Midlife Meditation

Not just another old white guy. This happened in my parents' dining room early in 2008. It was around the time Barack Obama's campaign began to pick up the momentum that would ultimately put him in the White House. There were still several other contenders for the Democratic nomination, not least among them Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. My mother had just expressed her preference for Hillary, saying it was high time we had a woman in the Oval Office. She was also concerned about Obama's lack of experience. "He's my age," I said (actually, I'm about a month older than he is). "Do you feel ready to be President?" she fired back. My answer, of course, was "No." At 47, my lifelong leadership experience consisted of serving as pastor of several Methodist churches, the largest with a membership of 200; directing church choirs; and teaching public school music. Obama, on the other hand, had spent many years as a community organ...

Unfortunately, it's actually "Yep." I thought I'd said all I needed to about how we're stuck with Donald Trump in the same way a public school teacher has no choice but to teach every student who comes through the classroom door: they're all my students, for as long as I'm at this school and they're attending it. I really thought that was a frame of reference I could apply to the unpleasantness of having this awful man become the leader of my country. Then I read that  Dylann Roof's mother had a heart attack at his trial. The name "Dylann Roof" may not immediately ring a bell, so here's a quick review: on June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof walked into the Emanuel AME Church of Charleston, South Carolina, to attend a Bible study. At the end of the gathering, as the participants stood to pray, he took out a gun and killed nine of them. He did so for one simple, powerful reason: to incite a race war. All the victims were Black, an...