Peter... and Paul

Yesterday morning, Bush, Ellie and I went down to the beach to say goodbye to a friend. Well, not really a friend, in truth, since we did not know him very well; he was one of those people with whom you feel a kinship, even when you don't see very much of them. I think that quality makes him--made him--a vulnerable and open man. A man who had known suffering in his life, and for that reason had an especially human quality.

His name was Peter, too, and I feel a particular affinity for all men who share my name--a name whose meanings and associations I have explored in great depth elsewhere in my writing. This Peter was 56, and gay. He left us by choice. Well, the friends who found him, the day after Christmas, insist that this time it was not by choice: he had attempted suicide several times before, they say, and each time with great attendant ritual and ceremony. This time, there was no ceremony. Only death. On the floor of his beautiful beach cottage, whose neat front lawn and white picket fence we pass almost every day. The cause, apparently, was a mix of alcohol and pills. A curious irony, when you think of it: that he pulled off this time, unconsciously, what he had failed to achieve consciously a number of times before.

So many strikes against this Peter, then, from the right-eous Christian point of view. A gay man. Addicted to alcohol and drugs. A suicide… And yet a human being, loved and loving. The kind of man I wish you, Bush, could have known. With open hearts, we all could learn from him.

Anyway, it was a very moving farewell. There were just a handful of us on the cliff, overlooking the ocean at the bottom of the hill where Peter lived. His close friends had brought fragrant leis of fresh flowers, orchids, and were wearing them around their necks. When the time came, they took them off and passed them to a young woman in a wet suit, who placed them around her own neck and ran off down the stairway with her surf board to the water's edge. Then she paddled out a hundred yards into the ocean, past the breakers, removed the leis, and laid them on the surface of the waves before heading back to shore.

The experience left me thinking, in my morning meditation, about those qualities of openness and vulnerability, Bush. About my wish for you, now, on your trip to Europe, that you not be totally contained within your protective bubble. You know what I'm talking about. I understand the need for security, but it protects you not only from the bad stuff that could happen, but also from the important stuff that you need to experience for the breadth of your own vision. I remember how they isolated you, during last year's election, even in your so-called "town hall" meetings, from anything untoward--including adverse opinions. With the result that you act, in your second term in office, as though you simply fail to understand the depth and breadth of opposition to almost everything you say and do, the passionate intensity of those who disagree.

My wish for you is to be more like Peter and less like Paul. More like the fallible Peter, and less like the intransigent, proselytizing convert Paul. But you've read your Bible, Bush. You know what I mean.