I need to forgive Donald Trump

I need to forgive President Donald Trump. Not that he needs it. I need it.

Trump confided to CNN's Jake Tapper in January 2016 that he didn't like to have to ask for forgiveness. "I like to be good," he said "I don't like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don't do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad."

Six months earlier, he admitted to pollster Frank Luntz that he has never asked for forgiveness. "I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't." Six months into his presidency, Trump confessed to columnist Cal Thomas, "I will be asking for forgiveness, but hopefully I won't have to be asking for much forgiveness."

I don't know where Trump stands today, but who am I to question a person's conscience anyway? Didn't Pope Francis ask, "Who am I to judge?" Didn't Jesus warn us that when we condemn another, we are really damning them for a fault that we hate in ourselves, and that the judgment we measure will be measured equally on us? Didn't he then say, "Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?" Well, it seems to me that while I may have a beam, Trump has a sequoia tree, and I have to forgive him so I can get it out of my head.

Trump hasn't hurt me personally. I have a good life. My wife, Vickie, and I are perfectly safe as long as we continue to hide in our house and wear hazmat suits and ask our children and grandchildren not to come anywhere near us. I don't like it but I'm not upset about it.

Thing is, the president has hurt thousands of people. Especially the dead ones he may have saved by telling the truth. And their families. And all those children sleeping on cement in cages near the border. And their mothers who still don't know where they are. At best, Trump has devastated families, deepened division, ignited violence, made a mockery of decency, damaged our democracy, and now threatens our coming election. O, how that bothers me!

Nov. 3 could bring a respite from the madness or trigger a madness squared. Whatever happens, cable news will not let anyone forget Trump. He will not go away. I feel like Michael Corleone in "The Godfather Part III," growling as if I have razor blades in my throat, "Just when I thought I was out, MSNBC keeps pulling me back in!"

So, what am I to do? Stop watching television? Cancel my subscription to The New York Times? Stop talking to people? Mind fasting, that would be healthy. But I am not healthy enough to do it.

Forgiveness is the only answer.

Jesus said, after his friends abandoned him, the government condemned him, and bad cops crucified him, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Maybe Trump can't help doing what he does. After all, he was raised by a tyrannical father, had an emotionally absent mother, and learned survival of the fittest. Isn't he, like all of us, just doing what he thinks he has to do to protect his sense of self lest he completely disappear? Surely his mind contains a crypt of terror that fills him with such dread that he projects that terror into the world. I get it, but I don't buy it.