So, yes, here we are in lent and I'm contemplating loving enemies and it's true I find Donald Trump and pretty much his entire staff and cabinet to be enemies of my person and people I love.
What is also true is that, while I write a few notes to senators and make other feeble signs of resistance, these are enemies I'll likely never ever meet. Any influence I might crave over them and their agendas is too small to measure.
So what I'm really thinking about is the way I might love the people in my life who are Donald Trump supporters. I have to think about this a lot because, honestly, I'm pretty hugely pissed off at them.
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;
for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. [James 1:19-20]
Righteousness. Justice. Justification. The nuances of those words are floating around, bumping into each other in concept of righteousness.
And, to be sure, anger is not always unwarranted. See the prophets and, on a couple of notable occasions, Jesus himself.
But I begin to see how anger---sometimes from others at me, sometimes my own directed elsewhere---is a problem for me. I watch some folks who somehow manage to have terrible fights and arguments complete with bright hot branding anger and still remain in relationship.
I'm a complete failure at this. From my own coming out as gay to the election of Donald Trump, I've too much decided that people who have problems with who I am or what I stand for don't need to be in my life, that there are plenty of people to hang out with who don't have these problems with me.
The bubble, as it were.
This is who I'm talking about when I talk about trying to love Donald Trump, the people outside the bubble. This is much more real than all those people in D.C. And a lot messier. And hurtful. And . . .
Necessary.
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