The Unclad Soul

The burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France this week captured the attention of the world. Immediately afterward, billionaires came forward to donate millions of dollars to restore the historic church. Stunned crowds formed near the Cathedral for days. People wept. They looked on in alarm, broken-hearted by the scene. What was it about that event that created so much emotional sorrow and distress? Some have criticized the news coverage, the horror of people, and even the billionaire donors, saying it was after all just a building. And a building in disrepair, vulnerable to just such a tragedy. No one’s faith was destroyed in the fire. No one, thankfully, was injured. Most of the historic pieces of art were saved. The basic structure remains. Why then were so many so upset? For me, it was the desecration of beauty. Though the fire seems to have been accidental, it still destroyed significant parts of a masterpiece of architecture, genius, and skill. ...

Poet Andres Fernandez has written, “Do not just slay your demons, dissect them, and find what they have been feeding on.” This is the work of therapy. Although you could attempt it on your own as well. The best therapists are insightful listeners. They help us talk about what is bothering us, what may be haunting or disturbing or frightening us that we have been unable to either admit or face. Within the protection of the therapist’s office, we are able to confidently say what we might not otherwise be able to say to anyone else. There is enormous freedom in that if we are indeed able to experience it, to open up and say what we feel. “I hate my parents but I pretend I love them.” “I’m having an affair.” “I drink too much.” “I am terrified that someone at work will see how incompetent I really am.” “I can’t stand my husband/wife.” “My kids have completely disappointed me.” “I was sexually abused as a child.” “I am afraid I will be abandoned by those who love me.” T...

Science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov once wrote, “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”   It’s a valid appeal. I grew up assuming a lot of things that turned out to be wrong. For years, I failed to scrub those assumptions so I could see more light. Born into a conservative Christian home where church was everything, I was taught a simplistic viewpoint of the world. People were sinners but they could be saved from their sins if they accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. All it took was a simple prayer of faith and miraculously Jesus would come into your heart and you would be a new person. No one told me that even if you did this you would still have to work at being good. I assumed, believing what I was taught, that you just automatically started doing the right things, since Jesus was in you and he was basically running the show. Somehow, though, I kept bumping into myself. The fait...

The firing of former FBI Director, James Comey, by president Trump has turned into some kind of alternative universe. The political arena, the media and much of the nation have lost their minds over this. Comey was not fired because president Trump is trying to cover up any ties to him and the Russians and the last election. It’s not about Hilary, either, and her ubiquitous emails. It’s not because Attorney General Jeff Beauregard Sessions told him to do it. What the firing of Comey was about is psychology 101. It’s about Mr. Trump’s gaping insecurity, his paranoia, and his not just demand but neurotic need, for total and unequivocal loyalty. When James Comey refused to comply with that, he was removed. What we are seeing is The Apprentice being played out in the White House by celebrity tycoon Donald Trump. There is no governing going on. There are no polices to legislate. Hundreds of important positions in government have not been filled. Chaos monopolizes everything. Wh...

“Outside the freezing desert night, This other night grows warm, kindling.” ~ Rumi

I am making my way through the AMC Mad Men series. I saw the original series when it first came out almost ten years ago. Now I’m watching it again on Netflix. I knew what I was in for. Since the presidential election I have been trying to better understand myself, others, and my country. The ugly bitterness of the election left me emotionally exhausted, and frankly, disappointed in people in general. I didn’t follow the chaos on Twitter, but Facebook was a primeval jungle of crude squabbling, angry rants, malicious name calling, and endless acts of blocking and unfriending people. Some of them relatives and close friends. So after all of that, I decided to wander into Mad Men, the perfect setting for seeing the absolute worst in human hurt, pettiness, jealously, manipulation and betrayal. I thought that there, I might get some understanding of why, in certain circumstances, we sink, almost unconsciously and hopelessly, into such abysmal and damaging behavior. Don Draper, ...

I visited my brother, Jim, in Oklahoma City this week. I have mentioned here that he has myotonic dystrophy, a slow degenerative disease of the muscles. He fell a few months ago and has been recovering. He is now in a nursing center and will not be able to return to his home where he lived alone. Because the lungs are muscles too, his are weak and failing. So he is on oxygen now around the clock. He wears one of those small tubes inserted in his nostrils that wrap around his ears. You don’t notice it after a while. I hope he doesn’t either, though at times, his breathing is labored. He does notice that, as I do, and my heart wilts momentarily for him until the air returns smoothly again. We had a good visit. We of course talked politics, how does anyone avoid that after the national shame we’ve all endured? He did not vote. He was struggling with his injury and simply was not able to absentee vote. But we talked about how he would have voted and how I voted. It was a good disc...

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever”, he told the boy. “You might want to think about that.” “You forget some things, don’t you?” the boy said. “Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”  ― From The Road , by Cormac McCarthy 

“By things so achingly small are lives measured and marred.”  ~ Guy Gavriel Kay, Canadian Novelist

From the Desiderata by poet Max Erhmann – A line a day for the remaining Holiday season: “Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.”

"Your childhood memories — the words you use to describe them and the feelings you attach to them — say volumes about who you are and how you live today." – Kevin Leman & Randy Carlson, Unlocking the Secrets of Your Childhood Memories

"There is a loveliness to life that does not fade. Even in the terrors of the night, there is a tendency toward grace that does not fail." ~ Robert Goolrick, Novelist

Before anything else is said this needs to be said. Suicide is not a stain on anyone’s name or life. Suicide is a human tragedy and like any death we mourn it as an incalculable loss. There are many reasons, often legitimate reasons, why someone chooses to take their own life. It is not a cowardly act. I can’t imagine anything more difficult to do.  And the truth is we all have the right to that choice if we decide to take it. I’ve heard all of the clichéd prohibitions to suicide and I reject them all. Religious people have often been carelessly insensitive about this, condemning suicide as a sin. Sincere but misguided ministers, of all faiths, and others can be too quick to weigh down the families of suicide members with guilt and shame claiming it an unforgivable act and making references to Judas selling out Jesus and then hanging himself. Death is always a deep human loss in whatever form it comes. Suicide should not be compartmentalized into some extreme form of d...

Let us give action to our finest impulses, people of this great free land… Let us be superior to our fears, to the easy prejudices, to the ugly urge to hate, to the poison of arrogance, to the quick judgment, to the coward’s tactic of bullying, to the stubbornness of always being right, and to all things that demean, and discredit, that hurt and ruin, that drag all of us away from our giant selves so capable of love… Let us lift our voices in praise of life, in celebration of the human spirit that wants, that craves, that needs goodness… Let us fall on our knees in awe of children, of the wise, of the brave, of the undaunted… Let us clap our hands and stand in honor of soldiers and teachers, of librarians and therapists, of gardeners and wait staff, of flight attendants and firemen, of street vendors and retail clerks, of nursing aids and grill cooks, of bartenders and stay at home moms… Let us speak up for the u...