Mandatory Prayer: Why and How to Pray for Donald Trump

WHY:

When people practice black magic– which people do all the time, though 99% of the time they don’t know that’s what they’re doing— you can’t put them in jail to stop it.  People can practice black magic behind bars just as well– and just as effectively– as  they can practice out in the open, or from their cubicle, or from the  Oval Office.

Black magic is thinking — with great emotion– about the devil in other people. And calling forth that devil– or devils– with one’s intentional or,  again, in the majority of cases, unintentional acts.

In the middle of the night last night I woke, again, as many of us are doing these days,  worried about  what was happening in Washington, and  what could happen. I won’t  bore you, or frighten you with the scary details about my last night’s particular worrying, but it did lead to my getting up and sitting in the chair and going into my “private space” that I go to when I need to make the world right again, at least a bit,  at least in my own inner ponds.

When someone is practicing back magic against you the only recourse– at least from a Buddhist Methodist perspective–  is to practice white magic, which means to recognize the powerful harmony of the galaxies, the ineffable beauty of the natural processes, the basic emptiness and wonderful fullness of every moment, and of ourselves in particular. Thus the title: mandatory prayer.

HOW:

Here’s the quick five step process for prayer and or meditation that I often use these days,  and how it relates– or at least, how it related last night– to Donald Trump.

1. STOP.  I needed to stop stupidly chewing on this “Trump problem.”  At least for a moment. Stop thinking about him, stop worrying about him, stop identifying as his opposition. At least for a moment. (This whole prayer process can be accomplished in just 5 easy seconds, if that’s all you got.) So my first step, sitting in my chair, in the middle of the night: just stop the mental fireworks, f0r Christ’s sake. Give myself a break.
2. LET GO.  This is sort of like stopping, but it takes stopping a step further. I break it down into three parts: a. let go of the pr0blem;   b. Let go of the project; 3. Let go of the progress, or lack thereof. Again, just for a moment. I need to let go of the Donald Trump problem let go of the project of resisting his black magic, let go of the progress, or lack thereof in this whole endeavor. M y intent is to let go 0f the problem itself. That’s what praying is all about. 

With such a prayer, I don’t need to worry about abandoning the barricades, not being part of the resistance, etc etc. All of this will surely come back,  much sooner than I want it to. But just for a moment,  for my 0wn peace of mind,  and to combat the black magic currently filling the air, I have to let it all go,  just for  moment.

3. JUST LOVE . Although it sounds corny, this is the basics of prayer, the basics of meditati0n, the basics of a living a good life. Last night, in the middle of the night, I needed, for just one lousy second, to figure out a way to love Donald Trump. I knew that if I couldn’t love him for just one lousy second, I haven’t been working out enough to pump up my own love muscles. Or from my Buddhist side, rather than just love, I can just be, not react, just be with him here in the same galaxy,  without this constant visceral negative response. I can learn to love his lust for life, his lust for power, his lust for notoriety. It’s so damned human of him. I can love him for all his weaknesses, because he shows what so many of we humans have faith in these days, though thankfully not to his extreme.  So I work to love him,  if only for a brief second.

And then I can also love my own negative reactions to him. It shows I have some personal standards and expectations that he doesn’t share.  I hold some personal world views that he doesn’t share. I can, for just a second, love my own negative, visceral reactions.  I can just be with them. I can be a Buddhist Christian,  for just a moment.

(It’s hard to successfully practice  black magic against we Buddhist Christians if we are truly “prayed, up,”  if we have our  humor buttons, our “wider view” buttons,  ready to be pushed, when we are not fighting, but going with the fl0w of the tides, the seasons, the galaxies. )

4. And finally, I zoom out. Like at the football game, when they say, “let’s get a view from the blimp,” I (quietly, there in the middle of the night) bi-locate. I look at the situation from the blimp, seeing myself there in my chair in my house wrapped in a shawl. And then from the blimp, I just keep going on out. I see this little blue planet orbiting around that tiny speck of yellow light at the edge of the galaxy. And from that vantage point,  which I hold as long as I can (which,  I confess, is not very long) I take a deep breath. And then another one.  What a miracle it is to be here alive, aware, part of the circus, part of the mystery, part of the larger whole, which is life itself. It’s so easy to forget such a miracle, such a perspective.

So that’s  why, especially in these times,  often in the middle of the night, we a;; need, on occasion, to take time to remember the basic truths about  life, and then, on occasion,  in the morning, share such remembrances with our friends.

So this is why and how I think it’s mandatory that we pray for Donald Trump. And this is how I do it, at least sometimes, some nights.  I’d be interested to know how any  of the rest of my friends do it.

Let’s keep the faith, the prayerful resistance…