Lucifer Crashing The Pearly Gates

Try to imagine the euphoria of your long-awaited introduction to Saint Peter shattered by demons clawing at your back.

My apologies for the opening melodrama, but I have it on good advice that such an attention grabber works wonders. It seems that miracles and wonders are in great demand these days as many Americans have lost their zeal and their appreciation for the bounties that have been bestowed upon them. Sometimes a reminder from someone not born into such splendor is required.

On a less grandiose scale than any reference to the Kingdom Of God, try to imagine suffering through the gray-scale misery of Soviet Russia for much of your life. While that may not compare to Hell in my American world - I have no reference point other than the imaginary, for I have been spoiled by the splendor of my blessings - listening to people who can personally make such a comparison paints a picture of relative similarity.

There are people who fled the oppression of the old Soviet Union, people who witnessed the horrors of consolidated power at the hands of the government. Some were born into the bondage, but others are old enough to remember its advance.

Still others fall in between, but know well the history from parents and grandparents and are old enough to have spent the sum of too many years in such squalor. These people who finally made their way to America were both stunned and elated at the freedoms we enjoyed. They were also grateful to God for their good fortune at finally living a life of relative bliss in their new land.

For decades some had found that the memories of their former lives had faded like an old Polaroid, something that still could be seen, but only if one squinted and tilted the photograph a certain way. Now, just as we have developed rejuvenating technology that makes the old new, those immigrants are seeing the bad reveries coming back to life courtesy of a government seemingly intent on recreating that which they fled.

One such immigrant is Regina Barker-Barzel, a Russian woman in her seventies, who married an American man and came to this country with the utmost gratitude. Here's what she has to say about our current course:
Just as many of us have become complacent and have taken for granted the blessings of our birth, we have also convinced ourselves that such a scenario could never happen here. We need more convincing apparently, but try to imagine Regina's horror at having the spectre of deja-vu rear its ugly head.

Please people, think. Not only can it happen here; it already is.

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