After going to bed election night long before the results got interesting, I figured it a sign when I got up at 1AM and stepped into dog poop on the living room faux oriental. It was such a rare occurrence; our three boys have an entire mountain at their disposal. Upon cleaning the rug and washing my feet, a check of my laptop confirmed the poop’s forecast: Donald Trump’s chances of winning had soared to 95 percent. Not my desired outcome, but since I’m close to monotonous in my esteem for every event (and yes, I do include a shoelace in our soup right along with death) as, more than anything else, a call to grow our capacity to love, I soon identified a few gifts of Trump’s Triumph––all with far more reaching impact than the universe’s scatological humor at my expense.
Donald Trump
While Donald Trump may be colossally unworthy of our trust to be president, there is one thing about him I honor: his role in making saints. (Not that he knows he’s doing so.) I’m not cracking wise here. If a saint is somebody who has compassion for everyone all the time, Mr. Trump is among the masters who serve those of us who hunger to grow that skill.
I honor the grotesque world that would be D.T. TrumpenCruz, President of the U.S. of A. I don’t seek it, but I honor it. I do so for the same reason I honor every other way that we, souls awakening, are abusing ourselves, one another, and our planetary home. The blood of unkindness colors the road to a healthy life. What spills that blood is ignorance, the mother of all suffering––and a sacred teacher.
If life’s purpose is to grow our capacity to love (as I feel it is), and every moment, every situation, serves that purpose (as I feel it does), then the specter of D.T. TrumpenCruz is a ripe reminder that our tenacity to make loving choices usually takes hold only after the consequences of unlove become excruciating. Who would bet the farm, or even a nickel, we’re at that point today? If D.T. TrumpenCruz were abducted by aliens and never heard from again, what problem would really be solved?
My Other Website
"The push to change the words “nigger” and “injun” in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, because the so-called offensive nature of those terms might limit today’s readership and appreciation of that literary classic, is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how we avoid taking responsibility for our feelings––and therefore miss the chance to become more awake, more whole, more useful friends to one another."
The Essay: The Gold in Niggers and Injuns
