The Unclad Soul

I did not grow up being challenged to think for myself, about other races, about other religions, about anything that was different from or opposite of the ideas, beliefs, and values of my parents. My parents were loving and sincere, but fear guided their beliefs and their behavior. Fear of God’s punishment, fear of wrongdoing before the church, fear of what others thought about them, and so on. And that fear was communicated to me and my siblings. And it shaped, as is the case in most homes, how I viewed myself and the world. It was a confining and strict influence that often filled me with fears as well. This kind of parenting was common in my day, though I did have friends whose parents were much more lenient, open-minded, not fearful of others or new ideas, but willing to think through things and see a different perspective. I readily noticed that in those friends and their parents. Publicly, I spoke against them, saying they were liberal, or not real Christians, ...

The rare and provocative poet and novelist, Charles Bukowski, once wrote, “If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.” That is a challenge I take for the New Year. I want my soul burning with purpose and desire. I want to be to be crispy by the end of 2019. I want to be the ashes of my longings fulfilled, my passions spent. I want to know my efforts were all out, that I left nothing in the pursuit of what I love that was not exhausted. I want to find ways to love new people and I want to find ways to better love the people I already know and cherish. I want my horizons expanded, stretched to new sights, beyond old borders of comfort and ease. Let there be places in my journey, where, like the ocean, on a clear day you can see forever, and the end of the water’s edge disappears in the blue sky of wonder. I want that. Let there be ...

And into the world are born those spirits, those souls, those persons, who light the way for us out of whatever darkness we are in. These can be mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, teachers and ministers, coaches and mentors. They can be the neighbor or the employer, the elderly or the young, the broken or the mended, the friend or the lover. These are people who do not do things for us, they show us how to do things for ourselves. They model. They instruct. They affirm and nurture. They live and love before us in ways that influence us to be our better selves. They are not always successful, well established, or even well known. They may be on the cleaning staff at the office, or the clerk at the grocery store. They may be the stranger we pass that smiles broadly and shares a sense of warmth as we walk by them. They may be the cop that pulls us over, gives us a calm warning, and sends us on our way. There is something in these people ...

I admit I’m in love with Lady Gaga. I know, it’s silly to say it, and of course when I say, “in love,” I mean something more than a foolish fantasy. I’m convinced she has one of the purest voices of today’s crowded talent of musicians and performers. When she sang the National Anthem (you can see it on youtube) in 2016 at Super Bowl 50, I was mesmerized. Patriotism and all the pseudo hype that goes with it these days falls flat for me most of the time. But her performance made me want to cheer or salute or something. It was a powerful moment. Her song, “Joanne,” which she performed at last Sunday’s Grammys, was dedicated, she said, to her father’s sister, Joanne. Again, it was sung with so much passion and precision, while she played the piano and was accompanied on guitar by her album producer Mark Ronson. In spite of her past outrageous outfits, masks, wigs, get-ups, and other brazen acts of defiance, protest, or whatever else she was feeling at the time, she remains a phen...

The remarkable Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, once wrote, “This hasn’t been the age for the righteous and the decent.  I know what it means to beget monsters  And to recognize in them myself.”  It is an appropriate indictment of our own day and of our own selves. I keep telling myself that what we are experiencing in our country is just a phase, something we have gone through before, where people who turn loathsome and violent, enormously greedy and arrogant, will change. That these dark clouds of hostility hovering over us will pass and the sunlight of decent behavior will shine again. But there is something alarmingly stubborn about the indignity, prejudice, violence, division and hatred among us. We seem stuck in a continuous atmosphere of rancor and bitter estrangement. And it is disturbing and frightening that our leaders seem incapable or not interested in changing the nation’s oppressive mood. Our media, in all of its forms, is clearly geared t...

“It's all a matter of paying attention. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses.” ~ Charles de Lint, Canadian Writer

“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement: that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”  ~ Sigmund Freud

In the Netflix series, “Jack Taylor,” ex-cop Jack Taylor is a rebellious, hard drinking, scruffy guy who plays by his own rules, which are often questionable. Although he’s no longer a police officer, fired for unruly conduct, he still stumbles into situations where people need and want his help with some crime that’s been committed. He doesn’t always solve them, and he leaves plenty of debris along the way. He has a tough, rugged presence. And he’s a mess of a person. But inside the man, there beats a true heart for humanity. He lives in Mrs. Bailey’s Bed and Breakfast. It’s a lovely place that you would not expect to see the likes of Jack Taylor. But Mrs. Bailey took Jack in when he was disgracefully dismissed from the police force. He loved being a cop/detective. He fought for the underdog and the forgotten and the cheated. And the loss of his job sent him spiraling into a drunken bewilderment. He had no income but at Mrs. Bailey’s he found safety, welcome, clean sheets, an...

"True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others." —   Edward O. Wilson , Harvard Professor/Pulitzer Prize Winner Author

 "It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it." ~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Writer/Mystic

The crisis in Syria is basically a civil war. It is a power struggle between conflicting ideologies. It started as an uprising against Assad’s dictatorship and a small faction attempting to have something like democracy without knowing what that really meant for them. Now, however, it has turned into something else. The rebel forces are apparently a jumble of insurgents including members of Al-Qaeda. So if we go in there and do whatever, blow up some of Assad’s military assets, or even topple the regime, do we want terrorists taking over things? How would a gang of Muslim extremists turning the place into an unbending theocracy be better for the Syrian people? Is President Obama simply trying to save face, hoping to keep from looking weak after making previous threats against Assad’s use of chemical weapons? Even with all of the horror that has gone on, there was no real threat to the U.S. Assad had never made any movement against our country (and neither as the world know...

Standing in front of one of the German death camps while filming a documentary for British television several years ago, Polish/British philosopher Jacob Bronowski said: “This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.” Conformity, everyone believing the same things, doing what you’re told to do no matter if it doesn’t make sense or is immoral or inhuman; believing you alone have all the truth; learning to hate others, to do violence even when you know it isn’t right—these are the trademarks of people who have lost their freedom and their heart; who have become duped into believin...

“Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions.  Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do.” ~ Paul Coelho, Novelist

The Layers By Stanley Kunitz I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? .... Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my...

I was at Starbucks the other day to settle into a vanilla latte and do a little catching up on my reading. I’m trying to finish Tana French’s “The Likeness.” Which by the way is a fantastic novel. I was struck by how nearly everyone in the room was on their phone. Even couples or groups of people sitting together; they were all texting, or doing some kind of data or app stuff. No one was talking. Except one lone woman who was on her phone going on and on to an invisible person on the other end having some insipid discussion about flooring. Apparently she was remodeling her extravagant kitchen and couldn’t decide on a pattern or color or whatever. I’m not judging. I do it too. Check my email. Send texts. Search websites. Download tunes. We are all constantly on our phones. No one though really talks to anyone anymore. Our society is sick with inattention, blather, bullshit, indifference, blocked emotions, blank stares, or being lost in some smart phone fog. We really...