On the Question of How Christians Could Possibly Vote for Donald Trump

There was a serious question posed by a gentle and sincere man who I'm connected with on Facebook. He feels called to follow the teachings of Jesus, would identify as a Christian, and publicly asked how a Christian could support a man like Donald Trump to lead the country. He asked politely and perplexed. He really wanted to know how those two things can coexist in a person.

In our community, not just our geographical community but our cultural one, we are connected and have grown up with a large number of folks who generally recoil at the thought of believing in Jesus as a manifestation of God on Earth. This is Northern California, a place that was conquered violently by hordes of gold-seeking pirates and has attracted pirates ever since. I love being from here. It's a place of plentiful freedom: Pot farmers, self-proclaimed shamans, spiritualists, metal bands, artists, entrepreneurs, google, buddhists, liberals, anarchists, lifted trucks, lots of bicycles, burning man burners, poets, rednecks, secessionists, and a few traditional monotheists too (those who believe in one God who exists outside of creation).

There is the notion in our neck of the woods, among our community, that Christians are always right wing evangelists. This is totally understandable, especially if you didn't grow up in a Christian family, and just had the media to go with. On TV, historically the most vocal Jesus people are generally waging some kind of culture war against abortion, or homosexuality, or voting for war mongering nationalists. If you've never seen your elders struggling to be a disciple of Jesus in their own quiet way, you'd only have this loud, media savvy, American Christianity to fill in your ideas of what a Christian is like. I sometimes feel slighted by this enormous misunderstanding from my non-Christian friends, as I am a baptized Christian who is generally leftist, thirsty-for-revolution-leftist even, and generally spend time with leftist types of people. But then I think about what my Muslim brothers and sisters are going through right now, the actual threats to their freedom and safety, and I'm cool with my atheistic friends assuming that I must not be as intellectual as they thought. Nobody will ever restrict my movement in this country for being a registered Episcopalian.      

So on to the Jesus in politics question. I think when my friend on Facebook posted the question about Jesus and Donald Trump, there were probably those who read that and thought, "Well of course! Christians vote for republicans and are dumb," or some variation on that. Which, again, is understandable. But here's why our friend asked his question, here are some of the things Jesus said in the four Gospels. These teachings rarely, if ever, get talked about on TV or other corporate media who love making Christians look insane by focusing on the really mean ones:
 
Jesus said these things which makes right-wing Christians very confusing for some of us:

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.

Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.

What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?

Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. 

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 


I reread this stuff for the umpteenth time and feel so much better about my socialist parts. 

And this could just go on and on. There's so much more, right there in the Bible that some will use to persecute and divide. But most of the divisiveness in Right Wing Christian circles is informed by Mosaic Law, from the first 5 books of the Bible. There are a lot of rules in those ancient Jewish books: don't lay with another man, don't have sex with your sister, quarantine the menstruating women, don't eat oysters or pigs, stone adulterers to death, tons of rules from a time that the Israelites were in the wilderness, struggling to maintain order, and trying to maintain their identity as a tribe after being freed from slavery in Egypt. Rigidity ensured their survival as torch bearers of a certain revelation that God was one. But Jesus came and said he was the fulfillment of the law, and he left us with "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourselves." He turned a bunch of the old stuff on its head, that's one of the reasons the religious elite went along with his death. So there's no reason for a Christian to dig through these Old Testament Moses laws and grant them with rule-of-life status. So I can't speak for the Christians who feel really conservative and want to get rich and not systemically help the poor, I don't know why they think that way. I don't know how a studied Christian could justify voting for Donald Trump either, based on the above quotes from Jesus.

But after some time with this question: Who would Jesus want me to vote for? I think I have an answer that might bum you out.

Jesus wouldn't care.

So let me explain that. Jesus taught us to give away our coat, turn peacefully when we are stolen from or struck, that the children of God are peacemakers. Politics by their nature are divisive and stressful human endeavors. I know I can easily slip into allowing political thinking to turn into some kind of idol, like politics has the power to save the world from ourselves. I want to believe that we can save ourselves but I don't believe we can. So I think this is my answer to my polite facebook friend's question, in long form, if you care to read it. 

Human nature got us here. We are born this way. When we collect into civilizations, our arrogance becomes magnified to the point of destroying the environment and ourselves, and we will sacrifice anything to attempt to be greater than our condition. We, and by extension our societies, are consumed by idols and the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. We, as Christians, believe that this is our condition and that's why we believe we need a special bridge of connection to a higher power to be better than our natures. We can't do that ourselves. So we invoke Christ and become marked in baptism and our lives are supernaturally placed in brackets so that when we stumble around we are stripped and humbled and placed back into where we are supposed to be, so that ultimately, through love and a divine suffering and mercy we become exactly who we are meant to be. And over time the corruption and stains we were born with become dimmer and dimmer and if all goes well we fall in deeper love with all people and the world. And we become able to forgive anything and giveaway everything and we become gentle and don't want to eat the world as much. And then giving our coat away seems like an obvious thing to do, just like giving to everyone who begs from us. And then we age and die fearlessly.

That's how I see Christian discipleship. It is so much larger and simpler than politics. And although I would love to see Bernie Sanders as President, because I believe it would inch things towards justice and would help desperate people live with a little more dignity and less sickness, I have no delusions that any president will stop the destruction of the Earth, or heal our hearts so we stop hurting each other. The guns won't go anywhere and the world will continue to be dangerous and the extinction will continue. So since all of this was foretold by our holy book and our saints, I would say that Jesus doesn't care about our politics all that much. And maybe a Christian shouldn't either. Maybe we should keep our eyes on the prize, which is loving everybody we come in contact with, and extinguishing our judgement and condemnation as much as we can. Jesus's example is one of passive, yet firm, loving anarchism, with a little bit of exile. Isn't it?

