The Unclad Soul

I would encourage every American to watch the Ken Burns series, The West. It is available on Netflix and PBS. What you learn from this extraordinary documentary is that the White Man has, from the beginning of his presence here, done everything in his power to prevent first, the Native American Indians, then the Mexicans, then the Blacks, then the Asians, from ever being given the right to be legally assimilated into the free function of American society. The White Man is an immigrant. Unless you have Native American blood in you, you did not come from this land. Your ancestors brought you here from somewhere else. Whites came to this country from Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa. This land did not belong to them, they stumbled onto it and then they took it to be their own. Many came here fleeing religious persecution, poverty, disease, lack of economic opportunity, and the freedom to build a life for themselves and their families. ...

I visited with my brother Jim yesterday and, as always when I see him, I left deeply reflecting on life. “The world,” Helen Keller once said, “is full of suffering; but also, the overcoming of it.” It is difficult to watch the news and see the horror in the Middle East. There is so much suffering and death there. And yet, people somehow survive it. Refugees walk hundreds of miles, pile their families and a few belongings into small boats to cross treacherous waters in hope of finding safety. They enter strange countries where now they are often unwelcome, mistreated, harmed or sent back to the nightmare they fled. How do they do it? How do they go on? The human spirit, though fragile, often shocks us with its undeterred courage. And here, in our country, minorities still struggle to be free. Free of discrimination, injustice, abuse, and hate. That our black friends still, after all these years, have to fight for basic rights is a stain on our democracy. Yet, they carry on,...

“War has no longer the justification that it makes for the survival of the fittest; it involves the survival of the less fit. The idea that the struggle between nations is a part of the evolutionary law of man's advance involves a profound misreading of the biological analogy. The warlike nations do not inherit the earth; they represent the decaying human element.” ~ Norman Angell, British Economist/Author We need a progressive president and leaders in this country who will refuse to fund giant billionaire munitions and drone companies and a bloated war machine and work for real peace between nations and people. We have become far too accepting of the slaughter of innocents all over the world, all in the name of national security. The refugee crisis in Syria, Iraq, and other countries is a shameful obscenity. These people, mostly families, are fleeing for their lives. They have lost everything. When will we have leaders who actually believe in protecting humanity, not destr...

I am a liberal Democrat. I am a Christian. I am a humanist. I believe in Choice. I support Gay Marriage. I believe in gay rights. I believe in reasonable gun laws including background checks at Gun Shows before a purchase is made. I believe in children. I believe in grand parenting. I believe in laughter and kissing and hugging and love. I believe in thinking, in using your mind and not just your emotions, which are often accurate, but can be easily manipulated. I believe in books. Books are guides into mystery and morality, into wisdom and insight, into gratitude and generosity, into acceptance and endurance, into risk and living, and we need all of that. I believe in pets because whether it’s a dog or a cat or a bird or a turtle it invites compassion from us and can make us a more decent person if we treat it with care and affection. I believe in the sacred which has the power to move and even transform us. Nature is sacred. Seasons are sacred. So is the ocean. Quiet worship before ...

While the Paris nightmare was going on last weekend I was safe in Los Angeles with my son Caleb and my daughter-in-law Kameron and my little grandchildren Avery and Austin. It was the weekend of Avery’s 6 th birthday and we all had such a nice time together. I caught glimpses of the terrorist attack on my phone and here and there on television. Late at night before I went to sleep I would check the Internet on my phone to see the latest details. My heart was broken by the tragedies in Paris. So many people killed on a lovely Friday evening while sitting in bistros and cafes or attending a concert or the theater. I thought of how precarious life is, and how fragile. I thought of all of those who didn’t get to go home to their loved ones that night. And the many still severely wounded and hospitalized. The agony of it all, the loss, is still with me. In the meantime I was surrounded by love. Caleb and Austin picked me up from the airport Thursday and as I got into the car I hea...