Conservative in Seattle

I have been a member of a spiritual community in Seattle for over twenty years. This community is based on a traditional western religion, but its focus has always been on the interconnectedness of all beings. We frequently discuss the belief that each of us is affected by what happens to any of us, and that every one of us is an aspect of the divine.

How surprising, then, to hear our leader, our spiritual teacher, begin to attack, criticize and ridicule Donald Trump even before his election in 2016. This pattern of relentless attack and ridicule continued for four years.

Now let’s be clear about one thing: I do not hold Donald Trump as the icon of conservatism. He is a man – flawed like any of us, and he certainly has had tendencies as President to bypass established restraints on the exercise of government power to “get things done.” He is not alone among Presidents in relying too heavily on the Executive Order or otherwise attempting to bypass a recalcitrant Congress.

That being said, the near hysterical attacks on Trump in my spiritual home felt incongruous – inconsistent with our core belief that “we are all one.” Questioning policies that might be considered harmful or dangerous is always appropriate in a free society – even in the context of a spiritual community. But attacking and ridiculing a person, and by inference his supporters, seemed antithetical to the unity that we were preaching.

As the attacks continued, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable in this “progressive,” “inclusive,” and “welcoming” community. The core message of spirituality resonated so deeply within me, but I was forced to compartmentalize – to ignore the aspects of the sermons and discussions that felt inconsistent with the message. Ultimately, the spiritual beliefs themselves began to feel less authentic. How could we say “we are all one” in one breath while cruelly demonizing another human being, along with all of his supporters, in the next breath.

I suspect that eventually this incongruity would have led me to seek a spiritual community elsewhere, but this congregation had been a part of my life and my family’s for many years. I considered it a part of my identity and, as conflicted as I felt, I loved the leader and so many members of the community. I was willing to tolerate a high degree of cognitive dissonance to make it continue to work for me and my family.

Then election night came, and a prominent member of the congregation posted publicly as a comment on someone else’s social media thread the following:

“With major results still “too early to call,” I sit in disbelief at all the red states and say quietly but intensely to the TV, “may all who voted against decency and guaranteed health care die a miserable death, alone and with no one to say [a prayer] for them.” No, we don’t all live in the same America, and I don’t WANT to belong to the America I’ve been seeing on the projection maps this evening. Gonna top up my glass of wine (sadly, not champagne) and go early to bed.”

This sentiment was echoed by another prominent member of the congregation who commented “I feel you.”

I kept waiting for someone in the community to call out this individual – to remind her that praying for the lonely and miserable death of over seventy million people is itself evil, and must be condemned. Eventually I shared my concerns with the leader of our community who made excuses and justifications for these words, claiming they weren’t to be taken literally, but just as an expression of the author’s frustration. And besides, he pointed out, as spiritual people it is our duty to identify evil and root it out from positions of power.

So what options were left to me? A leader in my spiritual community publicly and fervently prayed for the death of half the country because of their political beliefs and our primary leader and teacher justified and validated those sentiments.

I began to wonder, how many other people in this community pray for my death and the deaths of millions of others who hold different political beliefs? Of course they don’t actually pray for me to die – just all of those nameless, faceless “others.” Just those dirty “Trumpkins.”

For the first time after more than twenty years, I no longer felt safe in this community. Rather than quietly disappearing after so many years, I sent an open letter to the community outing myself as a Trump voter and explaining why I felt I had to leave. I was pleased to see that while there were one or two hostile responses – “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” – most responses were genuinely sad.

It is my hope that this episode may spark a conversation within this group, and perhaps among the progressive community at large, about what kind of people they want to be, and what kind of community they want to be a part of. Sadly, I later heard from another congregation member that discussion about this incident was discouraged, and they were instead instructed to “focus on more powerful energies” and not to discuss “politics.”

Of course, this was never about politics at all. It is about how we treat people who believe differently than we do.

Now I find myself searching for a new spiritual home. Is it possible to find a group of people in Seattle who are willing to embrace and explore spirituality without demonizing or excluding those whose beliefs differ from their own? I’m not certain. COVID has opened up the possibility of on-line spiritual communities so I can commune with people in other places who seek a spiritual experience without the politics, but I miss the in-person connection.

Perhaps someday I’ll find it. Until then, I will continue to pray and meditate on my own, with integrity and with confidence that my political words and actions remain deeply aligned with my sense of spirituality.