Hold Up the Mirror

There’s an old fairy tale—don’t ask me which one— in which the hideous monsters are defeated by the hero holding up a mirror. When they see their own grotesque faces, they die from the shock. Now that’s an aikido move worth learning. But it is perhaps naïve to think that monsters that cultivate their own ludicrous features and feed all the devils inside of them would be aghast at finally seeing their face. But maybe.

There are monstrous people amongst us filled with ugly ideas and bad intentions. It has taken me a long time to accept and try to understand that. But what I can’t accept is that such people be given a public platform to spit out their venom and that so many people revel in the show, give encouragement and support and energy and money. I’d like to think that the entertainment value will wear down and the constant vomiting of outrage will finally fly back in the perpetrator’s face and people will awaken from their drunken slumber. But I have been warned before to never underestimate the stupidity of people and it has proven so sadly true.

You may have guess that I am talking about Trump.

I opened a page at random in Martin Prechtel’s book The Smell of Rain on Dust and came upon this lovely paragraph:

Beauty is anything seen, felt, or realized that charms or delights the better part of us into wanting to live on, in order to see, feel and understand more without the scared part of us being in charge of what it wants the world to be. …we must now get to the real work of life …with our creations of beautiful music, singing, eloquence, plant growing, beautiful food, acrobatics, dancing, woodwork, communal give giving, weaving, knitting, spinning and so on in every kind of well-done creations to gift to the world.

Amidst all the posturing and outrageous statements and hate-mongering is this scared little boy incapable of contacting the beautiful part of himself. He is worthy of compassion— except for the possibility that he could be the leader of the United States. (Frankly, I think he will implode. I mean the guy is pissing off Fox News!!!). But that’s a thorny road, when compassion and understanding can become dangerous if we are too naïve.

I’m imagining that all the rope the media attention is giving him will spur him too yet more outrageousness until he starts to get tangled up. But meanwhile, let’s hold up some mirrors here. If he won’t recoil from his own hideous features, maybe some of his supporters might. Let us reveal, notice, create beauty, feed the fun and not the fear, teach children to love themselves and love each other and love the world. That will be the mirror we will hold up, the card we lay down that will trump Trump. May it be so!