Where to begin?  We are all riding on a bullet train at the moment.  We’re on the Shinkansen, traveling by rail at 200 mph and trying to point out specific landmarks or scenes as they whoosh by, but we are another twenty miles down the track before we can even finish our sentence.  Meanwhile the conductor smiles and says “Enjoy the ride.  We’ve only just left the station.” And that light on the track ahead of you that’s rapidly closing in? That’s an oncoming train.

Yesterday a most memorable prophecy was gently spoken by an Episcopal Bishop, the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, in the presence of the President of the United States.  President Trump has his own spiritual advisors, but none of them dare say what he heard yesterday. They dare not chastise God’s annointed.

SHE SAID:

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. We’re scared now. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

With this soft spoken, heart felt plea, the foundation of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. seemed to shake among the gasps of those attending. Hopefully, this one-hundred-and-forty-word message will shake the souls of Christian America.  It is to me at this moment as important to our country as Luther’s Ninety-five Theses were to Germany when posted on October 31, 1517.

HE SAID:

Here is President Trump’s reply to her message:

President Trump didn’t even take a day to reflect. Why bother? He believes, as the Führer did on Thursday, July 20, 1944, that “Providence” spared him. For Hitler, it was the bomb planted in the Wolf’s Lair. For Trump, it was that horrible day in Butler, PA. The Führer said that “Providence” spared him to “continue on the road of my life as I have done hitherto.” In other words, “I’m doing God’s work and I’ll do any damn thing I want to.”

Wait! Am I saying that President Trump is Hitler? No, or not exactly. I am saying that just as Hitler thought he was Germany, President Trump seems to think that he is America. They both have strong, fascist tendencies. They both have unfettered and untested power. And there are few people willing assume the risks of speaking up. We all are just along for the ride on this bullet train we’ll call “The Gulf of America.” And if you want to talk about it with the President, be sure to bring a check for $5 million to the White House. Because based on who crowded around the President in the Rotunda, on Monday, there is now a cover charge in America in order to be heard.

THOMAS BECKET

I could not but help think of Thomas Becket (1119 AD-1170 AD) and Henry II (1133 AD-1189 AD.) Henry was equally lawless as our King is, and Henry could not get the Catholic Church to bow down to him. So, he installed Thomas Becket, a man who shared a longstanding bromance with Henry.  The two of them could regale you with ludicrous tales, exploits and conquests of the night before (once they had sobered up.)  But like the conservative Republican Earl Warren when he resigned the governorship of California in October 5, 1953 to become Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on the same day, a change came over him Thomas.  He took his responsibility seriously. This same weight of an office moved Warren steadily to the middle, and then to the political left while he ran the Court.  Henry’s appointment of Becket to be Archbishop of Canterbury likewise was a sobering experience for Thomas.  And Henry was every bit as sorrowful for appointing Becket as President Eisenhower was for appointing Earl Warren (he called it the biggest mistake of his Presidency.)

I know very little about Thomas Becket, and almost nothing about the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde.  No doubt there are “patriots” at this very moment trying to uncover–or synthesize–unseemly comments, unnatural proclivities or past indiscretions from her personal life to the exclusion of searching their own hearts and souls. 

I do know the truth when I hear it, however.  And the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde spoke the truth to the President of the United States yesterday.

Henry knew he could not oust Becket. So he played the victim and yelled out “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome monk?!” The exact words are lost to history, but this is a fair approximation. British historian Simon Schama translates an alternative exclamation from Latin, to wit: “What miserable drones and traitors . . . let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?”  Now, I cannot confirm whether this description of “low born” fits the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde’s upbringing, but it fits equally well, I suppose.

Four ginned up, ambitious knights who had drank from Henry’s Kool-aide took it upon themselves to act on this exclamation. Thomas Becket was murdered near the High Altar at Canterbury, Henry was horse-whipped for suggesting the deed, and the rest is history.

Apparently, T.S. Eliot likewise regarded Thomas because he wrote a play about it called  Murder in the Cathedral. In one passage, Eliot writes: “There is no end of it, the voicing of words, the weaving of the web.”  Elliot is saying that what happened yesterday in the National Cathedral was just another day in paradise (or is it perdition?)  As Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation and the architect of Project 2025 said last summer: the U.S. is “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”  In other words, if the Right Reverend shuts up, she will have nothing to fear.  Else (what?!). What would Becket advise her to do?  What would Jesus say?

It’s not like the President doesn’t have wicked thoughts (as most of us do from time to time.) I recall something from a few months ago about shooting Liz Cheney in the face. In this case, we do have an accurate quote for history: “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” Again, I have bad thoughts myself like anybody has from time-to-time, but I’ve never had a thought like this!

I still have enough faith that even Republicans may come to their senses and understand the peril we are all in. Impeachment and removal come to mind. I just hope we still have a country left when they do. Meanwhile, kudos to the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde for shaming the POTUS and the rest of us who are too afraid to speak up.