Intentional Soul Making

Last week when weighing in at the dialysis clinic I was chatting with some of the technicians who know I’m a clergyperson and always welcome me with the greeting, “Father.”  They also know a little of our work with our Garden of Hope at St. Francis and ask me how the watermelons are coming along.  “Haven’t planted them yet,” I reply.  “The coyotes ate up some of our dripline irrigation.”

I mentioned that in our evening family prayer I often give thanks for how well they keep me in good health so I can be about my work.  To which one of the older fellows responded, “Pray for my soul.”  I told him that I would indeed pray that he, in cooperation with God, be about good soul-making work.  Spiritual development is not a spectator sport.  Not done by proxy.

The action required is choice. 

The Torah injunction is to choose life.  “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.  If you obey the commandments of  the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways and observing his commandments, decrees and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess…Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…”

To choose life is to choose Truth.

This week many of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell chose Life in speaking their truth of what they had endured.

These brave women, after hiding in years of shame and guilt spoke what this administration has gone to unbelievable lengths to cover up – the predations of Epstein and Maxwell, and their associates — and how it was all swept under the rug.

As one woman demanded, her voice quaking, how is it that she, Maxwell, is the only one in jail when hundreds of others were involved?  How is she the only one answering for these crimes?

What is the sweetheart deal that kept the entire tawdry affair secret?  Letting hundreds off the hook.  After all, this was an international sex trafficking operation.  Surely more than just two persons were involved.  Who are they protecting?  And now she’s in a “country club” jail – explicitly forbidden for sex offenders.  How is that?

Her question is our question.  And what are the House Republicans, the see-no-evil-hear-no-evil crowd, trying to hide by keeping the hundreds of thousands of pages of this episode, the video tapes, the FBI files, hidden?

That Trump’s Republican supporters have attempted to sweep this all under the rug and deny these women their voice, this is despicable.  You might even say “deplorable.”  They are complicit in these crimes in their cover-up.  Most of all, the dismissive Rape President[1] who cries, “Hoax, hoax, hoax,” as these women recounted the horrors of their ordeal.  Do the jobs of The Donald’s Republican sycophants in Congress count for more than their souls, than the soul of this nation?

By sharing their story, these victims, some as young as 14 when first abused, have chosen Life.  And we who dare to listen, to “read, mark and inward digest” the testimony of these brave women have chosen Life.  As painful as all this is to take in.

Elie Wiesel counsels, “Always take sides.  Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.  Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”[2]

In hearing these women out, our nation is choosing the Truth of this perverse and corrupt presidency.  And that Truth shall eventually set us free.  Yes, it will be costly to have our tawdry laundry on full display to the derision of the civilized world.  It will be a huge dish of humble pie.  And we will have earned every mouthful.

To enter into the Truth of these women’s testimony is soul-making.  Nowhere does scripture say that this is easy or fun.

Speaking of fun – consider the fun that deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Ghislain Maxwell were having on the tape of his interview with her.  Lawrence O’Donnell, on his Tuesday evening program, spoke of his disgust at the laughter from all in that room that filled much of the tape of that interview.  They spent several hours yucking it up at the expense of the trauma Maxwell’s victims endured.  Absolutely horrific!  The banality of it all is astounding. 

The disrespect for these women that this president and his administration, his Republican toadies in Congress, continue to display is nauseating.  These abominations, the sexual abuse of children, reek to the highest heavens.  To call their testimony a hoax is the most damnable lie yet of this wretched administration.

This presidency continues to drag our nation through the most putrefying of vile sewers.  Once we come, or enough of us come; to realize the reality and extent of our Fall, Life will begin to shoot forth green sprouts.  It presently is, thanks be to God.

America, these women will restore our national soul.

Never mind the utter incompetence of the appointees of this administration.  Never mind that Republicans in states they control, they are banning schools, first in Florida, the requirement of  vaccinations.  That we are giving up on the fight against polio and pertussis, measles and Covid19.  That stupidity seems not to register with Trump’s supporters.

Never mind that hundreds of notable, reputable scientists have castigated the most recent report on global warming coming out of EPA this past week.  Denounced it as weak and dismissive of the existential crisis this planet faces – that climate tipping points have been reached and now crossed, leading to irreversible consequences for a habitable world.

Never mind that that the newest best buddies of this president are not our allies but the most notorious autocrats and murderous war criminals since the Axis of WWII.  Never mind that Putin continues to bomb Ukraine with impunity while this president is in denial that he is being played for a chump.

Never mind any of that.

The Truth that will set us free of this corrupt, incompetent regime is the stories of these victims.  It is the rage of these women who will bring down the whole rotten mess of this despicable government — and every single one of their cowardly apologists.  Mark my words.   And great will be the fall of it.  Right around November, 2026.

When these women join together to assemble their own list of all the other perpetrators, the high and mighty, the foundations of this stale and rotten propriety will shake top to bottom.  As Jesus in Luke counsels, propriety and secondary claims must be put in the context of the Gospel call to God’s love and justice.  Yes, indeed, what are they trying to hide.  Let these women count the ways!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer warns us that Grace of such Truth ??? can be quite costly.  I discovered that early on in my college years when I lost a girlfriend over the fair housing issue.  Her father owned apartments, and she couldn’t understand why I would be supporting “those people” in their rights to rent them.

What I lost was nothing.  Absolutely nothing compared to what these women have sacrificed in coming forward – the reliving of the trauma of their ordeal all over again.  Yet their testimony is God’s Liberation – Life itself.

The admonition is before us each and every day.  Choose Life that you may live and your children after you.

On many days I fear for the world that we are leaving to my new grandson soon to be born in a couple of weeks (more or less).  But when I heard these women speak on the “News Hour,” [or were you watchng The Last Word?] my spirit soared.  I was filled with hope, and pride that we in America can still imbibe at the living fountain of such dangerous Truth.  National soul-making. 

What can you do?  Call your representatives and demand transparency.  Raise hell in the checkout line and wherever you have an impromptu audience.  Write letters to the editor.  Do not let the enormity of these crimes slide in casual conversations.  No. they do not all do it!  Donate to the opposition, those willing to stand for Truth.  Take sides.  This will be your soul-making.

As Lawrence O’Donnell typically closes his show, these women get “The Last Word.”  The God’s Gospel Truth.  We and our children and grandchildren will be blessed by its telling and retelling down through the generations.  Amen.

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[1]  In the filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, he stated at Trump’s sentencing that while the jury did not explicitly convict the president of rape, his actions fit the definition of rape as most people would understand the term.  The Washington Post, July 19, 2023.

[2] From Bits and Pieces, Chicago, IL, September 2025.

September 7, 2025
Pentecost 13, Proper 18
Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1;
Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33

Intentional Soul Making