Praying For The President

The Bible says “pray without ceasing” and that is what we are called to do. But if prayer is closing your eyes and having long conversations with some divine person out there, I fail the test. However, if prayer is seeking to know what God wills for the world and its people, individually and corporately, in these sunset days I am having an increasingly rich prayer life. Perhaps prayer for others is to hold the divine intention in one hand and in the other hand the world’s people, and then bring those hands together. Several times a day I image some individual, hold them in my heart and lift them to whatever it is what we call God. I also see these weekly columns as prayers for the world. Perhaps prayer is really focusing on our deepest concerns.

While my prayer life probably first centers on my family and those closest to me, the circle grows increasingly wider as I hold many others in my heart. While I doubt if this affects the divine intention, it has a serious effect on me. Maybe it is just the mellowing that comes with age, but these days I feel less judgmental or demanding.

But I have a problem. If the vocation of prayer calls me to pray for my enemies, including those I see as horribly destructive, how do I pray for President Trump? If you have followed these weekly offerings you know that I cannot hope that all goes well with him and his agenda; that includes his wall, his racism and his refusal even to acknowledge the environmental crisis. How do I honestly hold his well-being in my heart? I can only hope he has a radical reversal of his articulated commitments, or that he suffers political defeat. But I cannot even imagine engaging in that sort of prayer.

My mother held that the best way to deal with enemies is not to have them. I was taught to love our enemies, but I was never sure just what that meant. In all my 18 years in that family, I never heard my mother say an unkind word about anyone, nor to my knowledge did she have a single enemy. My father was as pacific. The only harsh thing I ever heard him say was when he called brother Fox “an old goat.” Brother Fox was an elder in our West Philadelphia church who had asked our minister to tell a visiting Afro-American couple to find their own church.

My parents were not only peaceful, they were peace-makers. During the war between China and Japan, our congregation included persons of both nationalities. When both appeared on Sunday mornings my parents would greet them, show then to a pew and sit between them.

Even during the Second World War, my parents never expressed hatred for our nation’s enemies, but did what they could as loyal Americans. My father collected tin foil from his packs of “Kools,” and was the air-raid warden in our neighborhood. Mother, Dad, my little brother, Peter, and I went one evening a month to a nearby golf course to spot and identify any airplane that flew overhead. Peter and I bought 10- cent war stamps. Mother learned Braille to use with blinded veterans. Our saddest day was December 7th 1941, and the happiest was marked by the war’s end. I never knew whether my parents ever prayed, but I believe the way they lived was a prayer, and their attitudes toward our international foes did not allow us even to call them “Japs” or ”Heinies.”

I cannot love President Trump, unless the word “love” is diminished to the point of pious silliness. So I have a problem with no easy answers. How do I pray for President Trump? If I have no clue, perhaps a few of my readers may.