Congressman Elijah Cummings (RIP) took congressional oversight seriously. Overseeing the Department of Homeland Security, he is like a mother bear protecting her cubs. His judgment rises from compassion. Addressing convicted felon Michael Cohen, he speaks like a grandfather to a grandson.

We have met the enemy

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa broke through the wall of apartheid. Can a process of honest confession (truth-telling), and forgiveness reconcile us in America?

In the real world, I have often confused good and evil. I come up short until I remember that I live in Pogo’s world. “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Like the biblical prophets, Elijah Cummings confronted the worst in us and encouraged the best in us. “We can do better,” he says. I wonder if we can. “We’re better than this.” I wonder whether we are.

STOP! Listen up!

“If you bite and devour one another,” wrote the Apostle Paul to a church whose people were biting and devouring each other, “watch out that you are not consumed by each other.” (Epistle to the Galatians 5:15). The warning is more than a suggestion. In the Greek text, “WATCH OUT!” is to morality and ethics what “Halt!” is to soldiers: “STOP! LISTEN UP!”

Groaning too deep for words

What makes us human is not power or the capacity to create chaos and division. Or to make noise. Or to take center stage. Noisy gongs and clanging cymbals distract us from hearing the groaning that rumbles deep within every human heart. These groans are the labor pains by which a better Michael Cohen, a better Donald Trump, a better America, a better world, and a better us are born.

Gordon C. Stewart, public theologian, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf & Stock), Brooklyn Park, MN, July 16, 2025.