The first Christians were tortured and martyred for their refusal to declare, "Caesar is Lord." Maybe our modern day Caesar is this whole political process we grind through and damage relationships with. Politics is an easy idol for me. I've always cared too much about who's going to get elected. Maybe I can just place my vote, realize that redemption still isn't coming through politics or technology or anything we create, and love the Donald Trump voter for being where they are, because their fallenness might be a different color than my fallenness, but we're definitely both fallen.

So let's just cast our ballot and pray more, and give away some food and coats.   

Coffee and Mellow

Today I hiked six miles in the rain with Sadie Rose, her son Asher and my dog. We went all over Table Mountain, to places I had never been before, and we got dumped on nearly the entire time. It was a beautiful hike with wild flowers and so much water everywhere. Little channels of water rushed all around us and cut deep grooves in the mud. The greens were all magnified, it was a beautiful day. At home, I'm working on moving out, extracting myself from the mountain of stuff I don't want anymore, all these relics from a life that is long-closed and collecting dust now are making my allergies worse. 

Coffee is an amazing elixir given to us by God to fuel connectivity, art, and revolutions. I have had years of adventure in coffee and I think coffee will be some part of my life and profession for maybe ever. I don't know, these things are hard to predict. I worked in coffee because I love coffee, and maybe even more than that, I love what coffee does to people: it opens our minds, literally in the circulatory systems sense, and figuratively in the rituals of togetherness it has always fueled. 

I don't sell coffee and make money on it directly like I used to, and so we've started over in a way, me and coffee. Our relationship is back to basics. And now I'm older and wiser and more sensitive to both of our needs. This happens I think for any tradesperson who's given a lot to a trade. These periods of reset and reevaluation, to test your love of a thing. Well I still love coffee, with or without a coffee paycheck.  

I have an admission that will turn the nose of any coffee geek roaster who insists on inserting 4 temperature probes in the twenty five thousand dollar roaster so they can track every nuance of the roast's movement. I have tracked roasts in an expensive roaster, and it is key to achieving the best results consistently. But I'm a cook, have been a cook since I was a teenager, and sometimes, most of the time, I just want to cook. To be a cook, you connect with the behavior of what you're cooking in a process that is based on the five senses, and a number of extra sensory perceptions. There's that space of just doing, letting go of control and letting the thing you're cooking tell you how to do it,  rather than a recipe or a graph. So here's my admission: I've been drinking coffee that I've been roasting on an old cast iron pan. 

That's it. I use a cast iron pan, a lid and a wisk. Like roasting almonds or sesame seeds, I keep it moving until the coffee is how I want it. I just roasted some Brazilian and Papau New Guinea coffees until about 20 seconds into second crack and then blended them into my last little TupperWear container. The coffee is just what I wanted, an educated yet mindless exercise of culinary art, like kneading bread until the gluten is just right, or cooking pinto beans until the skins still hold the bean together but the beans aren't mealy. Just now I wanted coffee that was a little darker with that thick buttery feel on the tongue, and the carmamel sweetness of a rainy day hike. 

Coffee is so full of magical properties that it's easy to forget that, despite all its flavor complexities and nuance, it is still a seed, a culinary commodity like rice or wheat. And it is truly wonderful in the mouth, and I think even more wonderful in our minds, but it's just another thing to attempt to cook deliciously, if you care about doing simple things well and making your life better and more deliberate. 

So get some green coffee and roast it in a pan how you want it. Play with it. Cook it. Keep it moving until it looks like how you like it and cool it off as quick as you can. Then take your overripe bananas and make some muffins with some walnuts in there, and enjoy your Sunday. 

The Handshake

In the cold morning wind

with the little rain drops slicing

like mist on the freeway

I brought the mug to my lips

the heavy green mug

a souvenir from a dream

I tried to build

and might try again later

I don't know yet

but it's heavy and glazed

and I'm proud of it because I tried hard

and a pilot can't blame himself

for getting hijacked by terrorists. 

But I needed the coffee to pick up

from where we left off the night before.

We were talking about the arrangement

but passed out early watching a movie with my boys

and the coffee was so damn good this morning

roasted on my iron skillet with my son. 

I just dropped it

not the coffee but how much money I wanted to make to write the book

It was agreed to with some timing modification

no back and forth

some monthly, some lump sum

percentage of sales agreements 

Just all fair and agreed to.

It was so easy

we are men used to talking about money at this point

we've been around it enough to know 

about its utter absurdity

little artistic engravings printed on paper

trying to look all powerful like it has a soul

we talk about fiat currency, how the dollar is doomed

and then turn on a shiny feather-light dime

to talk about sales strategy

without it seeming contradictory. 

Doing business leaves a man

unable to shuffle back in to the herd.

You'd rather lick rocks for salt

or entertain yourself with the trees

or eat miner's lettuce for lunch.

We shook hands firmly

typed up an email to have it in writing 

talked next steps

and he left.

I was what I always believed I could be

just like that. 

After years of reading and striving

and rebellion and poverty 

laziness and working way too hard

and dreaming and poetry

love and death and rebirth

and the proper seasoning that comes 

from age and taking risks to live a life you won't forget 

and losing everything

losing everything is like polishing a stone into a mirror

until the skin on your hands rubs off

and blood smears all over the mirror stone. 

I know why there are terrorists. 

I know why there aren't more writers. 

Reading at 1078 Gallery

I'm reading survival themed poems at 1078 tomorrow at 7 pm with other poets, all part of an exhibit curated by Amanda Riner. The topic was inspiring so I ended up writing enough for a chapbook, which I'll have 20 copies of available at the event. I just finished printing the covers with a woodblock I carved today. 

Here's the Facebook event page. I hope to see you.  

https://www.facebook.com/events/499586523547846/