Do Unto Others

 

I try to live by the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

This is a post about a seagull, and about Donald Trump. Only read it if you want to, but I have to write it.

Yesterday, in the pouring rain, I saw a seagull in the parking lot of a grocery store near me. I went back later, just to check. It hadn’t moved, couldn’t, but it tried with a hurt leg and wing. I couldn’t leave it there. I got a box, picked it up gently, brought it home and fed it and then I started calling, and finally found a place to take it, a waterfowl rehab place two hours from my house.

My husband drove us there today. When the lady lifted the seagull out of the box. . .

I can’t say it.

I didn’t know it was hurt so badly, oh god the poor thing. They had to put him to sleep. I couldn’t go in. I cried and cried because it suffered so, and I hadn’t known. Now I ask you this, as I cry remembering that poor sweet innocent thing: What did I get from trying to that little seagull? Nothing but heartache, right?

Heartache, yes. But it needed help and when I saw that, I had to do something about it. Because we help those in need, no matter who or what they are. Because we care about others besides ourselves. Because especially, the most vulnerable among us need the most help from the rest us.

Through grace, I think, I was there, and because I knew that bird needed help, I helped it. At least I tried. And while I couldn’t save that poor sweet thing, at least I was there to lessen its suffering. At least, I spared him starvation or getting attacked by some animal, or hit (again?) by a car, or lingering there alone, in pain, for who knows how long.

As cohabitants of this earth, we owe it to each other to look out for each other, to care about each other, to help each other when we can, do what we can. . .

. . . which is why I can’t abide Donald Trump any more, nor anyone who supports him. I can’t do it. Even if I love you, I can’t do it. He doesn’t CARE, don’t you see? He doesn’t care about you or me or anyone but himself. Say what you will about his ‘honesty,’ about his ‘telling it like it is,’ his ‘business savvy;’ tell me he supports the rich, the farmers, the miners, big business; tell me you look past his monstrous misdeeds, his hate, his divisiveness, his misogyny, his racism, because he supports anti-abortion legislation or drilling into pristine wilderness or the right to carry AK-47s or keeping immigrants on the other side of his walls.

Do you what I’ll tell you? I’ll tell you that he supports himself only; that everything else is lip service and most of it is lies.

The Golden Rule means absolutely nothing to Donald Trump. Instead of helping the most vulnerable among us, he does the opposite: He destroys everything he touches.