I had to leave the living room just now as news clips from the weekend of Trump droning-on in his voice dripping with fake sincerity and fake solemnity. I was sickened with the tape of the spectacle. I increasingly think the term “anti-Christ” applies to him though not in the traditional meaning of the term…maybe.

I no longer use the term “Christian” to describe my faith, though I do value the affirmation of one of my Arkansas friends, “I believe in the teachings of Jesus.” It is pretty easy and convenient to call one’s self “Christian” but it is challenging to let His wisdom cut into one’s heart, especially one’s “Christian heart,” and let it furrow into the depths of that “heart of darkness” that we all have. The Apostle Paul recognized this, avowing, “I will to do good, but evil is present with me.”

As Trump began his “slouching toward Bethlehem” about the same time I moved to Taos, New Mexico I became part of a coterie of friends who had found the maturity to let this darkness that all humans have get attention. We commonly refer to this as “the shadow” which is how Carl Jung put it. With these friends I have found the courage to see that “beast” within and not run from him/it any longer, realizing that as we subject him/it to the light of the day his/its power begins to diminish.

Shakespeare recognized this, telling us about a friend’s hypocrisy, “Thou has described a friend hot cooling. Ever note, Lucillus, when love begins to sicken and decay it useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; But hollow men, like horses hot at hand make gallant show and promise of their mettle.” That “plain and simple faith” is sorely needed at this moment in my life and certainly in my country. It is the only antidote to the to that “beast” within which is always “stalking” as the poet W. B. Yeats told us. “Enforced ceremony” aka “canned ” religion and life will never suffice.