Dear Mr Limbaugh,

Here we are at a low point in the history of American democracy and on the eve of the acquittal of Mr Trump from wrongdoing by a compliant Senate that seems as married to the god Chronos (who ate his children as all climate-deniers are doing) and to the idolatry of power. And the news comes out that you are facing a showdown with cancer.

Rush Limbaugh speaks at the American Conservative Union Foundation. Photo by Jeick at English Wikipedia.

As human being to human being, I feel for your struggle ahead but of course we all live our lives and do our work in the knowing of our mortality and the coming of death. Only now it is becoming more real for you surely (and for me too since I am entering my 80th year and that too is a reminder of my own mortality).

As a priest I am with you in this latest journey of yours.

But I also want to invite you, as you look back on your life and work (and so much of our lives is our work) to consider making these last months on earth the most useful possible. You might want to consider leaving behind some healing and gifting to balance out the immense amount of division-making and hatred, shaming and name-calling of others that you have built your sad but profitable career on.

Clearly you are a gifted individual but clearly also you have not used your gifts to spread healing or love or justice. There is a certain karma in hearing about your present condition on the eve of the fake acquittal in a sham trial of a president who, with your urging and cheerleading for years, has shown his complete disregard for truth and for human respect, for future generations (by denying climate change) and for our constitution which he clearly violated time and time again.

One can make a list of your tirades over the decades (see http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/rush-limbaughs-most-outrageous-moments-25) One that sticks out to me is your calling feminists “feminazis” which may make for clever radio parlance but which reveals a very sick sense of masculine superiority and violence against women seeking their god-given wisdom and freedom.

What most stands out is the primal role you have played in creating the divide that now exists in the body politics of our country. A divide completely at work in the current Senate sham impeachment trial. Your decades of spewing hate and division over the airwaves is now bearing its poisoned fruit. Yes, your party now owns the senate and therefore the impeachment future of our president but unfortunately their ethics will mirror yours just as Mr. Trump’s do.

You are not alone of course but you and your ilk created Trump in the sense that you spread the message of Resentment throughout this country for decades. A friend of mine years ago drove across the country and said there were often times when he could not get NPR on the radio—but there was no place where he could not get Limbaugh on the radio.

No doubt that news may feed your ego. But dying is of course about letting one’s ego go so now might be the right time to reflect on your life from a more-than-ego viewpoint. What you are leaving behind is a lot of wreckage. You may want to repent of that and get your (inner) house in order before you leave us. Consider all the copycats that have cashed in on your wayward ways beginning with Rupert Murdoch who has brought your notion of Hate Radio to his Fox News Channel so now we have Hate Television too. And a propaganda tool—just like Hitler and Goebbels created for their Resentment Agenda—disguised as Fox News.

What does it mean to be dying knowing that you have left such institutions of Hatred behind you that will supposedly flourish wherever the idolatry of money reigns, and where lies and falsehood hold sway over truth?

What might you do to cleanse your soul before you die? There are many options and you, being an intelligent and creative person, can surely come up with your own. But here are a few suggestions:

Why not go on the air and apologize for the Hatred and Divisions and Lies you have spread?
Why not go on the air and apologize for the racism and sexiam and homophobia you have spread?
Why not leave your mansion to the homeless and poor to live in after you are gone just as Pope Francis just did by taking a nineteenth century castle near the Vatican and turned it into a home for the homeless? (see https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/19th-century-vatican-palace-turned-homeless-shelter-pope-francis-behest-n1123246)
Why not take some of your ill-gotten millions of dollars in wealth made off of a media success story built on Hatred and Resentment and bequeath it to some non-profits who are doing good work on behalf of the poor?
Why not go on the air and apologize for demeaning science and future generations of humans and more-than-humans and admit your sins of denial about climate change? Read Pope Francis (whom, as bullies do, you called a “Marxist”) for his encyclical “Laudato Si” that warned us all about climate change.

There is so much you can be doing that flows from facing your own life story and learning, in the face of death, as you become “stripped to the literal substance of yourself before God,” as Howard Thurman puts it, that much of your life has been a sorry excuse for a human being. That your many talents were not put to good use but to evil use.

It is never too late to change your ways. That’s what choice promises. Why not die with a smile on your face? The smile of love triumphing over hate and truth over lies? The future of your planet taking precedence over silly games of one-up-man-ship and egoism and advanced reptilian brain syndrome? This might make your next journey far more meaningful and helpful to others than your present one has been.

Dying is a time to take stock. Use your remaining time wisely.

