The Unclad Soul

I have asked this before, but I still want to know. What does any of it mean? Why are we here? Why do we so easily give in to hate and resist giving in to love? Why is aggression okay but the way of peace is not?   Why are we all so afraid? And of what? Are we, as religion teaches, just evil at heart? Are we already ruined at birth? Is it in our DNA to make wrong choices, so that we require an outside force, God or Karma or Allah or whomever, to coerce us to do good, through threats of punishment, suffering, damnation, and hell? Are we not able to do that on our own without being forced? I believe we are. I know too many good, decent people who are not driven by evil and selfishness. But unfortunately, they are always overshadowed, especially today, by an ugly, arrogant, mean-spirited crowd of self-aggrandizers, who are bitter, angry people. People obsessed with fears and prejudices and resentments. These people are all around us. In the government. In the media. ...

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. ...

Let me see if I can say this another way. HELP!! I’m trying. I’m trying like crazy to be reasonable about our country. What am I missing? What is it about our nasty national mood that seems okay with so many people? Can we agree that it’s not a good way to live if we hate others? Can we say it’s alright to try and get along with people of another race, another religion than ours, a different sexual orientation, people from other countries and cultures? Isn’t that the smart thing to do? Or, if you like this better, the Christian thing to do? Why is hate thought to be such a formidable force and love is considered weakness? What is it that makes us want to be macho, keep our guns close, to be seen as invincible, to be the badass in the crowd; while being a person of integrity, a man of character, a gentle person with compassion is seen as some kind of wimp, a pantywaist to be dismissed as a coward? I can’t get that Old Testament verse out of my head, the one where th...

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue,” sings Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. “And the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true.” If only it were that simple, to fly above the chaos, past the rainbow, where the sky is clear blue, so rich in color it almost burns your eyes. A place where “troubles melt like lemon drops, way above the chimney tops.” We can go there, perhaps in meditation, in prayer, in deeper thought in some place of quiet and calm. A seashore. A park bench. A library. A garden of flowers. A walk through lush trees. A church sanctuary. Those can be times of healing, restoration, invigoration, insight, and learning. It was the brilliant naturalist, Thoreau, who wrote, “Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk in love and reverence.” That’s an idea worthy of practice. Whatever religion you follow has a similar viewpoint. Judaism calls for an intelligent mind. Buddhism asks us to honor Karma and seek rebi...

(Note: This may be hard to take, but I think it's necessary. - TM) President Trump took his road show to Houston, Texas this week. He was there to support the Senate candidacy of Ted Cruz. However, he barely mentioned Cruz. Most of the speech was about, as usual, himself. One of the most disturbing things he said was a threat to send the military to the border to stop what he calls “the caravan” of refugees from Honduras and Guatemala from entering the U.S. First of all, he cannot legally do that. There is an Act that prohibits the military from engaging in civilian law enforcement outside of military bases (The Posse Comitatus Act). And secondly, really? Just ignore these desperate people? Without the slightest proof and with a desire to continue to scare his base, he claimed gangs, murderers, rapists, and terrorists are basically the people in the caravan. “We don’t want them,” he yelled to the crowd, who of course cheered and applauded. I don’t care to go on ab...

There is a moving scene in Season 2, Episode 12, of The Handmaid's Tale. And there aren't a lot of them in this series. Two young people in the camp--a girl, in a loveless marriage to Commander Waterford's driver, and a young man, a worker within the Republic of Gilead-- attempt to run off and experience love as best they can. But they are found and brought back to face execution, the punishment in the totalitarian state for both adultery and escape. They are taken to an Olympic size swimming pool on the grounds. All the Handmaids, the "Aunts," staff and others fill the bleachers inside as though it's some kind of sporting event. The couple each have their hands shackled and each is linked to their own heavy steel ball and chain. As often happens in The Handmaid's Tale, scripture is dramatically read and misused to justify their deaths. They are then thrown into the deep end of the pool and drowned. The camera pans the bleachers where ...

The Hulu series, The Handmaid’s Tale, is a scalding, brutal, at times sickening portrayal of life in some future totalitarian and theocratic state in New England known as Gilead. The storylines are so reprehensible they leave one churning with rage and shattered with sorrow. They offer a glimpse into a horrifying future that may not be impossible to imagine. Gilead is growing childless. Those in charge have devised a way to repopulate the state. Women of childbearing age are simply taken off the streets or out of their homes and proclaimed handmaids for commanders, slick and morally compromised men who have wives unable to conceive. A handmaid is chosen for them, even if she is already married and has children of her own. They are permanently separated from her. She has no rights. Her only existence is to serve the elite couple she is assigned to. The lead character in this inhuman existence is June (Elizabeth Moss), whose name is changed to Offred. Once a month, in the mo...

