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Memento mori – think on your death.
With everything else going on in this country, I’m having a hard time getting too upset about the demolition of the White House East Wing to build a new state ballroom. Don’t misunderstand: it’s a bad idea and the timing couldn’t be worse. We’re going to see dozens of Democratic campaign ads showing backhoes tearing down part of the White House in 2026 and 2028 – I hope they’re as effective as I expect they’ll be.
But I’m seeing well-meaning friends speculating that the ballroom is just a “distraction” from his real intentions.
[It’s way past time to stop worrying about “distractions.” What Trump and his fellow right wing nationalists have told us they’re going to do and what they’re actually doing in plain sight is bad enough.]
People are saying the ballroom is a cover for a new “Fuhrer Bunker.” The ballroom means he’s planning on naming himself Emperor. And all of this means he’s never going to leave.
The real reason behind the ballroom is much simpler.
He has no religious or spiritual faith to speak of. For all his pandering to Evangelicals, he knows nothing of Evangelical thinking about heaven and hell and who ends up where.
In case you’re new here: I think Evangelicals are all wrong about what comes after death. I don’t think anyone ends up in hell, even the people I would like to send there. But my thinking on this is the product of years of study, contemplation, meditation, and spiritual experiences. Donald Trump is the kid who shows up on test day having skipped most of his classes and having never studied.
And now the reality of his situation is starting to sink in.
This is why he wants to buy Greenland. There are strategic reasons why the United States needs a stronger presence in Greenland, but none of those require annexing it, either by treaty or by force.
This is why he changed Denali’s name back to Mt. McKinley – to argue that Presidents should be memorialized on their conquests. Including himself.
He said he isn’t going to name the ballroom after himself, but it wouldn’t be the first time he was lying. Even if he’s telling the truth he knows history will record who built it.
Donald Trump is building a state ballroom because he knows death is getting close and he’s grasping for any sort of immortality he can get.
Memento mori – remember you will die.
In the fundamentalist church where I grew up, deathbed conversions were viewed with skepticism. They were afraid people had gotten away with “worldly living” all their lives and wanted to get into heaven without having to give up anything. The Calvinists were dismissive – people trying to convert in the face of death simply “weren’t among the elect” (to be fair, the Calvinists were far less influential in the fundamentalist movement in the mid-20th century than they are now).
What they failed to realize was that their concepts of heaven and hell and who goes where were so ingrained in mainstream culture that even those who paid little attention to them throughout their lives could no longer ignore them when the reality of their own death set in.
I’ve seen this time and time again, including with some people who I thought had found a home in Paganism. They never dealt with their religious baggage, and then when things got real they got scared – and they went running back to the religion of their childhood.
When you think about death and what comes afterwards – when you honestly read and study and contemplate – you can start to separate what you really believe from what you’ve been told you’re supposed to believe. You can separate what seems likely from what seems unlikely… and from what is almost certainly impossible.
So much of the fear of death is the fear of the unknown. When you journey into the Otherworld – at Samhain or at any other time – you start to get familiar with what lies on the other side, and the fear begins to fade.
We need not – and should not – spend so much time contemplating death and the afterlife that we become obsessed with it, that we forget to live fully and joyously here in this life. But when we ignore death and tell ourselves it will never happen to us, we set ourselves up for an unpleasant final journey.
Memento mori – think on your death.
Children and grandchildren are a type of immortality, but those of us who have no biological children still have people we influenced. Who did you love? Who did you help? Who did you point in the right direction at a critical point in their life? I have friends who will remember me. And even if my websites crash and my books go out of print, the paths and concepts I’ve helped articulate and promote will remain.
What have you done to make the world a better place? Even those whose lives have been entirely ordinary have still touched other lives and made things better.
As opposed to spending their whole lives chasing obscene amounts of wealth and power and self-aggrandizement.
Memento mori – remember you will die.
History is full of kings and emperors who built monuments to themselves, intended to proclaim their greatness to the ages. But history has a way of finding the truth, eventually if not right away. I have no doubt that when Donald Trump is no more, history will tell the truth about who he was, what he did, and how he impacted the nation and the world.
What happens to his soul is between him and whatever God claims him.
The rest of us can learn something here. Someday we too will approach death. Someday the question of what comes next will become urgent for us. Someday the question of our legacy – what we leave behind, for good and for ill – will become critical to us.
The time to think on these things is now. The time to build honest, respectful, reciprocal relationships in this world and between the worlds is now.
Memento mori – remember you will die.
Memento mori – think on your death.
Memento Mori, Donald Trump
Memento mori – remember you will die.Memento mori – think on your death.
With everything else going on in this country, I’m having a hard time getting too upset about the demolition of the White House East Wing to build a new state ballroom. Don’t misunderstand: it’s a bad idea and the timing couldn’t be worse. We’re going to see dozens of Democratic campaign ads showing backhoes tearing down part of the White House in 2026 and 2028 – I hope they’re as effective as I expect they’ll be.
But I’m seeing well-meaning friends speculating that the ballroom is just a “distraction” from his real intentions.