Best wishes that your journey deepens,

Sincerely,

Matthew Fox,

fellow human and your elder

Photo(c) Picture-Alliance/Newscom, from 'Thailand cave rescue: First boys rescued from trapped soccer team" in DW.com/DeutscheWelle

(also published in TIKKUN)

The world breathed a sigh of relief yesterday morning at the great news that the first four of the Thai boys were rescued from the cave where they have been trapped for 14 days. Today four more boys have been rescued; tomorrow the rescue is slated for the last four and their coach who, we are told, is himself very weak having shared his meager rations with the kids before him.

There are deep and even archetypal lessons in this powerful story which has captured the attention of so many people around the world and brought many people together in the midst of so much chaos and disturbance in the world. Amidst the disunity, unity. I wish to offer a few reflections on these lessons in this essay.

The power of the feminine.

A cave is an archetype of the womb of the Earth (Francis of Assisi loved to pray in caves). A cave is alluring and fascinating—but also dangerous and even deadly. Mother Earth’s beauty is intoxicating but it can also be dangerous; she has her own laws and must be respected—consider Pele now asserting herself in the wild volcanoes exploding in Hawaii, and the monsoons and floods faced by the boys and their coach.

A display of the healthy masculine (for a change).

In the stories of the endangered boys and the hard work of 90(!) men working to rescue them, we see a rare and refreshing story of the healthy masculine. How many headlines are about the toxic masculine these days: Stories of the head of EPA changing all the rules so that pollution can proceed unabated again (while also pilfering tax payer dollars and blatantly disobeying laws not to alter calendar appointments and playing footsie with coal, gas and oil lobbyists, etc.). Stories of our president and Attorney General executing a plan to separate children and even babies from their parents. Supposedly grown men in powerful positions, denying climate change and fighting gun control. Powerful men in business, government, media, religion, etc., etc., raping and abusing women and children.

In this story of rescue we see men at their best. Competent, skilled, courageous, generous men sacrificing for the sake of the youngsters. One Thai SEAL even gave his life for the cause. Men tapping into the nobility inside. Men teaching other men (and boys) what authentic masculinity is about, what sacred masculine really means. True mentoring and true fathering on display at last.

International cooperation.

Among the 90 men involved in the rescue, some were from Thailand; others were from the UK, Australia, the US and China. Cooperation. Competence. Professionalism! It was a humane rescue, a human enterprise, not a nationalistic or tribal one.

The usefulness of meditation.

The football coach trapped with the boys is an ex-monk, who instructed the boys in meditation. This became an important dimension to their group survival as it helped them to remain calm during their long ordeal of waiting for rescue in the dark for ten days; of surviving without food; of breathing air that was far below normal richness; and even in finding their way out of the cave in the dark and murky waters with masks to breathe in. In short, in overcoming fear (none of the boys even knew how to swim).

A call to shared humanity

Underlying the interest in this rescue are surely universal issues that unite all humans who are in touch with their humanity: our Unity created by our common experience of Suffering; and hope; and wanting to live; and the work of compassion.

There is a class dimension to this story as well. We are learning that most, if not all of the boys, come from a very poor village and the lower class and some even from the “outcast” class of Thai society. Some are immigrants (yes!) without papers, not legal citizens of Thailand. Yet they are all being treated as human beings worthy of rescue and celebration. So many countries and nationalities and races involved in the rescue. The rescue is a snub to adultism—which reigns so mightily in much of our culture.

Rite of passage

Many people talk of the trauma these kids underwent and its likely impact on them afterwards, but I would like to look at this ordeal as a unique rite of passage. First, they are all at the age when rites of passage are usually enacted. They have faced death in isolation with a mentor among them; they have grown up. They have experienced rescue and liberation, even salvation, through older men demonstrating what true adulthood is about, i.e., caring for others. They have also bonded in a deep way; they have learned skills of diving and trusting others; they have experienced how precious life is and how precarious. These lessons will remain with them for a lifetime.

I am sure, having faced death for so many days and nights, when they emerge from the cave to experience a full breath of fresh air in their lungs and a bright sun and silver moon and hugs from family and a new perspective on life in this world, they will be inspired as never before not to take life for granted.

The beauty of the human spirit

Finally, a word about Beauty. I cried on hearing the news of the rescue—not tears of sadness or even joy so much as tears of beauty. It is a beautiful thing to see humans actually acting like humans. And men actually acting like men. “Are we our brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers?” The news from Thailand answered that question rightly: in these cynical days, when criminal and brutal behavior by men in power seems the norm rather than the exception, the better angels of our nature prevailed.

The struggle is not over. Four more boys and a man need to come out alive. And there are many more challenges and struggle to fight about similar realities all over the world today. But this moment is a good moment. It makes one proud to be a human being again. It is good to see men among other men striving to be good and do the right thing. One gives thanks to the young for bringing the best out in their elders. Hopefully they can go back to their sports and their biking and hiking and spelunking again soon, go back to being boys. Hopefully the adults have learned lessons, lessons of hope and cooperation and caring. Good work!