I recently spoke with a friend of mine about our college days. I told him I e-mailed someone we were friendly with as undergraduates. I felt like I’d been a bad friend for not staying in touch, but chose to reach out anyway. Even after 15 years, our friend was delighted to hear from me, and told me to call her anytime. My friend Keith, now an Episcopal monk, said our relationship with old friends is like our relationship with God: many of us come to believe God doesn’t want to hear from us, that we’re, say, “bad Jews”. We often wait until we’re in a desperate situation to reach out. But the Psalmist counsels us: "Seek out the Source and you will find It / Call to the Divine Presence, and It will be close." When we decide to return, God, like an old friend, eagerly waits at the door to welcome us back home.
Read MoreIn the headlines, we see someone coming closer to an elected seat of power than he should. Trump doesn’t exist alone, but within systems and values that have lifted him frighteningly close to the highest office in our nation. Trump’s campaign is, sometimes more explicitly than other times, fueled by misogyny, anthropocentrism, capitalism and white supremacy. These systems place folks like him very close to society’s centers of power. This is, in part, because we live in a society that values self-reliance, and competition and touts bootstrap stories as heroic.
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