Midlife Meditation

April, 1999: fulfilling a parenting bucket list item, I take my almost-10-year-old daughter to meet our Congressman, David Wu, at his tiny office across the street from the Capitol. I know the exact moment I became interested in politics. It was January, 1968. I was in the first grade. As the New Hampshire primary drew near, presidential candidates were roaming up and down the state, holding rallies in any building that would host them. One of those buildings was the Pleasant Street United Methodist Church in the border town of Salem, of which my father, in his first full-time Methodist appointment, was the pastor. The candidate was Richard Nixon. I got the morning off from school so I could attend the rally, which featured young women dancing in straw hats. After the rally, Pat Nixon called my brother Jon a "beautiful baby." Thanks to that event, I was in Nixon's pocket for the next six years. Watergate did not move my devotion to him: instead, I felt sorry for ...

The subjects of Trump's latest assault on American values. There are so many ways to say "no" to this president. No, the four congresswomen you attacked are not going to be flown "home" by Nancy Pelosi to get them out of her hair. No, they're not foreigners, aliens, or even immigrants (even though one of them once was), they're citizens. No, the color of their skin does not make them any less American than invasive pink-skinned you. No, the act of criticizing this country is not unpatriotic (in fact, you did plenty of it during your own campaign). No, no, no, no, no. Since Donald Trump began his campaign with an attack on Mexican-Americans, "no" has been the prevailing message of every thoughtful pundit, regardless of political persuasion. No to the misogyny, the lying, the sabre-rattling, the racism, the rabble-rousing, the bluster, the threats, the incompetence, the corruption, the grifting and graft, the assaults on anything and eve...