I shared.  I know that many of these prisoners are deprived of necessities like clean water and unspoiled food.  No privacy is available, and if hygiene happens at all, it will happen in public, outside of bathroom facilities.  Ventilation is poor.  Bright lights are never turned off, and sometimes the spaces are too crowded to allow people to lie down at night. Foil blankets are the only kind available, and the place is often cold.  Some have been assaulted by guards, resulting in permanent disabilities and fatal injuries.  Reportedly, in at least one location, young females are being held in “Blue Butterfly” rooms where no contact or communication is possible.  Others have been deprived of medical care when they were gravely ill.  This information comes from people who were wrongly taken into custody and then eventually released. 

While the policies coming from the top are often cruel, much harm results from the privatization of prisons and other detention facilities.  In other words, the people directly in charge of those places are running a for-profit business, and the less they spend, the greater their profit.  More bodies mean more income, so unwarranted arrests are incentivized.  In the absence of a moral compass, any kind of neglect or mistreatment can be justified if it happens to be profitable.  Very little government oversight occurs.  Although any member of Congress has the right to inspect the facilities, they have been denied entrance at times when they showed up to do so.

I think what I said during Sunday School made some people in the class uncomfortable.  The “concentration camps” term was, no doubt, triggering for them.  I admit to using it intentionally, mostly because it’s accurate, but also because I believe that people sometimes benefit from a jolt of reality.  Sometimes we do need to turn away temporarily to protect our own emotional health, but permanently turning a blind eye is not defensible.  Prayer, however, is our privilege as a child of God, and reminding each other of this need is surely acceptable.   Being reminding of God’s presence is how we can keep from being completely overwhelmed, and might be able to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.

I do not usually harbor thoughts of intentionally making people uncomfortable on a Sunday morning in church.   Ordinary life includes quite enough of that for all of us, and I look forward to gathering for a church service as a reprieve from such things.  Furthermore, I feel loyal to the people around me and deeply appreciate what many of them are already doing to contribute to good causes as Snyder urges.  I cherish our church group, and feel no urge to redirect my weekly church-offering contributions.   

I want to become more involved with trusted organizations that are working on a local level to serve others.  For me it looks like projects that serve as extensions of homemaking and teaching.  These seem like small efforts, considering overwhelming needs, but Snyder says that when such efforts are undertaken with great care and mindfulness, they help build a civil society, which is effective against tyranny.

A civil society can never become the kingdom of God without the work of redemption through Jesus, but what makes sense for building the kingdom of God results in human flourishing, and a well-functioning civil society can be the result.  All of us should hope to find ways to partner in such efforts.