Dear President Trump, Yesterday I told you about Brother Phap Luu’s encouragement to let go of blaming others for their roles in perpetuating injustice and climate degradation. What I forgot to include is that he also said we need to stop looking to or waiting for charismatic leaders to solve our problems. My sense is … Continue reading Let’s stop playing follow the leader
Use Your Powers for Good
Piecing together connection and being
Dear President Trump, For about the last year I’ve closed my walking lovingkindness meditation with the following: May we all have the courage and the resolve to be peace and kindness. May we all have the resolve and courage to accept kindness and peace. Maybe I’ve told you about this before – I’m not sure … Continue reading Piecing together connection and being
How we are in the world
Dear President Trump, Over about the last six weeks I’ve changed the final line of the loving-kindness prayer I say every morning at least four times. The other three lines, the ones sending out wishes/hopes/intentions for safety, happiness, and health/strength have stayed consistent except for occasionally focusing on how much I want the person, typically … Continue reading How we are in the world
We’re in trouble when our enemies have more substance than our loves
Dear President Trump, OMG has time gotten wonky. I thought I had opened the tab holding W. B. Yeats’s poem “The Stare’s Nest By My Window” days and days ago, but it was just yesterday morning that it was the featured ‘poem-a-day’ poem (an interesting choice for Mother’s Day). It was a very long, very … Continue reading We’re in trouble when our enemies have more substance than our loves
Testing, testing….
Dear President Trump, Personally, I think you all should have been testing everyone in the White House for covid-19, including you, Pence, and your families, every day since the beginning of February. Why the hell weren’t you? From a national security standpoint such precautions would have been totally reasonable. Maybe your magical thinking-speak really is … Continue reading Testing, testing….
Hope and a big gamble
Dear President Trump, There’s nothing like starting off a letter to you still teary and feeling verklempt after reading a sweet article about President Obama. Guess what he did yesterday – he called three Chicago schoolteachers and had video chats with them to express his appreciation for them and their work. They were so beyond … Continue reading Hope and a big gamble
Another necessary ingredient: restraint
Dear President Trump, Friday morning as I was making my way through my loving-kindness recitation and just as I got to the recently redone last line that goes like: “May your life unfold, open, and intersect non-violently and constructively”, it occurred to me to wonder whether “constructively” could logically be used when what needs to … Continue reading Another necessary ingredient: restraint
Another essential element: empathy
Dear President Trump, I’ve got another essential element for our post-covid-19, post-you, better-culture-for-all; empathy. However, before I unpack it (again), I want to do something I don’t do very often (ever?), which is to thank you for being such an incredible foil. Most of the time it would make no sense whatsoever for me to … Continue reading Another essential element: empathy
Thinking “out of the box” big
Dear President Trump, It’s not clear who first coined the phrase “Live simply that others may simply live.” It might have been Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821), the founder of the Sisters of Charity, or it might have been Mahatma Gandhi – the Google sources aren’t sure. Whoever came up with it, the phrase has been … Continue reading Thinking “out of the box” big
Sunday snippets
Dear President Trump, A less than 2 minute scan over the WP headlines tonight suggests there are any number of heavy, hard, actually shitty, things that I could choose to write to you about – the heaviest, hardest, and shittiest of which is the headline “’For black folks, it’s like a set-up: Are you trying … Continue reading Sunday snippets
Daily Trump Letters 