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. 

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

Trail West Dispatch #13 December 14, 2025

 “Practice Corporeal Politics.  Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen.  Get outside.  Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people.  Make new friends and march with them.”  --Timothy Snyder

Some of you may have noticed that this Dispatch is a whole week later than expected.  It wasn’t entirely due to my body softening in my chair and my emotions dissipating on the screen, although I admit that writing about practicing corporeal politics would have felt like fixating on a dripping faucet during a whole-house fire.  Paralysis ensued.   I don’t often get sick, but I was not feeling well part of the time, so that’s also part of the explanation for the silence. I’m still recovering. 

The fire:  Oil from Venezuela is desired, and war seems to be the plan for acquiring it.  The buildup to a formal declaration appears to be underway.  If Congress cooperates in declaring war, the floodgates of presidential discretion open, with potentially disastrous results for survival of a democratic society.  Having already handed the president broad immunity to prosecution for any action taken while in office, the Supreme Court now seems poised to award almost unfettered power to fire anyone the president doesn’t like and to hire anyone he does—with no regard for qualifications or consequences. The same people who unethically collected data on all of us immediately after January 20 are now able to take control of that information to give people who are insufficiently loyal to the regime no place to hide. 

Somali immigrants in Minnesota, most of whom are law-abiding citizens, have been singled out for public shaming and name calling by the president, possibly to clear the way for draconian—and almost certainly arbitrary--immigration enforcement actions planned for their area.  Overseas markets for grain and other farm products are disappearing.  Leaders of foreign countries are repeatedly ignoring US efforts at leadership, purposefully snubbing the US and turning elsewhere, or, in some cases, directly asking for our leaders to be called to account in international courts.  Economic indicators point to runaway costs for consumer goods and health insurance, a tight job market, and growing trade chaos.  US lawmaking bodies by turns fail to function at all, or function only to rubber stamp whatever their leaders propose.

The dripping faucet.  “. . . [M]arch with them” likely prompts uncomfortable visions of protesting while walking purposefully in big groups.  Consider several related ideas that seem better suited to people in our context.  Instead of marching with them, how about conversing with them and extending hospitality to them?   As a preliminary step, how about at least showing up in groups where unfamiliar people gather, observing their actions and the influences that shape them, and offering your own input wherever a need shows up that you might be able to supply?

Maybe it will look like what our family did years ago when we joined the newly-formed Partridge Community Association.  Hiromi said “We live here, and it’s our responsibility to help make this a good place to live.” We joined potlucks, helped plant trees in the park, picked up trash along the highway, helped organize city-wide cleanup events and garage sales, and helped rehabilitate dilapidated housing.  Our children joined others for story hour and summer reading program at the library.  Every opportunity to interact grew the feeling that we lived among friends.  We never thought of it as practicing corporeal politics, but maybe entering unfamiliar places and encountering unfamiliar people is just another way of saying “widen your circle of friends.”  We can probably all agree that this is a good thing, no matter what it’s called.                                                                                                         –Miriam Iwashige

Trail West Dispatch #12, November 28, 2025

 

“Make eye contact and small talk.  This is not just polite. It is a part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society.  It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust.  If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.”                      --Timothy Snyder

Have you ever noticed how masterfully some of the people you know manage to strike up a conversation with anyone they encounter?  Often the conversation begins with small talk, meaning that the topics are not important and the words themselves are not unusually interesting.  Despite seeming to have little to recommend it, beginning a conversation without small talk might seem too awkward or abrupt. 

Some of us have never been very good at small talk, but if Snyder is right, maybe even oldsters like us should get small talk figured out.  We do, after all, like the idea of staying in touch with our surroundings, breaking down social barriers, and knowing whom we should trust. If persecution should come our way, we would benefit from having a clear sense for where we fit in society (or don’t fit), who might need our help, and who might prove to be a helpful friend to us.

Recently, because of a medical appointment ahead of the meeting, I arrived late to a monthly meeting of Master Gardeners.  I tried to slip in unobtrusively, quietly greeting only the people sitting near me at the back table.  I absorbed all of the business meeting, and took care of the matters I was responsible for before heading for the exit after the adjournment.  That’s when Becky called my name loudly from the opposite side of the room, along with a hearty welcome and good wishes for the upcoming holiday.  So much for my not creating a stir.  And yay for Becky for seeing me and celebrating my presence.  I don’t think I’ll ever master Becky’s exuberant manner, but I’m pretty sure that I could do better at seeing others who don’t expect to be seen, and giving them a few kind words that would race around their heart in happy circles as Becky’s have done for me in the past.

