Love Your Enemies [View all]
People I know who have never wished ill of anyone are so angry at Trump that the news that he has COVID is being met with uncharacteristic inhumanity.
I can’t say that I’m immune to this. He has ruined so much that is good in this country, and millions have suffered because of him, and so many dead. It feels like just retribution, and a potential end to a miserable chapter in modern history.
I’m trying to take a step back though and ask myself, what does it mean that this man can engender so much hatred? How are we supposed to react?
Trump seems custom-designed to bring out the worst in us, spiritually. I found myself being sad, not over the situation that he is facing, but over some loss of innocence. The command in the religion that I grew up with that says “Love Your Enemies” is one of my favorite. My spirituality is kin with the adorable Margaret Wise Brown children’s book “The Little Island”, wherein a kitten learns a great secret from a fish: that the little island is connected to all the other islands and all the other land, under the sea. I got chills every time I read this book to my little one, because it felt so true.
Do I hate him? Hell yes. I am moved by the pain of those who hate him as the man who was responsible for the loss of their parent or husband or friend. My sympathy is with all those who have been hurt by his actions.
No one has been a bigger test of my belief in my favorite message and spiritual practice, though: Love your enemies. The best ending to the story is always a kind of redemption, even when it seems no redemption is possible. It is good and important to hold on to one’s own innocence.
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