Mr. Trump and our spiritual practice July 7, 2019
Two experiences inform what I wish to say this morning: one new and one old.
First: At the time of the last election I got a terrible feeling that I was going to be in a perpetual state of upset. I had no peace. Eventually it occurred to me … “well this can’t be right – I don’t need to surrender my peace: peace comes from within doesn’t it? If I surrender, what am I? A victim? Have I just lost my way – and just about everyone else – all riled up – the country unhappily divided – how could I do anything about it – how could I/we be part of the solution?”
That’s when I decided to make Mr. Trump – my experience of him – my perception of him – a part of my spiritual practice. If I can learn to see and hear him – and keep my center – if I can find compassion for him and listen to his troubled story – if I can affirm his worth and dignity – it will be good for me. I will not be a victim. I will not be adding to the uncivil discourse that surrounds me and resolves nothing. I will not add hostile energy to a looming time bomb. I will ask only to helpful.
That would be a good thing. That would give peace – in me – a chance. In peace, maybe I can be part of a solution – at least, not part of the problem.
It’s been a bumpy ride, but I’m holding on to this intent.
Second: On our way to church in Syracuse, N.Y., 1954, we would pass Bristol-Meyers’ pharmaceutical laboratories. The complex was huge and there were many gleaming tanks and tubes and pipes and steaming stacks – like a refinery, but clean and futuristic looking – all surrounding a very large building. And surrounding all was high chain-link fencing with barbed wire atop, and guarded gates. To my fourth grade mind, the whole scene was spooky.
One night I dreamed the lab was going to blow – something had gotten out of hand – and when it blew up it was going to take everything and all of us with it. We got word, however, from somewhere that there was only one way to prevent the holocaust, and that was if everyone would come together, squeeze inside the plant and stand directly on the floor – like standing on top of a ticking time bomb. The floor was like the metal-grate roadway over the cut bridge, so you could see down into a maze of pipes and catwalks and bare lights – a scene only a mad scientist could love.
The point was, we would have to make our common cause to lend our weight – literally – and this was the only way we would survive. In unity, we would save ourselves. Separately, we were doomed – everyone and everything – in big bang #2. I woke up, without knowing if the dream ends or how. I think now that this dream is still hanging and we, together, in this life, will determine its outcome.
–
Change is what’s happening. Change has to happen.
In the present moment, we come here out of a desire – perhaps a faint desire – a desire for more – as in more of life, more of meaning, more of connection with others – more understanding, more peace, more fullness – more love. But desire has to have openness for fulfillment – and openness creates the risk/opportunity for change.
As if in a bad movie with a scary plot twist, we find – now – that changes we have not consciously opened to, that we did not seek, are pressing upon us – changes in our social and economic and political experiences, changes in our environment, maybe changes that could to cause everything to blow up. These make us afraid and tempt us to close down – to cling to our tribe – to yearn for life the way it used to be – or to “make America great again”- maybe to deny facts and science that explain reality.
Changes that we have not consciously opened to are pressing upon us.
–
It is not my purpose to simulate any argument about Mr. Trump or anything he says or does. It is my purpose to discover how we, as people of faith, can maintain our center – meaning the center of our being – and speak and act more effectively for our own good and the good of all.
To start, we have to sit up – breathe and feel deeply – to see if we can to find purpose – any good purpose – in in the trending changes that are descending upon us. Historians and mystics probably would agree – we have brought this upon ourselves. Perhaps purpose is detected if we can – for a moment – perceive Mr. Trump as a catalyst. A catalyst is like the acid that was poured into the beaker of soda in our high school chemistry class causing an explosion of water and foam. In a sort of similar way, Mr. Trump is causing us to sense – by startling – perhaps explosive and stark contrasts – to sense that every trend we have been on in terms of economic and social justice, international peace and security, the environment of our island home, human brotherhood, our health in every dimension, our spiritual evolution – that every trajectory we have been on is no longer sustainable and is heading to explosion or collapse … and us, in present form, to extinction. He is not the cause; he did not set these trends in motion – but as a catalyst, an agent of stark contrasts – he is helping us to see that we, and the way we have been interacting with our human family and the natural world must change – change dramatically – change immanently.
–
Thankfully – our desire for more is still/always trying to move us – to create in us an opening – a little willingness to lean in to teachings and examples and guidance and sacred wisdom from all times, to lean in to silence and prayer and music and community that will nourish us. This is our spiritual practice together. It is not intended for a separate compartment of our lives. It is as applicable to our political lives as to every other aspect. It holds answers for the perennial question of mankind: how are we to live?
And with great thanks we can see that our spiritual life, our practice together – out of this deepest desire -is very much akin to our love life. The spirit of life is the flow, the unstoppable swell of birthing-cradling-nourishing-empowering energy that has its source in love. So-evidently-so that the Gospel writer John declared “God is love.” And indeed that is the most accessible avenue for our understanding of the idea of “God” or the spirit of life – because we have experienced love and its irresistible essence.
This is why I think Donald Trump may also be seen as a symbol of a spiritual problem. Let me rephrase – for most of us, our perception of Donald Trump mirrors back to us a spiritual problem – our spiritual problem. How so? Because suddenly, we’re not feelin’ the love – in a generalized – wholesome sense, we’re suddenly a bit numb to patience and acceptance and forbearance and …. and what has been awakened instead are the opposites of these love virtues: judgment, condemnation, fear, perhaps anger, and most certainly – regardless of whatever views you may hold – loss of peace. This is the same loss of peace that accompanies all feelings of separation. As we contemplate July 4th, our most distinctively national-family unity celebration, that national family is split. We’re feeling the dawn of a painful divorce. Our brotherly love seems to have been conspicuously elbowed aside by greed, by grievances, by quests for power, by our own judgments and anger.
