On Hospitality and the longing for transformation. Some take aways from the Oval Office debacle.

Letters to America #4: Is the darkness the darkness of the tomb or the womb?

A fall day at the river Oder, the border between my German home to the west and Poland to the east.

Dear fellow pilgrim,

I have been looking forward to this Sunday note to you. Having been sick last week I had time to rest and do much reading.

And as dark as the times feel after the elections in the US and Germany and the ongoing wars and unrests in this world, and the latest Oval Office debacle, I have also seen signs of hope everywhere. Today I want to share some of those signs with you, by sharing some thought-provoking reads and insightful analysis I enjoyed.

By nature, this letter will touch on political themes. It will stand with Ukraine and all who seek freedom and protection. I aim to do so not through partisan lines but by drawing from my own biographical background and appealing to the fundamental value of our shared humanity.

If you are weary of politics right now, or if you are fully devoted to the current administration, this letter may not be for you. Feel free to skip it and wait for my next (mid)weekly blessing :-)

Many of you know that I grew up behind the Wall in Cold War times, denied freedom of speech, expression, and religion. Speaking your mind, asking questions, or taking to the streets meant risking imprisonment.

That’s why seeing people across the world standing up for democracy, decency, and our brothers and sisters in Ukraine gives me hope.

We still live in a free world. We can voice our thoughts, laugh at those who seek to be kings, and critique the rich in money but poor in soul. We can still write freely, travel freely, and express our concerns and even outrage freely.

This is no small thing, dear friend. Celebrate it. Protect it. Use it.

When I was growing up, Putin was a young KGB officer in Berlin. He never got over the fact that when millions took to the streets in East Germany, demanding freedom, the government did not send in the tanks. No one knew at the time whether they would responded to the thousands of candle holding protesters with tanks. Thank God they did not. And the peaceful revolution brought down the Wall.

To this day, Putin wishes they had brought in the tanks. To this day, he seeks to restore the old world order.

Not in my worst nightmares could I have imagined a time when Putin would be more welcome in the Oval Office of the United States of America than the democratically elected president of the country he is bombing.

And this is where the American story meets my East German story on this Transfiguration Sunday.

I know many of you are in shock and ashamed of what unfolded in the Oval Office last Friday.

But, friends, one does not need to be political to ask about the humanity and decency of it all. In fact, stepping away from political labels may help us understand it better.

The Loss of Hospitality in the Oval Office

One of the foremost values of the Benedictine monastic order is to welcome guests as if they were Christ himself. This is what we call “radical hospitality.”

I hope that here, in this cloistered space for our hearts, we can agree on this value.

It is what we do when we welcome family. It is what we do when we welcome a guest who has traveled far. We offer them kindness and care.

That is why my deepest heartache is not about the friendliness toward Putin, the lack of diplomacy, or the inexperience on display.

It is the lack of hospitality.

This was distilled into one moment: a man—an unvetted guest, a “friend of a friend”—standing among journalists, had the audacity to ask a European president, who had traveled from his war-torn country to beg for his people’s survival, why he was not wearing a suit.

Have you seen that brief exchange? Can you even imagine?

There are so many layers to this question—the arrogance, the ignorance.

A man in the back row, emboldened by his suit and proximity to power, expressed his utter disdain for decency toward the president of a European nation.

And what happened? The US President and the men around him did not shush him. They laughed.

Not the laughter of joy, but the laughter of mockery.

The Vice President of the United States sat on a couch, laughing at a European president who carries the weight of war on his shoulders.

Can you imagine asking a victim of war or assault—someone still fighting for survival—why they are not dressed for the occasion?

What You Have Done to the Least of Mine…

Surely, the question was meant to question the respect of the guest. And all that unknown man in the back row understood about respect was a suit. Not the way you treat a person, not the way you ask a question. But clothing.

Can you see Christ sitting there, beside Zelenskyy?

Can you see Christ in Zelenskyy—the Ukrainian Jew, berated by American Christian leaders?

I cannot unsee it.

And my heart sank. Because this moment held all the dangers of the age to come: the loss of decency and humanity in the highest office, the emboldening of little men hungry for power but poor in virtue.

It reminds me of the mockery Jesus endured from Herod’s soldiers.

