The Unclad Soul

I am fighting pessimism. I do not want to be sour and gloomy and see only all that is wrong in our country and the world. I am trying to not believe we are at the edge of the abyss staring into the darkness. The poet Mary Oliver has written, “My concern for the world is a sorrowful business.” I have that concern as well. I struggle to breathe easier, to lessen the stresses, to find a place beyond the hard realities of this current debacle that is our nation and its defective government. My Facebook friend, Shelley Henderson, shared an astonishing poem from the brilliant Kate Tempest, titled, “Brand New Ancients.” In it, she writes, “In the old days, the myths were the stories we used to explain ourselves But how can we explain the way we hate ourselves? The things we’ve made ourselves into, the way we break ourselves in two, the way we overcomplicate ourselves? We are still permanently trapped somewhere between the heroic and the pitiful.” ...

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...

Now that the murdering of 17 students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, has more fully registered on us, most Americans remain stunned. We are stunned that in this country of ours we still have a government that refuses to do anything about gun violence. The flimsy, tone deaf comments of politicians about this horror seem worthless. They are finally starting to talk about mostly cosmetic changes in the law but I’m skeptical of anything significant. We are stunned that our president has been mostly silent, unwilling or incapable of a simple sign of outrage over the senseless massacre of helpless teenagers at school. He is beginning to make gestures about passing new legislation, but I'm waiting to see if any changes are made. We are stunned that an organization like the NRA (National Rifle Association) has the unlimited power to dominate and control our elected legislators. We are stunned by our political leaders’ greed and their cowardice. We are ...

Below is a link to a terrific essay. It is written by a friend of mine in Los Angeles. She used this essay to come out and declare herself as a Lesbian.  Regina Cates is a beautiful soul, loving and kind, fun and funny, and brilliant! Her story is moving and so needed. Once a man-hater, and with too many good reasons to be so, she allowed herself to evolve, soften, learn, and grow in ways that enabled her to at last have genuine male friends. Here is a part of her story. Please Read This!

The small and almost silent group of religious leaders, politicians, authors, editors, social critics, teachers, physicians and others who seek to define themselves and live by a compassionate faith, a social conscience, and who work for a progressive approach to solving our massive problems in this country, swim against a raging current of resistance.  It comes from those who disdain unity, who are terrified of diversity, who hate government unless it works only to their advantage, who care nothing about preserving a social fabric that holds all of us in community. The struggle against this forceful cultural current is exhausting, expensive, and often defeating. No one will be surprised if those fighting to move against it grow tired and sometimes collapse in shallow waters. Bullies flourish in this environment and are always the last to go down. They prey on the defenseless, those smaller, those less powerful, those with gentle souls who have no lust for battle or conflict. ...