Young woman smiling

Esther Flores, R.N., founder of 1DivineLine2Health

We do not need qualified immunity for vigilante cops! We need Qualified Communities to police themselves by living the golden rule. Love has the power to heal and protect people by engaging as thy neighbor’s keeper. Perhaps if people stopped voting for a political party and focused on the content of the politician’s character then we will not have greedy politrickcians capitalizing from human suffering.

It is the recycled ineffective strategies of these leaders that create tragedies in our neighborhoods. Disruptive honesty by law abiding citizens in peaceful demonstrations demanding accountability and transparency of our officials is a constitutional right. Corrupted leaders get re-elected by misinformed voters who belong to their political party or have the same skin color. The Covid 19 pandemic has fueled violence, overdoses, unemployment, poverty, and loss of homes, and shut down of nonprofits.

According to the Eviction Lab, in the first three months of 2021 there were 14,160 eviction filings on families. They are visible living in their cars, abandoned buildings and homeless camps while our House of Representatives legislators representing the west side are invisible except during election time. The LGTBQA+, Black Lives Matter and other movements do not support our “kind” of efforts when there is one humankind which include those who have and lack resources. Unfortunately, engaging in survival sex has become popular for both men and females especially when they have children to support.

Qualified immunity does not work in Columbus! Police policing themselves, especially in the Internal Affairs Bureau, is unethical and immoral!  The real qualified immunity is in the human body that keeps us healthy by combatting pathogens. As citizens we need to protect the most fragile and robust in our community.

The human body was intelligently designed by the Creator to have 11 organ systems to keep it at homeostasis. The immune system is the body’s defense mechanism against bacteria, viruses, and other types of invaders. Many organs and specialized cells contribute to our immunity. As you read this, there is an unseen internal war that keep us healthy. There are three types of immunity: innate, adaptive, and passive. Everyone is born with skin, and it is our general protection from foreign invaders, and this is innate immunity. What about if everyone saw each other as kin of the human race and stop focusing on skin color? We were not born with the notion that less or more melanin makes us supreme beings.

It is sin not skin that creates war here and abroad. There are countries involved in ethnic cleansing, while others fight for oil wells and land and murdering people along the way. Saint Thomas Aquinas had a theological discourse about the seven deadly sins that many Roman Catholics know about. They are pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth. All the human atrocities in Columbus and elsewhere are tied to several of these. Is it utopian thinking to believe like the Creator that all lives from different skin tones matter?   

Throughout our life span we are exposed to diseases and sometimes we are immunized against them by vaccines which creates adaptive immunity. Schools and certain professions require vaccinations to protect the service providers and clients. Seasoned world travelers are educated about the foreign countries immunization requirements to prevent them from becoming deathly ill.  Adapting to vulnerable cultures takes humility, compassion, and rules of engagement to live and work with. It is living outside of one’s comfort zone that becomes life transforming and makes a person culturally competent. Repetitively immunize children, youth, and adults with Love and they learn to adapt to America’s heterogenous culture. They learn to live in harmony instead of bigotry.    

The bond of a mother and baby during breastfeeding is nurturing and a natural part of immunity. A mother’s breast milk provides a passive (temporary) immunity by the transmission of antibodies to the newborn. Artificial passive immunity is the use of immune globulins that are infused intravenously to treat certain types of neuromuscular, viral, and other diseases.

Human and health services professionals need to support the work of frontliners who nurture and protect vulnerable populations. They become foster parents who provide the basic needs to people who suffer from substance abuse and mental disorders, violence, poverty, and criminal backgrounds.  They are ostracized by society and in homeless camps and abandon buildings due to discriminatory rules. The feeling of rejection lead many to self-medicate with synthetic opiates via injection or ingestion which it is like artificial passive immunity but leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms. Human beings were not created to be isolated. There are service providers, bullies/traffickers, and leaders who have contributed to the depravity existing on the west side. Many hurting people exist, including indigenous people who do not report violence. Only on the west side, a herd of police respond to shot spotters instead of having block watch captains to be empower neighbors to keep their community immunized.

In January this year on the Hilltop, 1DivineLine2Health open the first full-time Drop-In Center tailored to trafficked womxn, their children, and transwomxn. Breaking ground was not easy. The house was an act of kindness and dedicated to Tracy Sheffield, a lovely wife, mother, friend, and advocate. Her legacy caused a butterfly effect now and for generations to come. A group of strangers heard about our need and came together to raise $125k for the renovations. Thanks to the CARES Act and partners they came in common union with Love to infuse us with funds to help the lives we serve.

In conclusion, working in hurting communities involves a relationship with God and people to be their voice for justice. We are in a public health crisis. A cloud of darkness involving poverty, unemployment, violence, anxiety, fear, and other societal woes were created by injustice in certain communities. We need agitators of truth to be the detergent to challenge the systems that oppress the poor. Expose the corruption and eradicate the inadequate leadership.

A new police chief will not help if the carcinogens cops are still present in all levels. Columbus Police Department corruption has metastasized in the street levels -- they are the drug and human traffickers. Frontliners are few, yet trustworthy to vulnerable populations because they extend compassion, mercy, and grace. It is lens of compassion that activates social justice.

You have the power to create a qualified community by working in common unity to love, serve and protect vulnerable populations. It is in those communities the outcasts find a family, orphans find a home, the sick find healing, the unemployed find jobs, havens are created to the destitute.

Help the Love Warriors of 1DIVINELINE2HEALTH to continue to be the Love Contagion of the Love Epidemic in the four corners we serve by donating at https://1dl2h.org/. Partnering with us either through monetary or volunteering helps us to create qualified communities whereby hurting lives are loved and not criminalized or, at worst, euthanized.