David CookView other columns by David Cook
In the weeks since Election Day, I have read, listened to and considered more conservative opinion and thought than in the entire eight years prior. I've held my tongue with conservatives when I normally would have pounced. I've even looked up the local GOP's schedule for lunch meetings.
Why?
Survival tactics, a bit. In a suddenly unfamiliar world - "I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear " - understanding the unfamiliarity is an attempt at control, at lessening the fear. At every step during his campaign, I rejected Trump, never taking him seriously. Now he's president. I need to understand why.
It's also my own humble pie. Believing so long that Trump only represented a racist, callous and indecent vote, I was sure America would never elect him. (On election night, I sat in the stands of a middle-school basketball game, nodding confidently with another dad. We both agreed: Hillary in a landslide. We'll all be asleep by 10.) This inauguration was best served cold.
Yet to be fully honest, something else is happening.
Part of me remains nauseatedly furious that Trump is president. This man, of all men. His behaviour, out of all behaviors.
But staying angry will not rid me of my anger.
Another part of me grieves, so sad at what has become acceptable and normal in America. The words said and unsaid. The crudeness. All the precious things, now vulnerable.
But staying sad will not rid me of my sadness.
What will?
I won't find peace by raging against Trump for the next four years. Nor by holing up with only fellow progressives and liberals.
"There is no way to peace," the American activist A.J. Muste once wrote. "Peace is the way."
The only way forward is inward. For me, working to fix America means working to fix the many assumptions, biases and prejudices I carry. If I criticize conservatism for not accepting different types of people, then how much better am I when I don't accept conservatives? If I shout you down for mocking the name "Hussein," then what good am I for mocking "Beauregard"? It is high time I took the beam out of my own eye.
Reconciliation is now more important than legislation. No lasting solutions will be found without America first relearning how to communicate nonviolently and respectfully. Trump promises to build tunnels and bridges and airports, but the infrastructure in most need of repair lies among, between and within us.
Friday, I pledged to operate under a new set of assumptions and rules.
I will no longer view conservative ideology as my enemy, as if every idea from the right was wrong. I will search, honestly and sincerely, for the things it can teach me, and what I can learn from my Republican brothers and sisters.
It is time for a broader mind. Like Bilbo Baggins, I have huddled up inside my corner of the world for too long. It is time for some new intellectual journey, time to listen and consider new points of view.
No, there is no dormant Republican in me waiting to emerge. Instead, what I hope emerges is integrity, consistency and the courage to seek out the truth wherever it rests. With us. With you.
What does the Golden Rule look like in the age of Trump? I think of Will Campbell, the Southern preacher, who was able to fight against racism alongside black folks while also ministering to Klansmen. How does a heart expand so large? How does one stop distinguishing between enemy and friend?
"We're all bastards," Campbell told Rolling Stone. "But God loves us anyway."
I think of our own Kittisaro, and all that Buddhism can teach us about equanimity in response to stress.
"Feeling all the feelings," he emailed recently, "listening in to all the swirling thoughts, aligning again and again with the ground of awareness, deepening my trust that wise and appropriate action is more likely to emerge from the ground of listening in to the truth of this moment."
I fear these words of mine sound like clammy assimilation or capitulation. Or even betrayal to the people and ideals I have tried to cherish.
Really, I hope they sound like peace in what feels like a time of war.
David Cook writes a Sunday column and can be reached at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.