The Unclad Soul

President Trump has not yet made the transition from Real Estate mogul to a political world leader. And it’s not certain he will ever be able to do that. A man his age is usually settled into the person he is from here on out and it’s all but impossible to make drastic changes. And drastic changes are needed. The world of high-end real estate, huge commercial building construction, casinos, hotels, and whatever other kinds of structures Mr. Trump can add his name to, is a far cry from the arena of world politics. There are at odd times glimpses that president Trump might actually have serious thoughts about how people should be treated and helped. But those get lost in his notoriously checkered history and in his perplexing persona. In the cut-throat universe of gigantic real estate projects, Mr. Trump established himself as a player. The massive buildings with his name emblazoned on them have successfully hidden the many failed and, as many have suggested, corrupt business de...

My therapist recently asked me where I get inspiration. I had to think for a minute about that. I don’t attend church anymore. I have this ongoing struggle with institutional religion. I know there are wonderful congregations out there, mostly small ones, that do good work, where worship is not an hour of entertainment and hype and shallow platitudes, but rather, quiet and reverent worship, where the people gather to learn and to grow and to find ways to be better human beings. But, for me, the institution of religion is mostly fraudulent and trivial and self-centered. I’m speaking primarily of institutional Christianity. Retired minister and prolific author, John Shelby Spong, has said that religion today “is a division between the shouters and the disinterested.” He has written, “ Jesus becomes the captive of the hysterically religious, the chronically fearful, the insecure and even the neurotic among us, or he becomes little more than a fading memory, the symbol of an age t...