The Unclad Soul

There is a brokenness in our society, a pervasive moral collapse, a reckless disregard for community, neighborliness, courtesy, and compassion. Our government leads by this example. Both parties are incompetent to guide us into a more responsible living, into a serviceable structure of humanity. Our leaders are dominated by greedy oligarchs who don’t just want more, they want everything, even if it costs our society its dignity, its soul, even its future. What is on display here daily is a wretched lack of self-esteem. The loss now influences all of us. We’re all affected in ways that keep us shamed by our actions. When we feel powerless, aimless, without any higher goals than the accumulation of things and the momentary thrill, we then mute our intelligence. We live by raw emotions—anger, appetite, urges. We don’t think, we don’t consider, we merely react. We push. We disregard. We threaten. We act out. And we fail. Self-esteem is a learned process. It builds on gen...

This beautiful land of ours. The old cities. The towns and neighborhoods. All once so incredible with their highways and their landmarks, their lakes and parks, their schools and churches, their giant buildings and small country stores. There were good jobs with fair pay and opportunities for promotion and advancement. Most of that is vanishing under the weight of high tech jobs, computerized gadgets and mind consuming e-toys, expensive big vehicles, high rise condos, billion dollar sports stadiums, interconnecting gyrations of freeways with vast concrete loops, and relentless urban sprawl. It’s all gobbling us up in a net of human indifference, aloofness, rage, and ill will toward one another. What we once accomplished astounds the imagination. Across our creative history other nations have envied our freedoms, have marveled at our productivity and ingenuity, have seen as sacred our humanity and compassion. There are reasons why people all over the world have wanted to li...

There are basically two kinds of fear. One is a healthy, informed fear. The other is a neurotic, uninformed fear. If I see an oncologist about various symptoms of dizziness, blackouts, severe nausea and other physiological issues and the doctor after a series of tests tells me I have a massive malignant and inoperable tumor on my spine, I have a legitimate right to be fearful. The facts are in and I must face them. If on the other hand I wake up with a painful stomach ache and spend the day believing I have stomach cancer, then my fear is irrational and probably meaningless. I have nothing to base my fear on except my own neurotic worries that I am dying. This is where we are in America politically and religiously. Huge numbers of our citizens are living in the worst kind of hysterical, obsessive fear based on nothing more than their own gut feelings, and of course, the maddening, overwrought deceitfulness and hype of various forms of media that keep telling us we’re all a...

Fear is a paralyzing, crippling emotion.  It takes all of the joy of spontaneous living out of us.  It keeps us off the paths of adventure and exploration.  It turns us sour on life and people.  It makes cowards of us. I was a very fearful boy.  I was afraid of the water and didn’t learn to swim until I took a beginning swim class in college.  I was determined to conquer that fear that had kept me out of so many fun and happy moments growing up.  And in spite of the embarrassment and terror of facing three mornings a week an Olympic size pool with a 15 foot deep end, I did learn to swim.  I was the only non-swimmer in a class of 50 guys.  I couldn’t even dog paddle.  But in the last week of class I had to dive into the deep end, tread water for 2 minutes, and then swim to the other end.  I did all of it and that class of guys lined the pool and watched and applauded when I finished and stood up out of the shallow end.  I ...

And so the world goes on in its complexities, in its bewilderment. And we in America contribute to it one way or another. Violence does a number on the innocent in places so absent of hope so bankrupt of the slightest respect for human life that finally the dignity of people turns stale and then sours and life crawls in despair for all of them.  And this happens in the ghettos of Chicago as well as the bloody streets of Syria. War still carries the day, still gets all the attention, still struts in defiance of everything decent and humane and sucks dry the economies of the oppressed while boosting with endless bounty the finances of those who ride this beastly machine to their fortunes. The shrillest, pettiest, most shameless acts of selfishness and greed and blatant lying unfold daily in places of governance, not just in evil empires and far off places of darkness but right here in our own political campaigns, among people running for the highest offices in America, an...

"The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized." ~ Tom Robbins, Screenwriter/Novelist Think long and carefully about this quote. Because this is where were are in America today. There are very conservative politicians and religious leaders today doing everything in their power to get us to be blind followers, hapless sheep, plodding along a path of mediocrity and sameness they have set out before us. They want our unwavering...