The spiritual life is, first of all, a life, wrote Thomas Merton. “It is not merely something to be known and studied; it is to be lived.”

From the first, Donald Trump and the people around him – people like Rudy Guiliani –  have challenged my idea of the spiritual self- and taught me who I don’t want to be and what I don’t want to be.

They traffic in hatred and cruelty, they draw hatred and cruelty in return. Our better angels hide in closets and wait until it’s safe to come out.

Many of us are pulled down when we wish to climb up.

So when Rudy Guiliani was rushed to a Washington hospital after being diagnosed with Covid-19, yesterday my first thought was to wish him dead.

My second thought was to realize this was not who I wanted to be, not what I wanted to feel or think.

And there, within that macro-second, was the drama of the spiritual life and it’s a challenge. We know what we are, we want to be better.

People like me have sometimes given up on a spiritual life because I can’t be a saint. But that, I’ve learned, misses the point. You don’t have to be a saint to be spiritual or to do good.  Us non-saintly pilgrims are about the search, not the final destination.

It isn’t about being holy or perfect; it’s about wanting to be a better person than you are and never giving up on that wish.

I launched the Army of Good because it was the complete opposite of what Trumpism is about – anger, grievance, cruelty, and selfishness.

When I heard that Rudy Guiliani, whose sad decline I have witnessed for some years now, has been rushed to Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, I definitely had visions of justice and vengeance.

I thought this is what he deserved; this is God’s payback for the indifference and callousness he has shown to the many people and their families who have suffered so much and died so often from a disease he dismisses and ridicules as a conspiracy theory for weaklings.

How many people, I have wondered, did Trump and Guiliani kill in their wicked alliance?

I’ve sought a spiritual life all of my life. In 2000 I bought a cabin in upstate New York and spent the year studying the writings of Thomas Merton. I work hard at it, and sometimes, I even succeed.

I understand this is the Promised Land; people like me never get there; the meaning comes from trying.

I understood that spiritual life is difficult, a life-long journey, a tough path of twists and turns. All you can do is keep trying and advance in small and often painful steps, forward and back.

I know now I’ll never quite get there; I know I’ll never stop trying.

Guiliani’s illness offered me yet another opportunity to grow spirituality and take the notion of empathy and compassion a step farther.  Compassion is not only for people I like.

Of course, I almost blew it.

This often happens on the spiritual path. You stumble and fall; you have to dust yourself off, get off, and keep walking.

I wouldn’t say I like much of anything about Guiliani, who has run to the dark side in his later years. In many ways, he was a great mayor, in part because of the genuine empathy he felt for those who died in 911. Where I wonder, has that empathy gone?

How can one man live on such opposite poles?

Might it come back? I wondered if he suffers from the virus himself? It didn’t seem to help Donald Trump much.

Like his mentor and leader, Guiliani has ridiculed people who wear masks and avoided wearing one almost all the time.

Last week, he spent several days in the Arizona State House pushing conspiracy theories and lies.

When his illness was announced, the entire State House shut down for a week because he was so close to so many people while completely unprotected.

It might be that he has killed some of them. Here, I pray for him if he feels no remorse.

His rush to the hospital seemed almost biblical to me. How should I feel about it? The first thought was decidedly aspiritual: I thought, I hope he suffers greatly. I apologized in my head to Merton, who would have disapproved, but also understood.

He taught the monastery’s novitiates to curse in their Latin prayers at the prior to get even for some slight or disagreement.

A very spiritual friend wrote to me and said, “I  hope Guiliani dies, slowly, and painfully.” A bell went off in my head.  I didn’t want to feel this way or share this feeling. This isn’t the person I want to be and am working so hard to be.

Where is the justice in becoming something you hate?

But what should I wish for a man who has frightened and harmed and lied to so many people in so many different ways?

A man who seems to have lost any sense of morality or decency. A former U.S. Attorney, Guiliani knows a lie from a truth. What sort of punishment does he deserve for what he has done?

I couldn’t find any guidance in my Merton books; I think Merton might well have fled the monastery altogether if he’d run across a President Trump and seen all those Christian fellating over him.

I called Sue Silverstein, the theology teacher at Bishop Maginn High School and a close friend.

She is a truly spiritual person who does good and is a person of great faith, and she lives very much in the real world. She is the kind of person I’ve started calling “a good Christian,” one who actually follows and lives the teachings of Christ.

“Sue,” I asked, “it is okay for someone to hope that Guiliani suffers pain and even death because of his hypocrisy and dishonesty?”

Sue sighed as she always did in such situations and tried to let me down gently.

“No,” she said, “not really.”

“What should I want for him?” I asked, “in the spiritual sense?”

“What we want for him is peaceful healing of his heart and body,” she said. “That is the spiritual path. To wish that he awakens to any harm he might have done.”

This felt right. I knew this was true and accepted her wisdom.

Once again, my challenge was to close the gap between the person I am and the person I want to be. Sometimes, the heart has to follow the mouth.

I don’t wish pain and death on anyone, not even hypocrites, the lowest form of human life to me. I don’t wish anyone dead.

Sue suggested that I wish for Guiliani’s body to heal so that perhaps he will understand the plight of all those afflicted by a pandemic he dismisses and denies.

I would add that I wish for mercy for the hundreds, if not thousands of people he may have sickened, even killed, in his mad travels across the country.

So I wish for Guiliani to heal, and I wish the virus teaches him humility rather than arrogance. I wish him peaceful healing in his heart and body.

I hope his illness connects him to the many suffering people while powerful people like him show no feeling for other victims at all.

I wish for the day to come when this is my first response, when my idea of spirituality becomes ingrained and a part of me, not something I must be reminded to go.

I wonder if that gap will close, and I will walk closer until the person I wish to come face to face with the person I am.

(Okay, I wouldn’t mind if it hurts him for a day or two.)