The Unclad Soul

The recent killing spree at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, by Marine vet, Ian David Long, was a chilling reminder of the war mentality promoted by our government. Long walked into the bar and murdered 12 people, mostly young patrons, before taking his own life. He posted on his Facebook page before going to the bar, “Yeah…I’m insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is ‘hopes and prayers’ or ‘keep you in my thoughts’…every time…and wonder why these keep happening.” Wonder if anyone in the government will hear that? Wonder if all the NRA supports got the message? Ironically, the mother of one of the young people murdered at the bar told reporters she didn’t want anyone’s prayers, what she wanted was gun regulation. Wonder if anyone in the government will pay any attention to that? Ian David Long was not insane, but he certainly was profoundly disturbed. He returned from military conflict lost in a fog of unresolved rage and the damaging ps...

In her searing memoir, “Hope Against Hope,” Nadezhda Mandelstam wrote, “I decided it is better to scream.” Then she wrote, “Silence is the real crime against humanity.” She knew something about pain, horror, death. Her husband, a gifted poet, suffered endless persecution under Stalin. He died on his way to the Siberian gulag, humiliated and alone in the cold. She tells his story of sorrow in her memoir. After this week’s school murders in Santa Fe, Texas, even screaming seems useless. And though silence, too, is no solution, and worse, very well a crime in the face of so much bloodshed, one is nevertheless left in feelings of stone silence. What else can be said? We’re all tired of the empty religious jumble. Prayers and accepting God’s Will and all of that. Doesn’t work for me. It blasphemes anyone’s true faith. Our politicians have lost all sense of reality. They live in some cocoon of their own making, hiding from these horrific, senseless, obscene killings. Th...

The Syrian conflict defies reason. What is it about? No one knows. The Syrian government, the Russian government, the US government, and ISIS terrorists—we are all a part of a bloody, inhumane slaughter of innocents. Our news sources are unreliable. We really have no idea what is going on. We see the devastation and the carnage, the heartbreaking chaos, and suffering. But it all goes around in vicious cycles of obscene violence and endless death and no one has any explanation or solution. Other than who can be the most ferocious in war. Our entire political leadership, from President Trump and the full Congress, all the way down to state governments, Texas most notably, are so arrogantly polarized, so consumed with indifference to real life and death issues, to actual living people, that they have nothing helpful or in any way substantial to offer a warring world. Yes, someone is responsible for the chemical explosion in Syria that brought horrifying misery and excruciatin...

Last Sunday night I attended what was called a Candle Light Vigil for Syria.  My friend Charlie Johnson who spoke at the event invited me.  Charlie is the pastor of Bread Fellowship in Fort Worth and had been tweeting for weeks about the tragedy in Syria.  Some Dallas Syrians picked up his tweets and invited him to join in the vigil and to share his thoughts. Around 9pm about 75 people gathered at the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas to remember the ongoing suffering of the people of Syria who live under the endless brutality of the Assad regime. Descriptions of some of the horrors of the conflict were read.  Poems and prayers were given.  People lit candles and raised them in solidarity.  There were speakers, including Charlie, whose own words were calm and encouraging but passionate and wise. As far as I could tell Charlie and I were the only ones there who were not of Syrian descent.  I had hoped there might be a more di...