Becky and I were once the very last people to leave the meeting, and, impulsively, she faced me and said “Miriam, could we just pray together?  I’m so worried about what’s happening in our country, and we need help.”  So, we held each other’s hands and prayed—heartfelt words spoken to the Father who cares.   That time my heart felt a different kind of happiness as I left the meeting site. We had met God together.

On Sunday in church when we prayed in small groups for people in violent and volatile environments, I remembered to pray for eyes to see people we encounter who are in such places, and for hearts to understand and care.  That same afternoon, I learned from a Facebook friend about needed and welcome change in a pastor’s views after having read Myth of a Christian Nation by G. Boyd. A recent Calvary Messenger article may have influenced him as well. Who knows what God may have been teaching him?

Of late, the hateful words uttered and the cruelty exacted on innocent people by those with remarkable positional authority has felt very heavy.  I have needed interactions with good people around me to remind me of what is right and good.  The SS lesson spoke of how Jesus sees what we offer Him and He treasures it.  It was part of an otherwise meaningful service.  Now that I’m focusing on such things, I remember conversations and exchanged greetings with friends after church, satisfaction at having harvested the last roots, leaves, and solid heads from the garden before the deep cold arrived,  savory soup for Sunday lunch, sick people recovering, Cyber Monday deals that feel like provision, grandchildren who do good school work, blazing sunsets and a cold full moon, green fields of wheat, even purring cats and an eager greeting from the dog—all these good things make small talk and eye contact seem within reach.  –Mrs. I.

Trail West Dispatch #11 November 22, 2025

“Investigate.  Figure things out for yourself.  Spend more time with long articles.  Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media.  Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you.  Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad).  Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.”                                   –Timothy Snyder

I’ve had my share of comeuppances for not doing enough investigation, at least by some other people’s standards.  One that comes to mind is the time when I reposted a meme that was supposedly a quote from the newly elected Pope Leo XIV.  I thought he sounded like an Anabaptist and I liked what he said, but he apparently never said the words that others attributed to him.  One of the people who pointed this out is a professor from a Mennonite college.  Our daughter-in-law is his first cousin, so I felt the rebuke somewhat personally.  He invoked “Thou shalt not bear false witness” as a justification for his position.  I acknowledged my error but said that I thought it represented his viewpoints accurately, and I would probably leave it in place for people to see the whole thread.  I saw it as needful transparency on my part, and an opportunity for others to wrestle with the matter itself (treatment of foreigners).  He didn’t think that was a good idea, and I eventually removed the post—under some inward protest. 

Recently the pope expressed publicly some of the same sentiments that appeared in the fake meme.  I may have felt a tiny bit vindicated for having spied a truthful sentiment early on, even though I got some of the details wrong.  I’m afraid this is the story of my life, at least in relation to missing too many details, and I am not proud of it.  

But Timothy Snyder says we should investigate.  I do a lot of it, too much, in some people’s minds, or the wrong kind, or for the wrong reasons, or with too little tact in relaying what I learn.  Considering the difficulties, why should I investigate, especially to the extent of ticking off every one of the subpoints under the main injunction—and in a different sense ticking off people around me in the process?  Because somebody’s gotta do it.   That’s my simplest take on the matter.

Snyder is saying that investigation is a means for resisting tyranny, which is something that all of us idealize.  Since we also idealize non-violence and the avoidance of deception, I personally think investigation is a good fit for people like us if we have the technical and critical thinking skills to do so, and if we are at a stage in life where we can invest the necessary time.  I see it as a stewardship decision, an opportunity to make the best use of the resources that God gives us.  Does that mean that all of us have an impossibly time-consuming obligation to investigate?  Does it mean that we will always get things exactly right?  No and no.  All of us must rely on people wiser than we are to do some of the investigating for us, and we stand to benefit a great deal from what they learn and share. 

I am particularly grateful for the people who acquire information by wading through a lot more muck than I could navigate with any sense of optimism intact.  We do it so you don’t have to are the words I sometimes hear from them.  Perhaps only people who get paid for it can afford this level of commitment to the task of investigation.

