VERY, VERY DIFFICULT

 

I have written before about intercessory prayer. I have also upon occasion mentioned that in no church have I ever heard prayers for acknowledged enemies. These two issues are now coming to a head with the CoViD-19 hospitalisation of U.S. president Donald Trump, and the reactions to it reported in the news media. 

 

            For most people in the U.S.A. and in the Western world, Trump is an acknowledged enemy: someone who lies, cheats, bullies, and has done more than any previous holder of the presidency to degrade that office and to undermine the institutions of American democracy. Moreover, the position of his country in the world increases exponentially the effects of the damage he has inflicted on it. 

 

            So now that he is in hospital with an as yet unknown degree of the virus, the understandable reactions vary from a sense of almost Biblical tragedy – condign punishment specific to one of his many sins – via outright Schadenfreude to heartfelt and furiously-expressed wishes that he may not recover. Any good wishes or even prayers for his recovery seem to be limited strictly to his thick-and-thin supporters.

 

            So what should the reaction be for those of us who hate what he has done to the country, to politics generally, and to the world, but who are also reasonably devout if uncertain Christians (or, indeed, Jews)? He is our acknowledged enemy: can we bring ourselves to pray for him? This is a considerable test of our faith.  

 

            Reading the book by his niece, the psychiatrist Mary Trump, may help us to a greater understanding. The father of Donald and his brother was, by all accounts, a monster who taught his sons that the world was divided into killers and losers. Donald has clearly tried to be a killer, but as he isn’t a real killer (such as, for example, Erdogan in Turkey) he does his damage by flailing. His brother became an alcoholic and died at 42; Donald obviously has compensated for weakness and lack of self-confidence with sociopathic narcissism. There is in this a profound sadness: it shows us a damaged child lashing out at the world. 

 

            Naturally, such a child should not be let near an important function. That he was, through the ill-will of many professional politicians, the violence of their voters, and a seriously dysfunctional electoral system, is a tragedy. But beneath all that, we can perhaps still hear the cries of the damaged child. And we can, and should, perhaps remember that nothing is impossible to God except to deny Love.

 

            We should, then, perhaps pray earnestly for the damaged child Donald Trump, and beg the Lord to use this illness to bring about a change in his way of seeing the world and of living in it. Roger Cohen, the journalist, wrote that his experience with fairly serious CoViD-19 had made a deep impression on him. A loving Father might possibly use the same means to transform a damaged and dysfunctional President. 

THIS IS, WELL, GRAVE

Recently, a columnist in the NY Times recounted the debt owed, not by Nixon to Roger Ailes but by Ailes to Nixon. It was the President who taught Ailes the value – the commercial, publicity value – of cultural resentment. This phrase has stuck in my mind, as I believe it represents almost the entirety of Donald Trump’s continuing support. None of the voters in the hinterland believe, at this stage, that TrumpCare will improve their health; none, I imagine, believe that their economic prospects will genuinely improve with The Donald in charge. So why do they go on supporting him?

The answer, I believe, is very simple. BECAUSE HE HATES LIBERALS. And he allows us to hate liberals. And to feel, not guilty but good about hating liberals. The answer, my friends, is Cultural Resentment. And it is very close to being the ONLY answer. The whole of the Trump base is about being not for anything,  but against something. Against Hillary: the glee of shouting “LOCK HER UP!” Against the effete Europeans and Asians and All Those Other Guys who believe, against all good common-sense-over-a-beer-in-the-pub, that the planet is heating up bigly. Against all those PC assholes in Massachusetts and California. Against all those smartasses who are so proud of their useless Education and who wave their f*cking Degrees at us, and take away our jobs. Against, against, against, against. Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take it Anymore! Rage, rage, aganst the rising of the light.

Can anything be done against this? I’m not sure. It may just have to sputter and squib itself out, gracelessly, mendaciously, offensively and miserably. To me, it is genuinely sinful, because it exchanges Christ for Trump, love for hatred, discernment for stupidity. The pleasure of hate is a real pleasure, but none the less sinful for that. It corrodes, it rots, it ends in a whirlwind of emptiness. And there, Hell awaits. Lord, have mercy. These are your children. They know not what they do.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Risen Christ

NOVEMBER 9, 2016: DUM VOLVITUR ORBIS

Stat crux, dum volvitur orbis

It was a privilege for me, a European, to be present at this, the most important American election for a number of years, and in its result the most startling for many decades. One thing that strikes unprejudiced observers from my continent is the idealism of the American people, which shows so strongly in their national events, in their collective enthusiasm, in their warmth, in their communal kindness, and even in their anger. Idealistic, patriotic, they are the products of a nation that invented itself instead of just growing, and thus is obliged periodically to reinvent itself.

