The Unclad Soul

Life is often defined by small acts of goodness, kindness, love. When I was a boy, I had reoccurring bouts of tonsillitis. My tonsils were large and they seemed to be always getting inflamed. Each time, the doctor would prescribe an antibiotic in capsule form. I hated trying to swallow those things. So my maternal grandmother, whom I called Momo and who with my grandfather lived a few blocks from us, would come over each morning that I was sick, open the capsule into a tablespoon, mix in a little honey, and give it to me. “Here, sweetie,” she would say. “Swallow it all at once.” It went down so easily. In one of the early congregations that I served as a young minister, there was a dear church member, an older woman slightly mentally challenged. Her life had been sadly difficult. Never given a proper education or help with her disability, she floundered but somehow made a life for herself. Every now and then she would bake a loaf of homemade bread for me and my wife. She would...

And what is it that stirs your soul in these maddening days? What melts your heart? What enlivens you? What makes you want to run flat out full speed until out of breath you stop and hold your arms out to the sky? What motivates you to smile, to laugh out loud, to relish the moment with delight? What creates deep inside you, feelings of warmth, of affection, of love? Is it music? Listening to a beautiful song, being moved by the music and the lyrics? Is it reading a captivating book, following some story whether in a novel or some historical setting, that keeps you turning the page? Is it a movie, whether sitting in a theater or watching at home on live streaming TV, a movie that holds you in its spell until the credits run at the end? Is it attending a play, perhaps a musical, like Hamilton, Les Miserables, the Lion King, or some other fantastic performance that soars and enlightens and sends you home emotionally spent, or tingling inside, or singing all t...

On my usual way to lunch to pick up a sandwich at Subway across from the Central Library, I made my way down Canton Street, past the Dog Park at Cesar Chavez Boulevard, around the curve to the intersection at Harwood Street when I saw him. He was a large man with full long greasy hair to his shoulders. I often see him in the area. The First Presbyterian Church's soup kitchen is near that intersection and many days he is sitting or standing along the outside wall. He is always dressed in bulky jeans and a heavy coat and he's always carrying in both hands old plastic sacks full of unidentifiable things. Food perhaps. Or items of clothing. Or maybe just stuff he has found along his daily sidewalk journeys down the lonely streets of the urban city. At the corner of Harwood and Canton (which becomes Young Street) is a small flower garden and fountain just outside the side entrance of the old large First Presbyterian Church. That's where I saw him. Several cars were in front ...