D. Trump: Maker of Saints

This essay was originally published in October 2016, on my website CoolMindWarmHeart.com, during Donald Trump’s first run for President

While Donald Trump may be colossally unworthy of our trust to be president, there is one thing about him I honor: his role in making saints.  (Not that he knows he’s doing so.)  I’m not cracking wise here.  If a saint is somebody who has compassion for everyone all the time, Mr. Trump is among the masters who serve those of us who hunger to grow that skill. 

That’s because he’s so easy to dislike.  I can’t think of a single reason I would advise any of the young members of my family to turn to him for advice on any topic related to eternal values, or related to anything else for that matter.  Mr. Trump is the equivalent of an active drug addict––more nuts than malevolent.  From his mouth comes not a word one can rely on to represent integrity.  This doesn’t mean he’s always lying.  Lying or not lying isn’t a conscious consideration for Mr. Trump.  He’s not wired that way.  He lives in an cloud of compulsive self-absorption, just like the alcoholic (me, for instance, 30 years ago) whose number one priority is always the buzz, even if his pants are on fire.  No action of an addict can be counted on to be grounded in kindness, the interests of others, or a sensitivity to consequences.  An addict’s judgment and temperament are something other than presidential.  So it’s easy to dismiss Mr. Trump.  And that would be a shame.  For it is precisely because of what many find to be his repugnancy that he can help us grow the tenderness of our heart.  He has for me.  Nobody acts the way Donald Trump does because inside they’re dancing with joy.  

My father was an unpredictably violent person, at least toward me, his eldest son.  I lived on guard.  Violent wasn’t all he was, but it doesn’t take much of it for trust to shrink, since it is the potential for violence that perpetually poisons the air.  My dad’s father had the same tendency, family lore suggests.  I may not have been physically abusive to my kids, like my dad was to me, but my intensity has had flares that could fuel a rocket to the moon.  I used to wonder if the four generations of us shared something akin to a genetic imprint.  Gratefully, I’ve been blessed to learn that, even if that’s the case, inheritance isn’t destiny.  I can change.  I can recover.  I can stop passing it on.  I’ve come to have a lot of compassion for my father, my grandfather, my children, and myself.  Which is why I have a lot for Donald Trump.  

I spent years in a love/hate relationship with my dad until I was grown up enough to be receptive to a transforming piece of advice: energetically enter his consciousness and feel what he was experiencing at the core of his being when he was abusive in any way.  Terror is the answer.  And feeling possessed by it.  Before I was born he prayed for a son, but once I showed up he was ill-equipped to parent, except for the example of his father, which he was committed not to repeat.  Yet, because my dad never developed the skills for effectively managing fear, that’s precisely what he did do.  Fear unmanaged always harms, since it is expressed as anger in any of its myriad forms, all of them destructive, some brutally so.    

Inhabiting my father’s being, so to speak, I experienced the forces that made him dangerous to himself, to me, and to the targets of his bigotry.  I experienced his despair of not being enough.  I experienced his longing to love.  And most important of all, I experienced how that same energy has lived in me.  All of this I also experience in Mr. Trump.  

Along the way, I learned that a person’s behavior is an incomplete measure of their reality.  That any of us act like a jerk, or worse, means only so much until our behavior is also seen as a cue that something within us––a fear, an unforgiveness, a belief…––is calling for our loving attention.  

A Donald Trump presidency might be a catastrophe in many ways, but it would be a gift in at least one: those of us who aspire to grow compassion for everyone all the time would have a lot of opportunity to practice.  

5 thoughts on “D. Trump: Maker of Saints”

  1. Phil Kirk Vermont

    Thank you, Steve. Indeed Trump challenges our ability to love everyone as God loves us.

    • State - Vermont
  2. Thanks for this. What you have written is helpful and gives insight I didn’t have. Helps me drop negative energy and move into non judgmental. Which feels a lot better and more productive. Best to you for this.

    • State - NM
  3. Alina Alvarado

    Thank you Steve. I have been aware of my wanting to grow my love and compassion for Trump. Noni has brought it forward as well. Remarkable and sad you have to repeat am essay from over 8 years ago. The fear level this time is so much higher have to grow my base big time to get through it.
    Much love
    Alina

    • State - NH
  4. michael mendizza

    Thanks Steve
    Here we are, still here, as Ram Dass often shared.
    Forgiveness, like compassion, isn’t for the other.
    What they have done or are doing may not be nice.
    Mean and nasty doesn’t deserve our forgiveness or compassion.
    Hating another for being something we don’t like is still hate.
    And our hate isn’t nice either. So, we are both guilty.
    Forgiveness is always about us. So is compassion.
    Forgiveness is releasing our hate, or self-righteous judgments, not theirs.
    This is the first step to the compassion you describe.
    “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.”
    Comes only from compassion, having released our unmanaged fear.
    Allowing something that might be called healing to surface in us both.
    Another way of living and behavng that would have prevented our father’s pain or trauma.
    BTW; I don’t know anyone who ‘likes’ DT, or his character.
    His alledged approviall is a protest aganist the others,
    and their longstanding crimes aganist humanity.

    • State - CA
  5. Well…. Yes. But as a therapist working in community mental health I see so many folks who have been greatly harmed by Trump and his policies….
    While I can see that he is not well, I also am aware of the negative impact for those who are struggling. It’s pretty heartbreaking.

    • State - CA

Leave a Comment

  • Name field: enter your name or initials followed by your state.
  • Your email address will not be published, and your comment may be edited for clarity and space.
  • Required fields are marked *