I am appalled and galled at Trump’s antics. Lately, I am sad that 800,000 government workers are facing life issues because Trump won’t pay them. I am worried that the US government is closed for business. And there’s so much to do. And, finally, I am troubled at how many people still support Trump, and that those people are fellow Americans, citizens of my own country. (However, I am somewhat relieved that lately only 34% of Americans support him, meaning that 66% don’t.)
So shall I pass my time galled, appalled, worried, and troubled? If I do, Trump is getting me. He’s pushing my buttons from his luxury resort in Florida or in the White House–way, way far away from where I live. So I have a dilemma. Shall I go about my business and not care about my home country’s problems? That kind of callous disregard strikes me as un-Christian, and unbecoming. I care for my fellows. Yet, I’m not strong enough to stretch my concern to the whole world. I have sufficient concerns in my personal life, and in the world I touch.
I’m re-thinking Voltaire’s concluding line from Candide. “Il faut cultiver notre jardin”–“We must cultivate our garden.” In Voltaire’s novel, after innumerable calamities which were explained away with a metaphysics that said we live in the best of all possible worlds and all things work out to the best that they can, the small group we follow through the story finally ends up tending a garden they collectively own. When the metaphysician tries to explain why ending up tending a garden is the best possible outcome in the best of all possible worlds, then we get that line, “We must cultivate our garden.” What that means, I think, is that we have enough to handle with the immediate problems we tend to in our lives. Whether we live in the best of times or the worst of times, all that really matters is what we can manage in the life we live in and the lives we touch. I did act with passion in my 2018 vote, in absentia, reading the instructions, printing up the ballot from the emailed copy sent me, mailing it snail mail to the district in which I vote. And that is all I can see that I can actually do about the troubling matters in my home country.
There’s another quote relevant to this issue. “Turn it over.” While I have limited power to care about the whole, wide world, there is One who does have the power to care about it. I do wonder, at times, what that One is up to in this world. But that One does know what He/She/It is up to. Where does that leave me?
What I am finding is that I need to come to terms with my own passions. I didn’t like George W. Bush. I couldn’t watch him on TV. I didn’t, however, feel outraged and appalled as I do now. So am I going to ruin my present getting mad at politicians I don’t agree with? The real issue is how I come to terms with those things I disagree with. I have come to a decision. I will no longer watch MSNBC and wallow in gall, and drive around town perseverating about all the bad things Trump is doing to the US. My heart and soul matters more than that.
My own heart and soul is the garden I must cultivate. How I spend my now, my eternity, matters to me. I have cultivated peace in relation to my personal enemies. I now need to do that in regard to my disagreement with Trump’s antics. There were people appalled with Obama, too. I can remain in the ready in relation to my vote; I can stay informed about the political development in my home country; I can act in my immediate environment for the good of the world I touch; and I can remain personally at peace. There are heights I can ascend to in my soul–joy, peace and love. There are broken individuals I can buy a sandwich for at the convenience store near where I live. And these things matter more to me than going about my business appalled at Trump. “Il faut cultiver notre jardin.”
David Fekete 