Christian values...
Governor Ray said: Show me
By Richard Gilbert
When I saw an AP story out of Des Moines late last week, my first reaction was that it had to be a misquote. But then, given the regard I have for the Associated Press's penchant for getting it right, my second reaction was great sadness.
The headline: "Iowa governor declines to help house migrant children."
Not exactly the kind of headline that makes you swell with pride for being an Iowan.
The lede was even more disheartening:
April 8, 2021, DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)— Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Thursday said she had rejected a federal request to accept migrant children into the state, saying the need to find homes for them "is the president's problem."
Here's the link to the AP story: https://apnews.com/article/kim-reynolds-iowa-immigration-9c1b43cab8b52c8bdf5b597934fd5406
I acknowledge that the immigration issue is a political football and was long before Trump rode down the escalator. But I'll leave that to others to sort out.
Meanwhile, the AP story brought me back to about five years ago when my buddy Brice Oakley and I paid a call on our old boss, Robert D. Ray, at the Wesley Acres senior center in Des Moines. The former governor was in a weakened condition and temporarily in a hospital bed at the center. He was to live another two years, passing July 8, 2018, at 89.
That day he dozed off after a short conversation with Brice and me. But before we left, we had a friendly chat with his caregiver, a pleasant woman of Asian origin, in scrubs. She was committed to her work and made it a point to tell us how proud she was to tend to "my governor.'
"He once took care of me," said the aide. "Now I can take care of him. "
She served the man who had been the first - and for a time the ONLY - governor to respond to a president's call to help with the humanitarian disaster in Southeast Asia. Many of you remember the refugee crisis that followed the Vietnam War and how Iowa led the nation in America's response.
It wasn't a one-shot reaction either. What began by rescuing the Tai Dam ethnic group from Laos and bringing them to Iowa in 1976 morphed into a significant Cambodian Relief effort. Some of you probably contributed to Iowa SHARES headed by the late Colleen Shearer, director of Iowa Job Services, and my friend Ambassador Ken Quinn, then a Ray aide. Thousands of individual contributions helped finance direct relief. The effort was directed personally by Ray, then serving his fourth and fifth terms.
(Full disclosure: I left Ray's office in late 1975 to go back into the media business but was "volunteered" by the governor to co-chair the Iowa SHARES fund-raising effort in Scott County.)
In October 1979, Ray and Quinn took a side trip from a trade mission to China. They went to a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. Along with first lady Billie, he and aide Quinn were shocked and haunted by the terrible conditions.
As they were flying back to the U. S. the next day, Ray wrote a speech on the plane for an appearance he had when he landed—addressing his church leaders, the General Assembly of the Christian Church in St. Louis.
Do you want to see a quote from an Iowa governor that makes you proud?
Governor Ray told his listeners that Americans need to take action. He added that even critics who opposed resettling refugees in the U.S. still should aim to relieve their immediate suffering.
"We're talking not where these people are going to live—but whether they are going to live," said Governor Ray.
Ray played on Missouri's nickname in his appeal: "As we meet here tonight in Missouri, the 'Show-me state,' I sincerely believe that Jesus is saying to our church: Don't tell me of your concerns for the poor, the disenfranchised, the underprivileged, the unemployed, Show Me!
"Don't tell me of your concerns for the rejected, the prisoner, the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless; Show Me!
Don't tell me of your concerns for these people; you have a chance to save their lives; Show Me!
"Don't tell me how Christian you are; Show Me! Show Me!"
The entire account of Governor Ray's speech can be found at this link:
https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1330&context=ihi
Back to the present governor of Iowa: On April 8, 2020, exactly a year before her "it's the president's problem" retort about the immigration crisis at the border, Governor Reynolds issued a proclamation calling for an Iowa Day of Prayer. She was then widely slammed by many who said her job title is governor, not Christian faith leader. Maybe that experience made her reluctant a year later to ask what Jesus would do about taking temporary care of some refugee kids in Iowa.
I write this with a sigh….
Richard Gilbert
Link to: Ray funeral
From Ken Quinn:
With a nod in the direction of Michael Gartner (who served on the Iowa SHARES board), Richard has, as usual, hit it out of the park. I still get chills when those words from Governor Ray's St.Louis speech are repeated. I was there and just blown away by the sheer power of his remarks in a religious setting. He single handed reversed the direction of the 30,000 Church of Christ delegates from opposing the refugee program (as a continuation of the war by taking away the best people from countries that needed them) to strongly endorsing it. Julie's Potluck was, as usual, quite delicious
From Jean Lloyd Jones:
This is such a beautiful message about the stark contrast between that wonderful man and the current governor. And what a stunning, ironic photo of sunlight breaking through clouds and falling below — not on—the lady welcoming refugees to our shores! What’s happened to those values?
Peace,
Jean