The important task that remains for all of us is to take what we learn and expose it to the light of truth as found in Scripture and then to ask What wilt thou have me to do?  Being as faithful to the facts as we know how to be and then being transparent before others are important as well.  I feel sure that, on some level at least, all of us can find a way to incorporate investigation into a life of faithful discipleship.           –Miriam Iwashige    

Trail West Dispatch #10 November 15, 2025

 “Believe in Truth.  To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.  If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis on which to do so.  If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.  The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”                                                          --Timothy Snyder

Unwillingness among Christians to face the facts has been one of my greatest personal disappointments in recent national events.  This is especially the case when “fact-blindness” is coupled with partisan political loyalties, political processes, and support for political figures.  As Snyder puts it, “You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you hear and what is actually the case.”

All of us have probably believed and even passed on something that proved later to be untrue.  When that has been the case, I hope that we have responded by making our acknowledgement of error as public as we have made our original falsehood—even if the original mistake has happened unwittingly. 

What is of far greater concern than unwitting errors, however, is conscience-compromising errors.  For example, when we have become invested in a certain false political narrative, we might fall into the trap of disbelieving everything that counters that narrative.  Then every “disbelieving” choice further erodes our conscience--until debasement of all kinds no longer triggers even a flicker of recognition or regret.

In national news, several major shifts took place during the past week.  The longest government shutdown in history ended, and a vote to compel the release of the Epstein files passed in the House of Representatives.  Without delving into the details of those news bits, two main takeaways are that many people’s food assistance and health care funding is taking a major hit, and that concerted efforts to conceal the leader’s past entanglements with a deeply immoral individual (Epstein) have taken a hit as well.  Many former supporters of the regime feel wronged because of their loss of benefits.  Others feel betrayed by the president failing to keep his campaign promise to release the Epstein files immediately after taking office. While it’s too early to tell, these events may signal a shift as well in partisan loyalties and voting. 

Next Sunday’s SS lesson is taken from Matthew 25:31-46 where Jesus gives us details about the final judgement.  I think of this judgement as the ultimate repudiation of falsehoods, and the occasion of facing ultimate consequences for believing lies instead of truth.  The passage also provides reassurance for those who embrace truth as revealed in Jesus.  This window into the certainty of judgement and the means for determining one’s eternal destiny seems like the most trustworthy basis possible for a critique of power.  Otherwise, the “blinding lights” will predominate and empty spectacle” will proliferate, and too many people will have consciences too blighted to recognize the black-and-white realities before them. 

One thing that has not shifted recently is that many “foreigners” still live in fear, regardless of their legal status.  Jesus sees the strangers (foreigners), the hungry and thirsty, and those who are imprisoned.  He tells us that how we treat them is a determiner of our fate in the final judgement. Matt. 25 quote below:

“³⁴Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.... ⁴¹Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”                                                                                      --Miriam Iwashige

Trail West Dispatch #9 November 8, 2025

 “Be kind to our language.  Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does.  Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing that everyone is saying.  Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet.  Read books.”                                                                                           –Timothy Snyder

“She’s reading that James Herriot book again” my boys would tell each other when they saw me reading, and giggling unaccountably.  I haven’t read any of those books recently, but I have no trouble remembering the delight of the language in those books.  Herriot wasn’t just kind to the English language.  He made it sing and dance and erupt in paroxysms, always wrapped in a Yorkshire accent.  After Herriot had become a very successful writer, journalists in search of a story would sometimes look him up and ask him to introduce them to some local characters like the ones in his books. 

Herriot always replied, “I can’t.  There aren’t any.”  He went on to say that after the advent of radio, there was a great “flattening” in people’s lives.  Being exposed to the same broadcasts shaped everyone similarly.  No longer did the peculiarities of life in the family, farm, and village form people’s speech and character in colorful variations. If Snyder had observed what happened, he might have described it as everyone “pronouncing the phrases everyone else does” and no longer thinking up their “own way of speaking.” Perhaps we are in more danger of becoming like Englanders in the 1930s-1950s than we know.

Why is it important to be kind to our language in the context of standing against tyranny?  I think it’s likely that speaking and listening thoughtfully helps prevent the “flattening” of our own thinking.  If we hear something said a certain way often enough, we tend not to process it very well anymore.  How often have you heard the phrase “the enemy within?”  What does it mean to you?  Christians who aren’t very aware of current events might hear the phrase as a reminder that Christians have an “old man” within, one that wars against the new creation in Christ.   Or they might think of the phrase in the context of the end of the age, when the man who will deceive many will be revealed as the man of sin. 