I have a friend in Los Angeles who asked me to partner with her on a book project. She is a bright, gifted writer, with a personal story of pain and abuse. She is a gay woman who grew up in a strict Christian home filled with rules and moral demands. Though she knew at a young age she was gay, she had no way of processing that with her parents. When she finally did come out to them, which was an act of enormous courage, she was rebuked, sent to a physician who sexually abused her, and later was put in a mental facility to be treated, not for the abuse she endured, but because she was gay. She grew up in the church, attending services three times a week, doing her best to follow all the rules while still trying to deal with her sexual identity. The church provided no support for her struggle. No affirmation for her as a gay person. Only condemnation. Her parents participated in her rejection. She eventually left home, estranged from her family, and deeply hurt and bitter to...

Clergyman, author, and professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School, Halford Luccock, used to tell the story of a father who took his young son camping. At one point the father handed his son binoculars so he could better see the beauty of a mountain range. But the boy took the binoculars and looked through them from the wrong end. He complained that everything seemed so small, that he couldn’t make anything out. His father turned them around and said, “Now, you can see things as they are.” I read that story years ago and have never forgotten it. It seems an appropriate example of the error of our day. We seem, as a society, to be looking through the wrong end of the binoculars. Everything is small, insignificant, trite, unclear. We have no grand vision, no breathtaking sense of the beauty of our world and its people. We have lost our perspective. The gifted historian and novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was a voice of courage and truth against the old Soviet Union. Hi...

I saw him as I pumped gas in my car at the Shell Station. It was hot outside and he was sitting in the shade in front of the convenience store. An older man, thin, African American, with a scruffy two or three-day growth of white stubble and shaggy salt and pepper hair. As I walked into the convenience store to get a soft drink he smiled at me with uneven teeth. There was a warmth in his smile. He didn’t ask for anything. But I knew he was there to accept any change anyone might give him. I returned to my air-conditioned car and stared at him for a minute. As I drove out I went around to where he was and rolled down my window. I motioned for him to come over. He slowly got up and walked to my car. “Yes sir?” he said. I handed him some cash and said, “What is your name, friend?“ He said, “Carl.” I said, “You have a good day, Carl.” He smiled and put his hands together and bowed and said, “Oh, God bless you, sir. God bless you.” I don’t know his situation. But whatever it is I f...

Kant, the brilliant German philosopher, wrote, “Wisdom is organized life.” That is genius. And that is what we are missing today; organized life. Well, genius, too. Everything is a mess. Our president. Congress. Religion. Education. The economy. The environment. It’s all a disorganized, sloppy jumble of ideas and chaotic priorities. And our own lives reel in the confusion. We lack wisdom. We are missing any real guiding principles. What do we represent as a people, as a nation, other than angry personal divisions, a shallow obsession with materialism, empty religion, and a contorted political system that only works for affluent, well-connected individuals and corporations? Our major social platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter can be places of real connection, family photos, invites to fun events, cute videos of pets, helpful news and interesting pieces of art, essays, and great music. But too often these are also places of vitriol, rage, bullying, bigo...

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...

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...

The election in Alabama yesterday to replace Senate Republican Jeff Sessions ended another high profile, tawdry political race, one that reminds us of how far our political system has fallen into disgrace. Roy Moore, a controversial evangelical firebrand, a man who had twice been removed from office as an Alabama Supreme Court justice, for blatantly ignoring federal laws, and who reportedly was banned from a mall for spooking teenage girls, and who was accused by various adult women of having made inappropriate advances toward them when they were teens, centered his campaign, unbelievably, on Christian principles. Moore made a career of using religion to bolster the support of Christians for his political ambitions. And for years it worked. But apparently many voters got tired of the hypocrisy and the manipulation and rejected him. Including a large number of Black voters who courageously stood up to Moore’s shoddy politics that were often prejudicial and intolerant of minorit...

I have confessed here before that I was in a career I often didn’t understand or felt suited for. I was a Baptist minister for more than 20 years. I met some loving, beautiful people in those years. I dedicated babies. I watched toddlers turn into teens and I loved them all. Some of them I married with spouses I thought were perfect for them. Many are still together with children of their own. In my last congregation, I spent nearly 14 years with people I adored. Some of them are still my closest friends. There were, of course, tough years, times when my own search for an authentic theology and philosophy of ministry clashed with the long-held traditional beliefs of some of our church members. By the time I arrived at my last congregation I no longer had any interest in building huge numbers, baptizing people in some kind of competition with other churches, and creating worship that was hyped, emotional, something similar to cheerleading and entertainment. That was not for me....