The Unclad Soul

In general, but not in particular, because there are many opposite examples, but generally speaking, we are a nation of lazy, greedy citizens. Our laziness resides in the fact that we continue, year after drubbing year, to tolerate a Congress that is 98% corrupt and in the pockets of huge corporations, including Wall Street banks and the giant tech companies, not to mention the entire network of media communications. Our indifference to the blathering incompetence and the arrogant disregard of representative government by so many senators and House members in both parties is staggering. That we as a people allow this says something alarming about our character. Leo Tolstoy, the brilliant Russian novelist, once wrote in one of his many essays, “ If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”...

Here’s a spoiler alert: we all make mistakes. That had to be said just in case someone thinks because they have cleaned up their life or because they’ve never had an affair or never abused alcohol or because they believe in God or because they go to church or because they have money or because they’ve never failed badly that they are just fine. Maybe. But I would be cautious. Chances are they’re about to mess up sometime soon; because that’s just part of being a normal human being. There is a character in Barbara Kingsolver’s terrific novel, The Poisonwood Bible, who laments: “I've swallowed my pride before, that's for sure. I'm practically lined with my mistakes on the inside like a bad-wallpapered bathroom.”  That has it about right for most of us. A friend of mine recently went through a tough patch of self humiliation. The details are not necessary, just that he’d had a long day of good food and beer (mostly beer) and had over indulged. The situatio...