“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”
Luke 11:11-12

Ten days into the Trump administration, and it has been dizzying to see what the President and his people would do from one day to the next.

I am not a highly political man, but I do have inner sensors that go off when I see things happening that trouble me. I feel injustices fairly easily. I am patriotic, but I also get angry when basic human rights appear to be violated at home or abroad. I feel deeply for the marginalized and the underdog. I am reticent of people with great power. And yet I want to believe the best about everyone I meet, including those in positions of leadership.

Still, there have been several moments (and executive actions) in the last week and a half that have made me wonder about the interests of our elected leader.

Because I am a Christian, I am chartered to live my life following a basic set of codes which in accord illustrate love, and are fundamentally dependent on a faith in a good and living God.

My faith tells me a number of vital truths.

God is sovereign; God is omnipresent; God is omnipotent.

God loves his Creation and his creatures- one by one.

And God permits wacky stuff to happen in life.

And God also lets leaders take power.

I’ve never viewed my faith as any form of a prosperity gospel. I’ve never read the Bible and had a sense that I was created to simply play carefree in a cosmic Disneyland for my entire life, riding all the rides on God’s nickel, just because He wanted me to be sated and self-satisfied and glorious in my inflated ego.

But I have always believed that the Bible tells us we were each put in this world to be loved by Him, our Mysterious Maker, and to love back- not only Him, but also His creatures and His creation as well.

Life is not a cakewalk. But that is where and why human beings are supposed to help one another.

The God of the Bible is deeply compassionate, As Micah says, what God desires is not sacrifice- endless apologies and atonement for failing to live lovingly- but mercy. We were originally wired to “love out of the gates”, and it is from His guidance in Scripture and from the example of His son Jesus’ life we see clearly that the way of life for any human society lies in its collective practice of love.

Naturally, the concept of love is intimately related to the idea of “acting for the common good”, which is what a healthy nation expects from its leaders. A good parent fosters a family; a good President nurtures a nation.

And so here in culturally Christian America, it is not a stretch to say that our President has the duty of parenting the country for a four-year term or two. Which is where I guess I am struggling, reviewing decisions and reactions made in the current administration’s whirlwind start.

It’s a good time to revisit that statement by Jesus, found in the three synoptic Gospels, which Lincoln used to title and to focus his historic anti-slavery Senate campaign speech in 1858:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

And a house with no parents for an extended amount of time has a decent chance of facing such a fall.

In 1996, David Blankenhorn published a landmark book called “Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem”, in which he detailed how the massive absence of fathers in homes was having such detrimental impact on the health of America’s children. Having a father within a home, he argued, was one of the single most important factors in whether a child could make the transition into a healthy, productive adult life.

With social media in meltdown mode and foreign governments questioning the new policies of today’s America, I find myself today asking, “Where is the father- the compassionate leader and concerned counselor- who needs to be looking after this American family?”

With the American public polarized, perplexed, and petulant at the release of each executive memoranda, order and cabinet addition, I look at our nation and sense confusion rising and fears multiplying.

And then I look towards the White House and ask, “Where is the father?”

Our president may be brilliant in his vision of what moves need to be made to make America great again, and I’m all down for that. He may also be the world’s best master at the art of the deal. But right now, the deal is… it feels like America is without a parent at home. And I’m thinking lot of people would just like to see THAT guy walk in the front door soon.