We seem unable to be at peace. We have lost touch with our center: we’re not feelin’ it.
–
Did Mr. Trump take it from us … did we give him that power? Have we unwittingly taken the victim’s role – someone else is to blame and I am powerless? If I am not a victim, but I feel bad – the responsibility to do something about it is mine alone. Ranting, blaming, projecting grievances – we see these tactics all around us: they don’t work! They are pollution into the river of life – a river that is backing up to suffocate us.
–
We want to fight back, to fight fire with fire – to answer aggression with aggression. But the fighting strategies that “seemed” to work in the disappointing history of mankind – bullying, coercion, militancy, attack – every structural and institutional and uncaring violation of the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you – these are also pollution dumped into a river which is backing up to sicken and suffocate us. They just simply do not work. They only birth fixed antipathy, perpetual enemies, endless conflict and insecurity.
For some reason we find self-justification in an idea we call “human nature,” by which we explain and excuse non-loving thoughts and behaviors. But now, now with a trifecta of population density, climate change and lethal technologies we have not yet learned to master – a perfect storm of human destruction is now seen as possible – even likely.
Added to this mix is a massive population – perhaps 100 million in our country alone – who feel aggrieved, who see others (like us) as to blame for their troubles and who are tempted to react angrily – and they now find justification for their feelings – and leadership – in our President. (They are watching, spoiling for a fight, watching to detect any bit of evidence that he -and therefore they – are being treated unfairly.)
Our security can now clearly and only be found in a path of peace, in giving and caring and sharing – no longer in hoarding and bullying and selfishness – getting down on the battlefield where there will be winners and losers. Love is the natural thing. It is the only thing that works in the long run. And, look around, the long run is – may we say – just about over.
–
Time for action? We think of the great action heroes of history, effective super heroes – like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. These – did you think of them as action-heroes? These led masses/millions of sorely aggrieved people in very volatile times – away from their impulses for violence. These found within themselves voices that resounded with authority, because their voices were born in the calm center. That’s action! For that last person in the line of their freedom marches, or standing on the floor that is about to blow – that’s action! That’s action with courage. And courage, the word, means originally, from the heart. And the heart, as we feel it, is where love is known in our experience.
Note: These also taught us that pacifism is not passive-ism!
Our overwhelming temptation is always to fix things on the outside (so we don’t have to change inside) – change the laws and vote “the bums” out of office, etc. Now we are acutely aware that outside fixes don’t directly change hearts and minds. Think of the pushback after Obama was elected and we celebrated our civic enlightenment. Look at our surprise at the swell of white nationalism here where we pledge “liberty and justice for all.”
–
Those who learn that change starts from within, as I believe we are called to do, will learn to live and act above the level of problems – so, for example, violence will be understood as no solution to violence, anger no answer to anger, war no end to war, but love – and it’s manifestations like kindness and understanding and reconciliation is the solution to hatred, forgiveness the solution to injustice, acceptance and appreciation the solution to division, etc. Our covenantal affirmation – “we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all persons” will come to be recognized as a master-key solution to just about all of our human problems.
Wisdom asks us to lean in (I love that expression…) – to lean in, to turn off the judgment channel that plays incessantly in the background of the mind, and to listen to peoples’ stories. People who hold grievances may be misinformed, misguided, spoiling for a fight, “wacko” – but change for them, like us, will only come from within. If they get any sense that they are being disrespected, put down (a la “basket of deplorables”), being talked-at – their defenses will stiffen and their convictions find reinforcement – and this is particularly true where their views align with religious and racist beliefs. To listen, with respect, without judgment – is the rubber-meets-the-road test of our covenantal intention – “we affirm the worth and dignity of all persons”. As Rev. Janet said several weeks ago – ….. ? “if you listen to a person’s story, they will not be your enemy.”
By the way, we must put away the nasty game of “ain’t it awful.” Ain’t it awful what “he” said … ain’t it awful what “he’s” done now.” We do a lot of that right here without thinking. But it’s effect is like adding more pollution into that river that is backing up upon us.
What more? We can write letters, call our representatives, write checks – exercise our precious freedom of speech – and we can march and demonstrate and risk going to jail as some of you may already have – exercise our precious freedom of assembly – but these we will do from our center, as people of faith, from our affirmation of the worth and dignity of all, with care, with peace, always with listening. Without action from the center – doing our spiritual practices – we’re just as likely to stay on the battlefield, contributors to the looming catastrophe, not hearing the call to come together and stand on a floor that is about to blow up and take us with it.
We start within, doing the inside job. Find the stillness. Find the center. As did Martin and Mohatma – and Jesus, who’s courage (brave heart) was unbroken .. and who taught “resist not evil ..but turn the other cheek” – and his apostle Paul who taught “overcome evil with good.”
To be effective is going to take wisdom. All of creation, all the divine design wants for our happiness … for us to live in unity and happiness, as our Creator intended. The long run is nearly over. We must be the peace and the change that we desire. This is how to live – in the face of our civic discord. This is the only way that will work.
