When her children were still young, my friend and I took them to the zoo. The monkeys made the biggest impression. On all of us. In fact, their antics attracted quite a crowd, so big that my attention drifted from the monkeys to the onlookers and their amusement. They pointed and laughed, imitated, and teased. Eventually, I turned to my friend and observed, “This is what it’s like to a be a foreigner in China.”

Times have changed since then. In most of the places I frequent, foreigners don’t attract the crowds they used to. I have also changed, and when someone is staring or pointing, I’ve learned to make eye contact and offer a genuine smile with a warm greeting. For most people, an obvious change then washes over them as the foreigner before them transforms from object to human being, from animal in a cage to comrade on the journey of life.

Before you offer sympathy or pat me on the back for changing, I confess that we foreigners often gave as good as we got. To begin with, we dehumanized the dehumanizers. I scolded people, frequently and publicly, for staring. At other times, without any good reason, my foreign friends and I would use words that put people in cages, speaking of them with amusement and even ridicule. We were also guilty of treating them like spectacles rather than comrades on the journey of life.

Having been among both the dehumanized and the dehumanizers, my heart breaks over what is happening currently in my home country. The following is a sampling of the words our president has used to describe immigrants and refugees to the United States: “vile animals;” “subhuman;” “savages;” “monsters;” “predators;” an “invasion” of “aliens;” “poisoning the blood of our country;” “garbage;” from “shithole countries;” “hardened, horrible, vicious criminals;” “stone-cold killers;” they will “walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat;” “they grab young girls and slice them up right in front of their parents.”¹

The president’s lies have been applauded by his vice president. They’ve been echoed by others in the administration, including the homeland security secretary who recently recommended “a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

On recent longer stints in my home country, I’ve started an English class for my neighbors who come from other countries. Most entered the United States hoping to find a haven from trauma and distress. The list below includes a sampling of the words I would use to describe who they truly are.

• human beings
• created in the image of God
• loved by Jesus
• protectors of their families
• hardworking
• brave
• fun-loving
• compassionate
• thankful
• trustworthy
• welcoming
• hopeful
• self-sacrificing
• humble
• eager to learn
• giving
• patient
• peaceful
• gentle
• kind

Water for the Weary is, in many ways, an act of repentance for the dehumanizing words I have spoken throughout my life. It is an ongoing effort to view others as comrades on the journey of life. Moreover, this post—yet again— reminds me not to dehumanize the dehumanizers which is, oh, so tempting.

Lamb who takes away the sins of the world, please paint over lies, mine and others’, with Your blood. I offer my list of truths as a pleasing aroma to You and a gift of dignity for my comrades on the journey of life.

1. Most of these words can be found with links to sources at the following Wikipedia page under the section entitled “2024 presidential campaign”: Rhetoric of Donald Trump. For other more recent words and the quote from Kristi Noem, an online search will take you to various sources. ↩︎

Image by Leejoann from Pixabay.