Some days, I don’t know what is troubling me more, about the current administration in Washington.  It feels like the cosmic powers of darkness have been set loose among us, a Pandora’s box of greed, hypocrisy, and indifference to the suffering in this world. There is an appalling lack of morality, and too few willing to speak out against it.

The president starts wars, alienates our friends, worships dictators and desecrates Washington, pursuing vanity projects for his own ego.

DOGE USAID cuts have been devastating, resulting in more than 700,000 deaths from preventable diseases. Dismantled USAID structures, designed to catch Ebola early,  led to the largest and a still growing epidemic.

ICE’s  ongoing cruelty has  70,000 people, including children,  detained in nothing less than concentration camps. Then cruelly  deports immigrants an ocean away from their families, minus papers or passports, even ignoring conflicts and wars in some places, people  are sent.

The secretary of defense, is  recklessly firing decorated and faithful military leaders, because of the color of their skin, the fact that they are female, or they worked for a person out of favor in the White House.

Trump’s executive order, requiring the postal service, to restrict mail-in ballots to a Trump Administration approved list, excluding all states that have not turned over protected voter lists to the government, threatens to disenfranchise millions of voters. I despair at a Supreme Court. that could have stopped this unconstitutional attempt in its tracks, but chose not to.

Israel’s ancient Prophets have a word, for today’s Trump Administration.

“Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.” Isaiah 10:1-2

When Israel’s leaders wondered why their worship and fasting didn’t impress God, God pointed out they had it all wrong.  Singing praises, without compassion and care for those in need, were empty gestures.

Instead God said:

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

. . . if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.” Isaiah 58:6-7,10

May those in power today, take these words into their hearts and into their actions.