“I’d pray for the m.f’er to be thrown off his yacht, with cinder blocks chained to each leg,”  one poker playing monk buddy responded when I brought up the question of how we should pray for the Duck.

“And one around his neck for good measure,” another chimed in.

A third poker playing monk added, “And I’d pray that at the Pearly Gates Saint Peter turns out to be Saint Pedro, or even better Saint Patricia Gomez.”

There appeared to be common consensus.

My question arose from my understanding/observation that bringing peace to earth is the responsibility of every individual, (not just we monks and nuns) and that we bring peace to earth by first bringing peace to our own inner atmosphere. Since the name and image and words and actions of Donald Trump have been fire-hosed into our collective consciousness for the past year, and will continue to be for at least another month (may it fade after November), it seemed to me that we need a way of “neutralizing” the inner warfare/trauma/revulsion that his image and words seem to bring up for so many of us. (My poker playing buddies not excluded.)

Traditionally, the way to neutralize, humanize, even heal such troubled inner atmosphere is through prayer and/or meditation. So how do we pray for Donald Trump?

Everybody has his or her own way of praying, (thank God, so to speak) but here’s what comes to me: We pray for Donnie in the same way we pray for the small boy who claims he’s superman and can lift a car above his head. We pray simply by knowing the truth.

Our knowing of the truth is useful not only for us but also for the blustery boy who makes such outrageous claims. We know that the boy has in fact spent no time developing his muscles, and even if he had, has absolutely no understanding of the physical challenge he claims he can meet. As mature adults we know the truth, so we don’t take him seriously, no matter how much he wants us to, (we don’t get into an argument with him about it) and we don’t take personal offense at his silly claims, even if his playmates insist, “Yes, he really can lift a car above is head!”

We nod our heads, understanding their hope, their wonder, but we know better. We absolutely know better. We put our attention elsewhere.

Since we know the truth about Donnie himself (he really can’t hold a car above his head), we can move our attention to the truth about Life Itself; we refresh our knowledge of and experience with  Life’s ancient and persistent Harmony, Balance, Beauty and Singular Integrity. Although Donnie would suggest there’s an “us and a them,” (he would yell, argue, bluster, insist there an “us and a them” there), we know life better than that, simply by looking.  We know Life is a singular unfolding, in which we are all equally enmeshed, moved and formed. We know—we can see with our own eyes and hearts—that we are each and all, including Donnie himself, equal parts of this unfolding Great Mystery, this beautiful suchness, this circus of wonder. We remember the larger picture that time and again proves there’s something easy and natural and without conflict happening in our political arena because  there’s something easy and natural and without conflict happening throughout the universe (the colliding galaxies being no exception.)

We know the truth, that always and everywhere what sometimes appears as ugly and vicious and cruel can not long survive in a universe fundamentally beautiful, ever supportive and sensitively present. Even hurricanes eventually peter out and die.

So our work—  our prayer—is to inwardly put Donnie back into the larger picture. We know that the evolutionary force towards “peace on earth” sometimes shows itself in seemingly hateful, blustery and incongruous forms. (And there IS such an evolutionary force towards peace on earth; we can feel it in our bones. The ugly caterpillar crawls into its cocoon, eventually emerging as a butterfly.) Our prayer is to inwardly and outwardly do what we can, in the place we stand, to help resolve such unpeaceable forms, evolve such unhappy forms back into the natural harmony and beauty towards which they were all along evolving. We pray by knowing that Donnie, like all of us, must bow to natural law. Life itself will curb his mouth. His playmates will discover the hidden rules. We don’t argue with his silly claims.

We pray by keeping our own peace, our own vision, our own joi de vivre,  and then doing what we can to extend and expand that peace, whether it’s knocking on doors or turning off the debate or simply patting the blustery little boy on the head and giving him milk and cookies, insisting it’s time for his nap. That’s what adults like us do.

Cinder blocks are not, alas, part of the true solution.