The Unclad Soul

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 ...

The uproar over Roseanne Barr’s ugly comment about Valerie Jarrett is getting the attention it deserves. I’m only a small shell on a giant seashore but let me say I applaud ABC for their courageous decision to cancel Roseanne’s show. It takes true integrity to put a successful company’s core values over a TV series that was producing multimillions of dollars of advertising. Whatever other motives the network may have had, they certainly proved they were willing to lose a highly profitable show in order to stand on the side of common decency and intolerance of racist comments from one of their most popular stars. Let’s look at it once again. Roseanne Barr, responding to a comment about President Obama’s former advisor, Valerie Jarrett, tweeted: “muslim brotherhood and planet of the apes had a baby=vj.” If you can find a way to defend that statement, I’m afraid you have crossed the boundaries of rational thought. Just a joke, you say? Everyone does it? Others have said worse...

In the wild and violent HBO series, Deadwood, the Reverend H.W. Smith (Raymond McKinnon) seems oddly out of place. In the midst of Gold Rush outlaws and moral misfits, he is a tall, gentle man, with a kind heart. Deadwood is a savagely unmanageable town in the Black Hills of South Dakota. And Reverend Smith, an upright mystic, and a man of the Bible, struggles to extend the goodness of God to the ruthless and the wicked. A smallpox plague strikes the town and “Preacher” Smith works tirelessly to aid the sick and the dying ignoring the risks of contagion. He somehow escapes the plague but then is afflicted with epilepsy and eventually insanity. In his illness, he finds comfort in the piano playing at the Gem Saloon and Brothel. He is seen there hugging his weathered Bible, his eyes glassy and bleak, smiling broadly with his head raised to heaven and his body weaving to the music. The bar owner, the incorrigible Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), tells the preacher he can’t be...

I suppose nearly everyone has now heard of Keaton Jones, the Tennessee middle school boy whose mom’s video of him went viral. Keaton apparently has had surgery for a cleft pallet that sometimes interferes with his speech and his appearance, although he’s a handsome boy with bright eyes. After kids at school made fun of his nose, called him ugly, and said he didn’t have any friends, they then poured milk on him in the lunchroom. Broken hearted and ashamed, his mom came to school to pick him up. Thankfully, celebrities and others have covered him with affirmation and offers of friendship. He knows now he’s not stupid or ugly. And what child doesn’t need to know that, always? As parents, we have the moral and human responsibility to teach our children to treat all children with respect and care. I don’t know where the teachers or monitors were when this boy was being so mistreated, but the real responsibility for bullying others lies directly at the feet of those of us wh...

Cultural critic and novelist, Daniel Quinn, has written, “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world…they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.“ Some of us grew up in a time when the church, the school, the government, and society at large, gave us a story to believe that asked us to live in accord with the world. There were always pockets of cynics, bullies, bigots and screwballs who rebelled and remained trouble makers attempting to divide people and communities. But for the most part, people tried to get al...

Lee Atwater was the infamous Republican strategist for both President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Atwater made a career of dirty politics using highly effective but dishonorable skills to distort the positions of political opponents, smear their character, and basically humiliate and decimate them. He was not shy either about using racial and ethnic slurs and innuendos. Brash and often offensive he reveled in the political battles he created. At the height of his political career he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. A year later at age 40 he would be dead. The powerhouse bully, the supposedly brilliant political tactician, the guy who was feared by Democrats as well as Republicans, was reduced to the limits of a body and mind broken and dying. In the last months of his life he dropped all of the sneering hate and crippling abuse he had dished out to opponents. Humbled by the awareness of his own humanity and the stark reality of how fragile and momentary life can b...

I had lunch recently with my friend Andy Morrison. Andy is in his early 40s and has Asperger’s Syndrome. Asperger’s falls within the autism spectrum of developmental disorders. The condition involves the development of basic skills such as communication and socialization. In people with Asperger’s these skills are delayed and complex in their functions. People with Asperger’s may display eccentric behavior, a preoccupation with specific subjects or rituals, a limited range of interests, and most noticeably problems with social skills. Andy struggles with all of these difficulties. But one major difference is his vast intelligence. He is a voracious reader with a photographic memory. He fully understands language, has a phenomenal vocabulary, and an encyclopedic mind. I learn from him every time we meet. But his inability to naturally interact with others often trips him up and keeps him frustrated. It is simply a part of the Asperger’s and he struggles against it as best he ca...

An incident at the recent Missouri State Fair is getting quite a bit of attention. During the bull riding event a clown appeared wearing a ragged sport coat and a cartoon mask of President Obama. The announcer asked the crowd if they wanted to see Obama “run down by a bull.” The crowd cheered and then the announcer said, “We’re going to smoke Obama, man.” At one point another clown walked up and started flapping the lips on the mask. The crowd howled with laughter. The incident was recorded by an eyewitness and then shared with some news sources. Not everyone thought the stunt was funny. The governor of the state and other Republicans and Democrats stated their strong objection to the way President Obama was characterized and disrespected. A spokesperson for the State Fair later issued an apology. But of course the damage had been done and hundreds of families and children watched the spectacle of our nation’s president being made fun of and derided and the clown impersonating...