As it was used publicly by top officials in the government in recent weeks, the phrase meant “people within US borders who are not supportive of the regime,” critics, in other words.    This is a major shift in meaning.  These people are predominately US citizens, and may include people like us.  In the past, many immigrants have been characterized as enemies (before that it was “criminal” immigrants), but the shift toward viewing law-abiding citizens the same way is new.  Now, all it takes to qualify as an “enemy within” is living in a city that usually votes Democratic--like Portland, OR, Los Angeles, CA, and Chicago, IL.  Someday the definition might be expanded to include Christians who are not the right kind of Christians—the MAGA kind, in other words.

Authoritarians-in-the-making make liberal use of catchy terms like “the enemy within,” and the phrases are increasingly weaponized, with ever-broader applications, till people usually remember only the specific way in which the regime uses the terms, instead of evaluating them for whether they are truthful, accurate, or justified. 

“Poisoning the blood of our country” has been used repeatedly by the president to describe what happens when the population of non-white immigrants increases.  Hitler used the phrase too, as an accusation against non-Aryans, primarily Jews, but others also.  We all know how Hitler’s rhetoric ended. “Poisoning the blood of our country” is flagrantly racist, and in our country right now it usually means anyone with  black or brown skin.  Be on the lookout for chances to counter this by expressing a Jesus-follower view of immigrants, people with non-white skin, or people of a certain political party.                –Miriam Iwashige

Trail West Dispatch #8 October 25, 2025

“Stand out.  Someone has to.  It is easy to follow along.  It can feel strange to do or say something different.  But without that unease, there is no freedom.  Remember Rosa Parks.  The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.”          --Timothy Snyder

Rosa Parks was an African American woman who simply stayed seated one day in 1955 when a white person boarded the bus, and the driver demanded that she give up her seat for him.  She said later that she was tired from a long day’s work. No doubt she was tired too of experiencing the demeaning racist customs and laws of the Deep South. Some saw this as nonviolent protest and others saw it as civil disobedience.   Parks was arrested and the Montgomery bus boycott ensued, continuing for more than a year, crippling the city’s bus system.  This act ignited further racial justice efforts to secure civil rights, and segregation on buses was struck down in the courts approximately a year later.

I don’t think people in our tribe know for sure what to think of actions like Rosa Parks’s,’ or is that just me?  The Quakers don’t seem to have this problem.  They see them as necessary acts of faith and moral courage.  Note: Parks attended an integrated Quaker school as a child, and Snyder has Quaker roots.

Snyder’s admonition seems counter-intuitive for us who are part of a group that in most ways reflexively avoids standing out.  I believe this tendency harks back to our heritage of persecution and martyrdom for our faith, and is best understood in that light.  By now, however, this way of showing up in the world or hiding from it is at least partly cultural.  Being “the quiet in the land” calls for examination.  Does it still express determination to follow Jesus with courage?  Does “fitting in” trump everything else—either within our tribe or within the wider world?  Can it be a fear-based response? These are some of the questions that seem to me to bear consideration, especially in light of the Quakers’ different practices.  Like us, they are deeply committed to the way of peace and they experienced persecution early on.

If I were writing to a general audience instead of to people from our tribe, I would feel compelled to add other questions that should be included in an examination of the “stand out” admonition.  For example:  Is standing out part of an effort to manipulate others or to amass power?  Is it motivated by pride, greed, or selfishness?  Does standing out involve lying, cruelty, hatred, or destructiveness?  I feel confident that a consensus exists within our tribe that we want no part of any of these.  Identifying these motivations when they are present requires vigilance and discernment.   They should consistently be rejected.

In the restricted space of this column, most of the questions will be left to discussions elsewhere.  I will zero in on only one of the questions listed above: “Can [avoidance of standing out] be a fear-based response?”  Based on my own experience as well as on my observations, I believe the answer is “yes.”  I concede that people may wish to fly under the radar for reasons other than fear.  Exercising appropriate caution to avoid encountering adverse consequences makes sense in some cases.  Nevertheless, we are called to consider what acting with Jesus-like courage might look like in these fraught times.  In our faith context and in the context of the current-events-and-issues landscape, how should we “stand out?”

