Fr. Larry

I never cared for Hillary, and was never enthused about her candidacy. She is the sort of insipid Democrat that creates the illusion that change is coming for the sick, the hungry, and dispossessed, but an illusion is all it it is – it’s not real change you can count on. She said it herself, she is “a proud moderate.” And Bill is not only a sex addict, but one willing to prey on a young vulnerable woman and dismiss the whole sordid thing as mutually consensual as if there was no gaping power differential. It was Bill who came up with the notion that the way for Democrats to get elected was to embrace both a progressive social agenda and fiscal conservatism – something of an oxymoron. So with his Welfare Reform he increased the poverty of the poor, while enhancing the wealth of the rich and powerful – and of Hilary and himself. I think Hillary was telling the truth when she told the Wall Street rich that her working class roots had been severed. What Gertrude Stein said of Oakland is an apt description of Hilary: “There is no there there.” She is smart, knowledgeable, and competent, but there is no “presence.” I don’t think Hillary is totally corrupt and dishonest. I don’t think she did anything dishonest or that put the nation at risk with her e-mails. Her and Bill are smart and well educated attorneys who know how to stay out of trouble with the law even when squeezing it to their advantage. And it is just silly to blame her as being single handedly responsible for Benghazi – give me a break. I trust Hillary as a highly competent manager. The problem is we need leaders who are more than competent managers. We need leaders who exceed conventional thinking. I think often of Einstein’s comment, “You can’t solve a problem by thinking at the same level that created it in the first place.” The point is simply this, had Hilary won the Presidency, and the Democrats a majority in both houses, we would have felt and been safer, but the need to advocate for the poor, the dispossessed, and marginalized in America would have remained. The call to champion human rights, a non-violent society, and a politically, economically and ecologically sustainable society and world would have remained.

With Trump people are afraid. Trump suffers from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder — DSM 5 301.81. That’s not good. His rhetoric is frightening and it is meant to be – lock them up (without due process), smash them in the face, take them out and shoot them – hang them. His scapegoating of minorities is a classic sign of evil. And what tyrannical regime has not called for an excessive enlargement of the military? That question itself is, of course, rhetorical. But there are other questions that are not rhetorical: What will happen to Social Security, Medicare, civil rights, food stamps for hungry children, medical care for 45,000,000 people, hope for a minimum wage capable of sustaining working men and women, the right of the poor and minorities to vote in fair elections, and what will be the end of belligerence and nuclear proliferation – not to mention the crisis of climate change? It is, as they say, “still early in the game, but the signs are not encouraging. It is all quite Orwellian. Of course, Orwellian “doublespeak” actually began in American politics with George W. Bush more than with anyone else. Bush you may remember referred, with a slight grin and twinkle in his eye, to “enhanced interrogation techniques” when what he really meant was torture – which he denied was practiced by the U.S. It appears we have made national progress, what once was abhorrent is now endorsed by the U.S. President. But I pray for Donald Trump. I do not pray for him as the fundamentalists and far right prayed for President Obama – for his failure and death. I pray for his success in everything that is right, and true, and good. Everyday I pray: “Lord, may it please you to rule the hearts of your servants, the President of the United States, and all others in authority, that they may do justice, and love mercy and walk in the way of truth.” Our focus must be on issues, principles, and actions, and not on whether we think someone personally objectionable; or, as Hilary might say, “deplorable.” So everyday I pray for Donald Trump, and everyday I pray, “Lord, keep this nation under your care; and, guide us in the way of justice and truth.”

The Gospel Reading for last Sunday was Matthew 5:1-10 – The Beatitudes. The last in that list, but of crucial importance in our time, is Jesus’ counterintuitive, as all the beatitudes are counterintuitive, “Blessed are you when you are persecuted for the sake of righteousness (the Divine love and truth, and goodness which underlies all things). Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.” I think this is Jesus telling us, as he so often does, to trust him, and not to be so afraid – but to be of good courage. Gerald Jampolsky tells a wonderful story that is pertinent here.

In his little book Love is Letting Go of Fear, Jampolsky tells how as a medical student he was, like most other medical students, afraid he would catch a terrible disease. For him it was tuberculosis. When he was an intern in Boston he had to spend one month on the TB service and was scared to death he would catch it and die. On his first day, at about 11:30 at night, he received an emergency call. A fifty-year-old woman who not only had tuberculosis, but was also an alcoholic with cirrhosis of the liver, had just vomited blood and had no pulse. Jampolsky massaged her heart, removed the blood from her throat with a suction device, and when the oxygen machine wouldn’t work gave her mouth to mouth resuscitation. The woman’s pulse returned and she started to breath again. When Jampolsky got back to his intern quarters he saw himself in the mirror. He was covered in the woman’s blood. He was, he says, “a bloody mess.” All of a sudden it occurred to him that he had not been afraid at anytime during the episode. What he learned that night, what this bloody, alcoholic, TB patient with cirrhosis of the liver taught him that night, was that when we are absorbed in giving, in loving, we feel no fear. Regardless of who is president there is, in the words of Saint Paul, something significant required of us, given to us: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).

Now, I can only write as a person of faith. I have nothing to suggest for anyone else. By “person of faith,” I mean Christian faith. And by “Christian faith” I mean following Jesus in the way of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7). Quite frankly, I see little connection between modern Catholic or Protestant fundamentalism and the Jesus Way. Last February, I listened with keen interest to Republican House Representative David Brat’s assertion that “the conservative movement owns the entire tradition,” by which he seemed to mean the tradition of Christian love and compassion. Poor man. Poor man. But I am beginning to digress.

To be more succinct, Christian Scripture teaches us to speak truth in love, to care for and to champion the hurting and vulnerable, and to be messengers of peace and justice whether doing so is convenient or inconvenient. And in the practice of love our fears evaporate; for, as Saint John wrote so reassuringly, “Perfect love casts out fear.”