Lead with Love: ‘God help us’
Courtesy photo
In the quiet space of my mind recently, I heard the words “God help us” as I was thinking of this second Trump term and tuning into so much tragedy and destruction happening around the world — from the fires that ravaged Los Angeles to the hostages and citizens in Gaza struggling to survive, the ongoing wars and famine in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa, plus the absolute disregard and destruction of our precious Mother Earth.
Like, it’s 2025, and we are so against regulations I guess that almost anywhere you go in the United States, there are tons of single-use plastics and trash and nowhere to adequately recycle them.
We need regulations that penalize polluters and protect our air and water. We need incentives to encourage innovation and technology that can clean up the messes we’ve made.
With Donald Trump, we get the opposite. We get a free pass for polluters (and people who beat up police officers trying to overthrow the government), and the environmentalists, fighting for us to have a habitable planet, are demonized and defunded.
It’s really easy to be upset right now.
So, where is the Lead with Love part of this column? It’s coming. I have to let you know I think it is a normal and sane reaction to what’s happening in our world to be upset. And, I know that if I spend all my time judging others for being wrong and hypocritical, then I will only be contributing to the anger and rage in the world — and that is not what I want to do.
I want to share love, and I want to bring light. How do I do it when there is so much happening that I really don’t prefer and so much that seems to be threatening what I hold dear? How can I withhold judgment when I simply can not fathom how so many good people believe a convict, sexual predator, and narcissist will make America great?
I am not a religious person, but I do believe in a higher power. I have started to pray more frequently. I can’t help it. I pray for myself to awaken to a higher state of consciousness, so I can be free of judgment and serve from a higher place. I pray for all those who are suffering to have peace. I pray for my own family to live in health and harmony, and I find myself praying for Donald Trump.
It is no mistake that he is in our face once again. Let us pray that we learn whatever lessons we are meant to learn from him and what he brings up in us. Let us pray he awakens to love vs. againstness and divisiveness. Let us pray he awakens to understand the fragility and preciousness of our earth and takes action to protect it vs. destroy it for profit and convenience.
Let us pray.
Dear God, help us to awaken to the love that we are and to think, speak, and act from a place of knowing that we are all one.
I am working to move from judgment to this higher place of awareness. I truly believe we are all one, and yet so often, I don’t speak or act from that place of knowing. I find so much evidence that my views are “right” and others are “wrong.” But, from that place I stay small; I perpetuate the illusion of separation, and I suffer. We all suffer when we judge each other.
When I was thinking of the inauguration last week and my feelings of dread and despair about it, I was reminded of this poem by Rumi that resonates with me. I choose to open my heart and relinquish resistance, love what is, as one of my favorite authors Byron Katie teaches us, and welcome this guest with curiosity and wonder.
“The Guest House“
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
With a renewed commitment from a place of love, not fear, to protect what I hold dear: women’s rights, environmental protection, gun reform, and freedom from religious tyranny, welcome back Donald Trump. God help us.