The Bonhoeffer Moment

And yet, dear friend, this moment also held the seed of redemption and new beginnings. Because from its ashes, a new leader of the free world arose.

The mocked Ukrainian president did not react with offense or humiliation. Instead, he answered in a measured way—kindly, patiently—explaining that a suit would not befit a man representing a war-torn country.

This kind of humble teaching moment, dear friends, we have seen before—in Navalny’s writings, and in humble explanations from all the oppressed of this world. And from Jesus when he told parables.

And it reminds me of my own upbringing. We had to learn how to present our position measuredly, kindly, humbly—to those in power who not only had the power to mock us but to crush us.

This, friends, is the humility of the cross. The powerful use the cross as a prop. But we are called to embody it. To uphold it. To live it.

It was a Bonhoeffer moment.

And the Christians in that room failed it.

Nuggets of Hope

Here are some of my go-to sources on substack, the platform from which I am writing this newsletter since a little more than a year. Substack has become a place not only for independent writers but also for the journalists who left corporate media, for voices of resistance and thoughtful, informed analysis.

Let me share just three sources of the many I came to enjoy reading here from the last week:

The first is the best analysis of the Oval Office event I came across so far. American historian

Timothy Snyder

offers a brief, measured, non-partisan assessment suggesting the moment failed America on 5 levels. And he starts the list, just like we did here, with hospitality: adding also decency, democracy, strategy, and independence. If you can, listen to Timothy’s 5 min take. You will be wiser for it.

Five Failures in the Oval Office (video)

The great

Anne Applebaum

, one of the foremost experts on autocratic systems around the world, is a sane voice in all frenzy and my go-to source. In her conversation with Jessica Yellin she gives an assessment of the current situation and ends on an encouraging note: Stay joyful. Autocrats hate joy.

Will Democracy Hold? Anne Applebaum and Jessica Yellin

If you are in need of some good news, The Dworkin Report keeps track of the small and not so small acts of resistance.

Scott Dworkin

is a fearless and independent journalist who formed The Watchdog Coalition, which runs massive contact Congress campaign, which already sent more than 187,000 letters, and made countless calls to the House and Senate; his “Don’t Touch Our Medicaid” campaign garnered close to a billion impressions now dominating social media trends. For every one who wants “to do something” but does not quite know what, a great way in.

Here are Scott’s latest "“good news":”

Great News That’s Horrible For Trump

Inspiration

I only came across Valarie Kaur and her “revolutionary love” project this week. Somehow, a social media algorithm fed me her powerful address to America. Her melodic question of whether the darkness we witness is not just the darkness of the tomb, but also the womb, deeply resonated with me. Her whole attitude, her poetic wording, reminded me of Amanda Gorman’s poem at Biden’s inauguration.

Here is Valarie’s address in full, given at a Watch night service in 2016 seen more than 40 M. times by now. The link brings you to her website for more information.

So let me end this Sunday letter to you with a consolation that borrows from Valarie Kaur’s powerful words:

Breathe and push

So the mother in me asks what if?
What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb,
but the darkness of the womb?
What if our America is not dying
but a country waiting to be born?
What if the story of America is one long labor?
What if all of our grandfathers and grandmothers are standing behind us now,
those who survived occupation and genocide, slavery and Jim Crow, detentions and political assault?
What if they are whispering in our ears “You are brave”?

What if this is our nation’s greatest transition?

What does the midwife tell us?
Breathe.
And then?
Push.

Because if we don’t push we will die. If we don’t push our nation will die.
Tonight we will breathe.
Tomorrow we will labor
in love through love and your revolutionary love
is the magic we will show our children.

— Valarie Kaur

Thank you for being here with us, dear fellow traveler. Thank you for believing in the power of revolutionary love. Thank you for keeping up your faith and the faith in the dignity of every human person.

May love eternal fill us anew, Almut

PS: You can leave a heart or comment right below in the comment section. Share what gives you hope these days and which sources you cherish. Come back and read what others have to say and leave them a heart or comment also 🙏.

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About Almut

Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych. is a German American scholar and practitioner, a psychologist turned philosopher turned writer, traveler, photographer, retreat leader and mother of a kindergartener. She is also a Benedictine Oblate and lives with her family in a little college town in MN.