The Unclad Soul

The enigmatic and unconventional artist and filmmaker, Andy Warhol, once said that we all have our own America. He said it consists of “Pieces of a fantasy America” that we think exists but which we really don’t see. He said we created this America from scenes in movies, from music lyrics, and from novels and other books. The result, he said, is an America made up of “art and schmaltz and emotions.” I find a lot of truth in that. We have the recorded history of this country in thousands of books and speeches and other forms of documentation and they all tell stories of hardship and courage, genius and empty-headedness, brotherhood and bigotry, slavery and freedom, cruelty and compassion, stampeding greed and astonishing charity, gross decadence and simple living. We continue making American history and what we’re currently up to will not read well in future years. Today, we find our country crippled by a political system that has outlived itself and is so dysfunctional it ha...

We're in the final days to Christmas and for many of us it can be so stressful and exhausting that we completely lose any of the good feelings of the season. Here are some warning signs you may be close to a Holiday meltdown and how to prevent it: Seasonal stress - How to Avoid a Holiday Meltdown - Health.com

“By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic ‘the self-transcendence of human existence.’ It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself--be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.” ~ Viktor Frankl, Man in Search of Meaning

Autumn in Dallas has nearly come to an end. Many of the trees here have displayed their final colors and have dropped their leaves like beautiful Christmas ornaments that lay everywhere. As I walked to my car yesterday outside my apartment where all sorts of trees decorate the grounds I could not keep from seeing the leaves. They were shuffling in the breeze like children in brilliant dress raising their hands to be noticed. I stopped and looked at the ones at my feet. Bright yellow and red ones; some speckled with shades of both. I felt as though I was walking past gifts on my way to my car. All of that adornment reminded me that it is the natural things in life that are most enduring. I get bogged down in this disgraceful presidential race, in the snarling Christmas traffic, in the sagging economy, in bills and cranky shoppers and the nightly horror on the news. Perhaps that is why autumn was created, to help us keep our focus on life's truest treasures. The poet W...