One guaranteed-appropriate response is to ponder the many passages of Scripture that enjoin us to “fear not” or to “be of good courage.”  “I will be with you,” (a promise from God to his people) appears in various forms throughout Scripture.  We can always take to heart these injunctions and claim these promises if we act with Jesus-like courage and stand out for the right reasons.            –Miriam Iwashige

  

Trail West Dispatch #7 October 18, 2025

 

“Be reflective if you must be armed.  If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you.  But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things.  Be ready to say no.”                                             --Timothy Snyder

When our boys were growing up, I remember telling them that it is important to draw bright lines early and honor them throughout life in matters related to taking up weapons against other people.  I emphasized that every small early compromise would decrease the likelihood of their being able to do the right thing in a moment of extraordinary testing.  “Do the right thing at the very beginning” are the words I remember saying.  Using Snyder’s words might have sounded like “Be ready to say no” from the start.

I cannot help wondering about the messages that Doug Schroeder, the Mennonite law enforcement officer from Hesston, KS got in his childhood, long before he shot and killed the shooter at Excel Industries after he opened fire on employees in February, 2016.  Three people died and 14 were injured, some critically. 

While Chief of Police Schroeder seems to have operated in line with professional ethics for officers with his responsibilities, I cannot imagine that a Mennonite mother would have seen his career choice as being ideal—for the very reason that eventually materialized:  violent acts are part of a policeman’s job under certain conditions.  I can imagine that his mother might have felt as I did—that doing the right thing from the beginning would mean that you never take a job in which you must be armed, when doing the job carries the expectation that you will use a gun against people if necessary.  This is simple enough, right?

What Snyder warns against is slightly different, however, from Schroeder’s situation.  For anyone besides a nonresistant or pacifist person, Schroeder’s actions were “regular,” in line with typical measures taken by police officers in similar situations.  If policemen were to protect a perpetrator or attacker instead of protecting the victims, or if they harmed innocent people, they would be “doing irregular things.” 

Things get a bit more complicated in the military but the distinction between “regular” and “irregular” acts remains.  There, any lawful order must be obeyed, and any unlawful order may not be obeyed.  This principle was applied during the International Military Tribunal proceedings at Nuremburg--trials after WWII.  Then, people mounted the “I was just following orders” defense, but they were convicted of crimes anyway--for mass executions and other atrocities that were part of Hitler’s purges.  Some of those convicted were hanged and others served lengthy prison sentences.  In the US, any member of the military who commits crimes (“doing irregular things” in other words) can be tried for those crimes, even when they are obeying orders from a military superior.  In the Viet Nam war era, Lieutenant Calley, was a US military figure convicted and sentenced because of the My Lai massacre in which hundreds of unarmed villagers were killed in South Viet Nam by American soldiers.  He had committed “irregular” actions and was originally sentenced to life in prison because of it. 

Figuring out what constitutes an unlawful order gets messy, and trying to describe it is difficult.  Basically, every military enlistee takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not any specific individual or political authority.  Recent events have caused upheaval in American military circles.  The unrest is centered on what many perceive as a conflict between defending the Constitution and carrying out the wishes of the highest military officials in the country.  This plays out every time the military is employed domestically against the population within US borders, something that most military enlistees never expected to be asked to do.  The moral dilemma is real and some of them wonder if they should say no.                                                                         –Miriam Iwashige

Trail West Dispatch—Sabbath Edition, November 2, 2025

To allow myself some time to regroup, I’m taking a break this week from the usual TWD format and schedule.  This will be a personal newsletter instead of a column on current issues and events Going forward, I hope to observe a similar time away after every six weeks of weekly columns. 

I’m taking a cue from Heather Cox Richardson, who occasionally says something like “I’m too tired to write tonight.  I’ll see you again tomorrow.”  She does not operate on a cycle of “sevens,” to my knowledge—just as I failed to plan to do at the outset of writing the TWD.  One luxury of doing a job without pay is that you’ll get exactly the same amount of remuneration if you work hard or if you relax.

We’ve recently had our first hard freeze, and the rush to salvage all warm season garden crops before it came has required extra effort.  We’re grateful for the bounty, especially of winter squash in some new shapes and sizes and colors—with interesting names:  Green-striped Cushaw, North Georgia Candy Roaster, and Long Island Cheese. 

