“Don’t let him get in your head” has been my mantra for Trump 2.0. I have generally followed the suggestions of Cal Newport and others and have stepped away from the exhausting digital chatter. Ryan Holiday, the author of ​Trust Me, I’m Lying​, a book about media manipulation, wrote recently that “we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that endless news consumption is how you stay ‘informed.’” However, Holiday argues . . .

“If you want to make a positive difference in the world—or simply maintain your sanity—you need to step back. You need to learn how to be more philosophical—which means being more discerning about what you let into your mind and learning how to see the big picture, calmly and with perspective.”

Rather than letting Trump and his minions get in our head, I believe progressives need to follow the advice of Jason Linkins in The New Republic and make him own every bad outcome that occurs on his watch. There will, unfortunately, be many.

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Bringing water to our desert

It was a woman, naturally, who showed us how to speak truth to power, bringing—as one commentator has noted—water to our desert.

As an Episcopalian in the Diocese of Washington, Bishop Mariann Budde is my bishop. I haven’t always agreed with her, but I was so very proud of the way she spoke, in her firm, quiet voice, and asked Trump “to have mercy” on those who were scared and powerless. As the New York Times put it:

“For everyone watching, the vastness of Washington National Cathedral compressed, in one stunning moment, into a sudden intimacy. And with it, all the existential fights not simply of politics, but of morality itself. In a flash, the war over spiritual authority in America burst into a rare public showdown.”

The Canterbury Pulpit confronted the bully pulpit on the greatest possible stage.”

Bishop Mariann didn’t go into histrionics or make wild accusations. But she stated the truth of the situation plainly, placed the burden on his shoulders, and clearly—given the middle-of-the-night response on social media—got into his head.

She showed us how to do the hard thing.

One of the best summations of the national prayer service came not from the billionaire media but from a Lutheran pastor who wrote Herod goes to the National Cathedral and is disappointed. It is long but worth the time. He begins by noting that this was “A Service of Prayer for the Nation.”

“Not for ‘the citizens of’ the nation.
Not for ‘the taxpayers of’ the nation.
Not for ‘the leaders of the nation.
This was a service for the nation – the ‘whole’ nation.”

After reviewing all that preceded the sermon, Pastor Peterr then writes,

“What Budde did, in all humility and in all power, was to name Trump for what he is: one of us, with specific powers and abilities to directly shape life for all the people of the country, and indirectly for the world. Note, though, that what she pleaded for from Trump was of a piece with all the music and prayers, calling on every one of us to use our own far smaller powers and abilities to shape life for all the people in our orbit for the better, as small as our powers may be compared with the powers wielded by Trump.”

Have mercy. *

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We can do hard things

Shortly after the election, Carrie Newcomer placed this message on her A Gathering of Spirits Substack: You can do this hard thing.

Newcomer’s music “has always explored the intersection of the spiritual and the daily, the sacred and the ordinary.” She is a prominent voice for progressive spirituality, social justice and interfaith dialogue.

The title for the Substack post came from a song on Newcomer’s 2016 the beautiful not yet album. In the notes, Newcomer provides some background to this work.

“Barbara Kingsolver has written about a phrase she uses to encourage her children, ‘You can do hard things.’ I loved this idea behind this phrase. It absolutely acknowledges the difficulty of the task at hand, and yet, at the same time it completely affirms that the child has everything they need to move forward, and that they have support. I began to think about all the times in my own life that someone has given me that kind of sound advice and encouragement.”

The official version has the lyrics, and a lovely video interpretation.

“Late at night I called, and you answered the phone | The worst it had happened, and I did not want to be alone | You quietly listened, you said, “we’ll see this through” | You can do this hard thing, you can do this hard thing | It’s not easy I know, but I believe that it’s so | You can do this hard thing”

In 2022, Newcomer sang the song live at the annual International Women’s Day Performance, and it includes a wonderful introduction.

The bridge is so moving in the images it conjures. Then it ends with the hopeful: “Impossible just takes more time.”

“Here we stand breathless and pressed in hard times | Hearts hung like laundry on backyard clothes lines | Impossible just takes a little more time.”

Toward the end of Pastor Peterr’s post on the National Prayer Service, he references James Taylor’s Home by Another Way.

“Like the wise men of old, Bishop Budde knows another way, as do all those who planned this most powerful service . . . In JT’s words, in the face of Trump’s blizzard of executive orders which are designed to take and take and take some more from the most vulnerable among us, Budde didn’t give an inch. Instead, she stood in the path of our American Herod along with a host of others, naming that other way home . . . And that’s what each of us can do, wherever we are: name Trump’s way as the path of division, destruction, and death, and point to another way.”

The chorus is powerful.

“Yes they went home by another way | Home by another way | Maybe me and you can be wise guys too | And go home by another way | We can make it another way | Safe home as they used to say | Keep a weather eye to the chart on high | And go home another way”

Don’t let him in your head. We can speak the truth every way we can. We can point to another way.

We can all do this hard thing.

More to come . . .

DJB

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*The nation’s comics have had a field day with Bishop Mariann’s speaking truth to power, and Trump’s response.

And keeping with the “God vs. ‘Divinely Inspired’ Trump” theme, there was more.

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Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash