Tim Kaine: “I rise today to talk about an experience that I had on Sunday. Sunday was the day, July 14, that President Trump had…”

“I rise today to talk about an experience that I had on Sunday. Sunday was the day, July 14, that President Trump had preannounced that massive deportation and immigration raids were about to begin. It looks like those raids maybe didn't start on Sunday, but the communities of immigrants in Virginia and elsewhere, who have been experiencing tremendous fear, had that fear dramatically accelerated by the announcement. On Sunday, my wife and I, who live in Richmond, went to a town called Kilmarnock, about an hour and 10 minutes away from us, where my wife's parents are in a nursing home. They are 95 and 93 years old. We went down to spend the day with my in-laws and to take my mother-in-law to church at the local Episcopal church where she has long been a member. I was struck by the readings. It was a day of fear for many immigrant communities, and the readings that occurred in the Episcopal church, which are readings that are delivered in Catholic and Presbyterian and other churches on a set schedule, struck me as I was thinking about the fear in these communities. For the Old Testament reading, normally, in most churches around the globe, Catholics and Episcopals read from Deuteronomy, but for some reason, the pastor of this church--it was his goodbye ceremony, and he was leaving after serving for an interim--had switched the Old Testament reading and instead put in a reading from the Old Testament Book of Amos, Chapter 7, verses 7 through 9.…”