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