Mice have sought refuge indoors—too often inside the house—and we’re determined to return to life with only Hiromi and me and occasionally our dog Drover as the only living, breathing occupants.  Fortuitously, we have recently acquired two young cats, Simon loves to polish off whatever mice we bring him from our traps.  Emma turns up her nose at dead mice, but she is enamored with live ones, and plays with them a while before finishing them off.  The cats were named before we got them, courtesy of our granddaughters.

Two mornings a week I get to be a teacher again, with only grandchildren for students.  On December 26 Hiromi is retiring fully from his retirement job at Walmart.  He has worked there parttime for 15 years—long enough to earn a lifetime discount on anything purchased from the store.

For the past several years I have been involved at the Partridge Community Garden.  According to people who track things like this, Partridge is in a food desert, and Center township, which includes Partridge, is the poorest township in the county. All this paints a grim picture of the food insecurity that might be in store for our community if prices increase dramatically, if supply chains are interrupted, or if the economy contracts or collapses—to say nothing of financial supports disappearing (for health care, for example).  I would love to see some resilience baked into our local supply system before catastrophe strikes, and I’ve been leaning farther into helping people learn how to grow food. I dream of incorporating plant medicines into the mix and of working together to preserve food.  This is the kind of “resistance” that I feel good about joining.  People who feel seen and supported where they live are less likely to look to a strongman to save them.  Adequate rainfall during much of the past growing season made gratitude easy.  Seeing green fields instead of brown, and having gardens produce without slavish watering all summer long let our drought-stressed spirits relax a bit.  This is a good feeling.        

–Miriam Iwashige

Trail West Dispatch #6

Trail West Dispatch #6                                                                          October 11, 2025

Be wary of paramilitaries.  When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh.  When the pro-leader paramilitary and official police and military intermingle, the end has come.        --Timothy Snyder

When I read this, I thought immediately of the events of January 6, 2021, when paramilitary groups who had been told earlier to “stand back and stand by” went with others to the US Capitol at the president’s bidding, and participated in staging an insurrection.  The paramilitary groups had names like “Proud Boys” and “Oath Keepers.”  On Jan. 6, official police forces withstood the attack and some of them suffered injury and death in the process. The Capitol building itself was damaged, and Congress members fled to hide in a safe place while the crowd outside engaged in death chants for Vice President Mike Pence and called for the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, to be brought out. The crowd was intent on preventing the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden, who had been lawfully elected as president.

On his first day in office earlier this year, the leader of the present regime pardoned nearly 1600 people who had been charged and, in many cases, already sentenced because of their participation in the insurrection.  Nevertheless, the last sentence in Snyder’s warning was not fully realized in 2021, since only two of the three entities were aligned. 

Today, the official police forces largely still stand apart from the pro-leader paramilitaries.  That can hardly be said about the US military, however, since the commander in chief of the military (the president) and the one to whom the paramilitaries are increasingly beholden are the same person.  In other words, the official military and the pro-leader paramilitary are, to some degree, intermingled.  Please note that in Snyder’s calculations, the end comes when all three (police, military, and para-military) join forces.

Admittedly, we do not always know who is responsible when violence occurs.  False flag operations have been a favorite tactic of authoritarians in the past.  In such a scenario, the government itself carries out violent acts in hopes that people will resist, after which the government uses the resistance as a pretext for responding with more force, and taking away more freedoms.    At other times, a para-military may be involved in fomenting violence.  In some rare cases, it might even involve corrupt police forces.  While I cannot fit everything that I see into Snyder’s framework, I believe that what is shaping up currently is that the Insurrection Act will be invoked, and martial law will be declared—unless an intervention occurs.  It will be justified based on legitimate pushback against outrageous government acts and messaging (many of them unlawful or unethical) in relation to immigration, crime in cities, and drug traffic.  

Closer home, a related issue bears careful examination.  Snyder’s phrase “men with guns” clearly could describe many among us.  When gun ownership for valid reasons crosses over into vociferous defense of gun rights, we have strayed from a nonresistant stance, and entered the territory of political partisanship where the strongest defenders of gun rights can be found in far-right para-military groups.   Beware of alignment with such folks and do not believe it if you hear that anyone is advocating that all guns be taken away from all citizens.

While we do not always know exactly what goes on behind the scenes, we must not willfully ignore what occurs in plain sight, and we should stay curious about what happens out of sight.  We must avoid alliances with those who cling to gun rights while justifying violence against other human beings.  Beyond this, we must look to God to show us what we need to know to respond rightly in every case.                                                                                                                                  –Miriam Iwashige