A friend asked me yesterday why I seemed so tired, and I answered that Donald Trump has been a great gift to me, and I have never worked harder or more intensely than since he was elected. He has changed my life and work in meaningful and significant ways.
She seemed startled, and said “well, you are brave to say that, I’m not brave enough to say that.”
I think we both startled each other, because I am not brave and did not mean to suggest in any way that I am brave.
In explaining my statement to her, I came to see just how the election has, in fact, altered my life, and done so much good for people who I know and care for, and taught me a number of important things about me and my values.
I am not writing this to praise or criticize our President, or to argue about him. If you want to do that, get on over to Fox News or CNN or a million other places online. You won’t get to do it here. I am writing this to explain an intensely personal change the election brought to my life.
Mr. Trump’s election and the increasingly bitter aftermath has shown me the pointlessness of hatred and rage, and the value of not arguing my life, but living it instead. Rather than argue, I had a revelation: I simply decided to do good, and a devoted Army of Good, centered around my blog, joined up with me.
It was one of the most important decisions in my life, I think, and it has made me and my life better. It has helped me shed much of the anger and confusion – and fear – I struggled with for so long.
I have been muddled for much of my life about who I am and what I wish to do. That is being clarified for me, in ways I never imagined or expected.
Because of the election, we have done a stunning amount of good right here.
It is, of course, work I perhaps should always have been doing, and on some level, always wanted to do, but I was too broken. There is no point in looking backwards, we do the best we can for as long as we can when we can.
I have made new and wonderful friends since November. My blog has grown and strengthened, thousands of new people have come to follow it I believe my writing is clearer and more passionate, even, hopefully, more helpful. The blog has definition. People write me every day to say they approve of this direction: not to argue about what it good, but to do good in every possible way, again and again.
And to share my life on the farm with Maria and the animals here openly and authentically.
They say it is has helped them to find their own ground. I hope that is true.
“Your days seem vibrant and full of growth and love in many different forms,” wrote Marcia the other day.
“I remember the life you wrote about in your early years in the country and was almost startled by the contrast.” Me, too, Marcia and thanks. The recent trouble in our country have help bring out that love and growth, along with my wife and partner. We decided to commit random acts of kindness, we do many of them together, another facet of our love. Another gift.
I learned last November to turn away from argument and hatred, I hope for good. They are pointless responses, they cause nothing but harm and accomplish nothing.
Our lives are not about what we say they are, they are about what we do.
I will stand or fall on what I do, that is a profound thing for me to learn. And a deeply spiritual gift. In the wake of the election, I have found a kind of peace and joy in my life – and purpose, perhaps – that I have been seeking for many years. We are all on a path, and most of the time, we have no idea where it will lead.
it is not necessary for me to hate Donald Trump or criticize or ridicule him.
I understand that many good people admire him greatly and are rooting for him, and many good people hate and fear him. I am not drawn to those choices, the turmoil in the country asks each of us who we are and who we wish to be and how we wish to live, and we can all act according to our own will and conscience.
The election challenged me to look inward at my values, at my feelings for my country, at my heritage as the descendant of brave and hard-working refugees and immigrants. It inspired me to focus my therapy work with Red on a single place, the Mansion Assisted Care Facility in Cambridge, N.Y. and to come to know the staff and residents there that I have come to know and love.
Doing good seemed to me to be the best response to anger and hatred. It feels so much better.
This evolution has led me to RISSE, an immigrant and refugee support center in Albany New York, to my new and very dear friend Ali, Amjad Abdullah Mohammed, and the members of the RISSE soccer team. Children from Africa and Syria and Thailand who now throw their arms around me when they see me and call my name and fill my heart with good.
How much is that worth in a life?
More than 100 children instantly benefited from this direction in my life, a Vermont artist named Rachel Barlow raised funds here to give them each an art and creativity kit that they use almost every day of their lives to make their own art and explore their creativity and find their voices.
A busload of refugee children are going to the Great Escape Adventure Park in Lake George in July, thanks to a generous reader of the blog. A gifted young refugee artist is taking classes from an accomplished artist. Another has a pair of new sneakers. The soccer team gets birthday parties and Saturday excursions to the beach in the summer.
Immigrant families received thousands of dollars worth of badly needed supplies for their new apartments and homes – prayer rugs, pots and pans, blankets, shower curtains, strollers, toys, sheets, silver, notebooks and school supplies. They saw firsthand that we are a generous and welcoming people.
Yesterday, an angel from the Northeast told me she is sending a check for $1,000 to give the soccer team a weekend retreat at Pompanuck Farms.
The Mansion got a new van because of Mr. Trump and the lives of many of the residents have been transformed.
They have received thousands of letters and photographs, Easter bags and chocolate, flowers and puzzles, yarn and a boom box, a new computer and several air conditioners for the summer heat. We have put paintings on bare walls, funded a dozen parties, sponsored an art contest and story-telling competition, paid for a stray cat the residents have come to love to be spayed. They have stacks of DVD’s, books, art supplies to work with.
We have taken several undocumented immigrants to lawyers and give them some reason for hope, and some valuable advise.
Lives have been brightened, altered, changed, all for the better, all for good. And without an argument or complaint.
I understand now that my friend thought me brave for daring to say that something about President Trump brought good things to me, and was a gift. I know many people are living in fear and distress, and it is not a gift for them.
But there is a difference between bravery and honesty. Bravery is running through machine gun fire to save a comrade. Honesty is just telling the truth about yourself. And I can only speak for me. I do not ever tell anyone else how to feel.
Life is a series of choices, we never get to stop making them, from our earliest days to our last. In our time, we all have a choice, whether to be angry and outraged or whether to do good and work on behalf of our own values. This does not require argument or the approval of others.
Just think if all of our reactions were to define good and do as much of it as we can, rather than spew venom and bile on Facebook and Twitter.
The election of Donald Trump has crystallized this for me, just as he has crystallized the choices of the many millions of people who supported him. This is what it means to be an individual, to live in a democracy, to be free. That is what I meant by a gift.