[It’s way past time to stop worrying about “distractions.” What Trump and his fellow right wing nationalists have told us they’re going to do and what they’re actually doing in plain sight is bad enough.]
People are saying the ballroom is a cover for a new “Fuhrer Bunker.” The ballroom means he’s planning on naming himself Emperor. And all of this means he’s never going to leave.
The real reason behind the ballroom is much simpler.
Death comes for the rich and powerful too
A man who has spent his entire life denying reality and avoiding consequences is starting to understand that death is a reality he cannot avoid. Not today and not tomorrow and probably not before the end of his term. For all his unhealthy habits, he has the best medical care in the world and a determination to live forever. But no one lives forever, and he’s starting to realize he doesn’t have many years left.He has no religious or spiritual faith to speak of. For all his pandering to Evangelicals, he knows nothing of Evangelical thinking about heaven and hell and who ends up where.
In case you’re new here: I think Evangelicals are all wrong about what comes after death. I don’t think anyone ends up in hell, even the people I would like to send there. But my thinking on this is the product of years of study, contemplation, meditation, and spiritual experiences. Donald Trump is the kid who shows up on test day having skipped most of his classes and having never studied.
And now the reality of his situation is starting to sink in.
Grasping for immortality
This is why he was campaigning for a Nobel Peace Prize. That and the fact that Obama won a Nobel prize and he didn’t (no, Obama didn’t deserve it either).This is why he wants to buy Greenland. There are strategic reasons why the United States needs a stronger presence in Greenland, but none of those require annexing it, either by treaty or by force.
This is why he changed Denali’s name back to Mt. McKinley – to argue that Presidents should be memorialized on their conquests. Including himself.
He said he isn’t going to name the ballroom after himself, but it wouldn’t be the first time he was lying. Even if he’s telling the truth he knows history will record who built it.
Donald Trump is building a state ballroom because he knows death is getting close and he’s grasping for any sort of immortality he can get.
Memento mori – remember you will die.
Thinking on your death is good and necessary
The time to think on your death is not when you’re old and sick and you can hear the Reaper coming up behind you. The time to think on your death is on a beautiful day when all is well and you feel like you’re going to live forever, even though you know you won’t.In the fundamentalist church where I grew up, deathbed conversions were viewed with skepticism. They were afraid people had gotten away with “worldly living” all their lives and wanted to get into heaven without having to give up anything. The Calvinists were dismissive – people trying to convert in the face of death simply “weren’t among the elect” (to be fair, the Calvinists were far less influential in the fundamentalist movement in the mid-20th century than they are now).
What they failed to realize was that their concepts of heaven and hell and who goes where were so ingrained in mainstream culture that even those who paid little attention to them throughout their lives could no longer ignore them when the reality of their own death set in.
I’ve seen this time and time again, including with some people who I thought had found a home in Paganism. They never dealt with their religious baggage, and then when things got real they got scared – and they went running back to the religion of their childhood.
When you think about death and what comes afterwards – when you honestly read and study and contemplate – you can start to separate what you really believe from what you’ve been told you’re supposed to believe. You can separate what seems likely from what seems unlikely… and from what is almost certainly impossible.
So much of the fear of death is the fear of the unknown. When you journey into the Otherworld – at Samhain or at any other time – you start to get familiar with what lies on the other side, and the fear begins to fade.
We need not – and should not – spend so much time contemplating death and the afterlife that we become obsessed with it, that we forget to live fully and joyously here in this life. But when we ignore death and tell ourselves it will never happen to us, we set ourselves up for an unpleasant final journey.
Memento mori – think on your death.
We live on in our deeds
If we’re thinking about death and what comes after in an honest way, we have to admit that ultimately, we don’t know. The atheists may be right – this may be the only life we get. But even if it is, we will still live on in our deeds, and in the hearts and minds of those who knew us.Children and grandchildren are a type of immortality, but those of us who have no biological children still have people we influenced. Who did you love? Who did you help? Who did you point in the right direction at a critical point in their life? I have friends who will remember me. And even if my websites crash and my books go out of print, the paths and concepts I’ve helped articulate and promote will remain.
What have you done to make the world a better place? Even those whose lives have been entirely ordinary have still touched other lives and made things better.
As opposed to spending their whole lives chasing obscene amounts of wealth and power and self-aggrandizement.
Memento mori – remember you will die.
Memento mori
Of course, the ballroom isn’t all memento mori – part of it is plain old overstuffed ego. He wants to build something big and ostentatious, there’s no one who will tell him he can’t, so he’s doing it.History is full of kings and emperors who built monuments to themselves, intended to proclaim their greatness to the ages. But history has a way of finding the truth, eventually if not right away. I have no doubt that when Donald Trump is no more, history will tell the truth about who he was, what he did, and how he impacted the nation and the world.
What happens to his soul is between him and whatever God claims him.
The rest of us can learn something here. Someday we too will approach death. Someday the question of what comes next will become urgent for us. Someday the question of our legacy – what we leave behind, for good and for ill – will become critical to us.
The time to think on these things is now. The time to build honest, respectful, reciprocal relationships in this world and between the worlds is now.
Memento mori – remember you will die.
Memento mori – think on your death.
