These are some toothbrushes confiscated by the “Homeland Security Agency” from the refugees crossing the US southern border. They were collected and photographed by Tom Kiefer when he worked as a janitor at the Border Patrol prison.
This picture gives me chills. You need to understand that I was born and grew up in the Czech Republic under Russian occupation. Until recently I had occasional nightmares of living again behind border walls and electric fences and under the dark shadow of malevolent secret police.
At that time toothbrushes and prisons had a special significance for us. It started with Vaclav Havel and other dissidents and opposition leaders. They could be picked up from streets and arrested at any time and put in prison without their families or anyone knowing for days. So they started to carry their toothbrushes with them just in case... Soon it became a coded saying. “I am taking my toothbrush with me.” It meant I am prepared to go to jail.
And here we are again! Loud, stupid, spiteful, chauvinistic propaganda with fences and walls on the border. Innocent people being put in jails, their families torn apart, children kept in cages, and even their toothbrushes being confiscated! Why? For what reasons? Just to be mean? Just to be even meaner than agents of totalitarianism?
Thankfully, there is good news in all of this. Occupation of my native home lasted for a long time, but eventually it ended exactly thirty years ago. Borders were demilitarized and those stupid border walls came tumbling down and fences were cut by the very dissidents who came almost directly from prisons to become presidents, prime ministers and secretaries of government. It felt like a miracle, but it was not coincidence, there is a deep, because divine, logic behind it.
The Christmas Gospel is bringing that message to us in this season. The abusive political power might look strong, but it does not have the ultimate word over our world. Join us this Sunday as we un-confiscate Christmas and seek hope for our world.
And by the way, I have no doubt at all that among those vilified desperate refugees, among those detained in cages and those whose toothbrushes are now confiscated are the future Vaclav Havels, Nelson Mandellas, leaders, politicians, scholars or industrialists in our or their original countries. So watch out what you do to those least of these!
This picture gives me chills. You need to understand that I was born and grew up in the Czech Republic under Russian occupation. Until recently I had occasional nightmares of living again behind border walls and electric fences and under the dark shadow of malevolent secret police.
At that time toothbrushes and prisons had a special significance for us. It started with Vaclav Havel and other dissidents and opposition leaders. They could be picked up from streets and arrested at any time and put in prison without their families or anyone knowing for days. So they started to carry their toothbrushes with them just in case... Soon it became a coded saying. “I am taking my toothbrush with me.” It meant I am prepared to go to jail.
And here we are again! Loud, stupid, spiteful, chauvinistic propaganda with fences and walls on the border. Innocent people being put in jails, their families torn apart, children kept in cages, and even their toothbrushes being confiscated! Why? For what reasons? Just to be mean? Just to be even meaner than agents of totalitarianism?
Thankfully, there is good news in all of this. Occupation of my native home lasted for a long time, but eventually it ended exactly thirty years ago. Borders were demilitarized and those stupid border walls came tumbling down and fences were cut by the very dissidents who came almost directly from prisons to become presidents, prime ministers and secretaries of government. It felt like a miracle, but it was not coincidence, there is a deep, because divine, logic behind it.
The Christmas Gospel is bringing that message to us in this season. The abusive political power might look strong, but it does not have the ultimate word over our world. Join us this Sunday as we un-confiscate Christmas and seek hope for our world.
And by the way, I have no doubt at all that among those vilified desperate refugees, among those detained in cages and those whose toothbrushes are now confiscated are the future Vaclav Havels, Nelson Mandellas, leaders, politicians, scholars or industrialists in our or their original countries. So watch out what you do to those least of these!
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