It is now accepted among many that during the recent campaign the vilification was all on the Trumpian side; but I must say that rarely in peacetime have I heard a politician so consistently an comprehensively abused as Donald Trump. We may say, in schoolyard mode, that "he started it", but the fact remains that he got as good as he gave, and that not only his opponent's team but much of the political establishment and the media returned the fire with interest. Yes, he said many reprehensible things no candidate for high office should say; but equal and worse (whatever the justification) was said about him. It was a savage and uncivilised campaign; and even those who initially wanted "when they go low, to go high" were soon convinced that highmindedness would get them nowhere.

Then came Election Day, and (for us, the right-thinking ones) it all went pear-shaped. All the polls were proved wrong, and the Great Beast was elected in what one commentator called "a primal scream" of an election. In the subsequent 24 hours, hindsight provided many valuable and even sensitive insights: it was race, it was gender, it was the economy, it was millions who felt left behind, ignored and unheard and who had provoked what one pundit called a "whitelash". It was finally realised that (as Tina Brown, former New Yorker editor, said) a lot of people had been feeling that on certain subjects conversation was closed, taboo. And the Great Beast alone had sensed the pent-up energy of disappointment and anger, and had realised it contained enough nuclear energy to propel him to the goal.

Why am I writing about this here, in a blog that deals with faith, prayer, and such things? Perhaps because the experience has taught us that ambient opinion, social and unsocial media and a culture of vituperation, in solving nothing, may teach us a profound lesson. The lesson is that, in politics -- local, regional, national and even international -- the one unpardonable sin is humiliation. The humiliated all too often cannot and do not forgive, but seek for revenge. The revenge may take the form of an assault rifle fired upon innocent bystanders, or of an electoral slap in the face for hated "élites": revenge it is, and it curdles the blood.

The ordinary citizen, indeed any individual, can do little but can and must do something: needs to know that the television has its own world and agenda, that social media are hollow vessels open to any filling, and that one's own small world, the few dozen humans with whom one actually interacts, is the terrain one is given, the place where, for you or me, the world turns: volvitur orbis. Here we live, here we act, adiuvante gratia tua, with the help of Thy grace; never forgetting that, for us as for our neighbour, while the world turns, dum volvitur orbis, stat Crux: the Cross stands, the Cross remains. Not as a memento mori, to speak of death, but as a reminder how far love can go. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

Perhaps we should turn off the TV, the computer and the smartphone from time to time and look, really look, at the few square miles of the orbis in which we can and must act, react, and interact, with the few people upon whose lives we can truly have an effect. He did this; he loved us, he did his Father's will; he died for love of us, he rose again for love of us, he humiliated no one, he rendered unto Caesar what was Caesar's and unto God what was God's, he showed us the way love works.

Adiuvante gratia tua: with the help of Thy grace. A wise man I knew long ago told a woman who came to him for counsel, "Your problem is that you are trying to live a sacrificial life without the grace to do so." At the time this seemed to me harsh: now I realise its kindness and its wisdom. Only with grace can we live in this turning world under the Cross; and only through prayer can grace reach us.

GOODNESS!

In the midst of Brexit, Trump, ISIS/Daech, and so forth, I found this snippet from St Matthias's Church website in Orange, N.J., entirely refreshing. One never tires of the Psalms.

"I believe I shall enjoy the Lord's goodness in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13

What a wonderful mantra the psalmist offers. Try repeating this belief statement as you go through a typical day. We most often see what we expect to see. Do you expect to see the Lord's goodness as you go through the day?  It takes many forms: a surprise phone call, a random act of kindness, some unexpected good news, or the daisy growing through the concrete. We are invited to one step further, however. After we see the Lord's goodness, we are challenged to enjoy it. That means slowing down to take notice. In this way, we are changed by what we see. Give yourself the gift of being transformed by the goodness of the Lord.

Source:  Loyola Press, May 4, 2016