To be placed in exile is to be barred from your home country or, perhaps, the country in which you belong for whatever reason. I know very few people who have been forcibly exiled from their homes. The ones I have known generally experience trauma, or at the very least, some sense of profound loss. I have also known people whose grandparents or parents were forced into exile and the consequences of these involuntary migrations often have an impact on those children and grandchildren who weren't even born when the exile took place. To force someone into exile, or to keep someone from receiving sanctuary, especially one who is innocent of any wrongdoing, is an act of violation and profound cruelty.
Perhaps this is why I am so ashamed of my country, its current leadership, and the citizens of the United States who support the current program of refusing sanctuary and the imposition of exile. To keep someone from their home or from the possibility of finding a new home when one's old home has been destroyed is a cruel act and an act that violates virtually ethical standard and religious value system known to humankind. One of the central motifs of the Old Testament, is the tragic history of the Israelites and their constant loss of sanctuary and forced departure into exile. We have taken on the role of the Assyrians or the Babylonians who forced the Jews of the Old Testament into exile as we do the same to an entire class of people. Many I know, especially large swaths of Evangelical Christians, have taken joy in this forced exile we are perpetrating. To take joy in refusing sanctuary and in the imposition of exile is difficult to comprehend and is so contrary to the message of Christ that it is hard to imagine the grotesque irony that it is often those who claim to be His purest followers who also support this injustice with the greatest zeal.
Many other people and ideals will be forced into exile in the coming years. When we do not take care of the least among us, when we do not respect the rule of law for our political gain, when we single out religions we don't like we are sending God into exile as well. Let us not forget the God-given injunction at the end of Matthew 25: "Truly, I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." When we force justice and the good into exile we cast that which is transcendent into that same void.
As I gaze out my window into the cold winter's night in Kyrgyzstan I feel a sense of exile too. Mine has no tragedy in it, as it is a self-imposed one. When I arrived in this faraway land, my stay here felt temporary and contained no sense of sorrow, but instead marked the arrival of someone embarking upon an interesting new adventure. It is amazing what one year can do, as the events of the past year, have transformed my entire soul and have caused me to suddenly feel as though I am a person without a native land. How could my home country change itself so quickly, or has it always contained this cruel nature, lurking just beneath the surface? Perhaps what stings the most is that the answer to this question is so obvious and should have been clear to anyone paying even a hint of attention to the signs. Nothing is more painful than the loss of a loved one, even if the object of this affection was clouded and obscured by the illusions and unrealistic ideals upon which that love was based.
Many of those who feel the way I do are joining me in exile, more with each passing day, even though they step not one meter outside their homes. It is not a physical exile, but rather an exile of the soul where there is no refuge or sanctuary from the unrelenting tearing down of what we thought our country meant or from the distorting of the moral codes of our long-held spiritual traditions. Exile is a lonely place, a land colder than a Kyrgyz winterscape. But it is a place preferable to the barren misery of a beloved home from which all comfort and warmth has departed.
