The Unclad Soul

While looking out my office window the other day a Cardinal landed very gracefully on my window sill. Dressed in its flaming red feathers with its black mask around its face it just sat there staring at me. I waited for it to say something. Most birds bob their heads around in a kind of jerky way looking up and down and around. But this one kept its head very still and just looked right at me. It seemed very intent as though it was bringing me a message. I couldn’t help thinking: what a majestic creature. I said hello and it flew away. Only the male Cardinal is covered in brilliant red. The female wears a very fashionable tan and gray and they are beautiful, too. Cardinals are considered songbirds because they love to sing. They are very social, too, and are often found in groups of other birds different from their own species. I guess that striking color gives them a sense of presence. Like one of those people who always seems to fit in any crowd. I suppose it would...

I was watching these beautiful young people from Greece being interviewed on the news the other night. They were so bright and articulate and attractive, so full of life in the midst of the harsh austerity measures and turmoil going on in their country. They seemed caught in looks of not exactly fear but of hesitation, of simply not being sure what will be next for them. The world is going through a turbulent time of change and transition. So much of Europe is caught in furious winds of upheaval. The economies of Greece, Germany, England, Italy, and others are, like our own, shaky and unpredictable at the moment. We’re all facing enormous challenges. People in countries like Egypt, Syria, Russia, and Libya are demanding a new way of life. The past for them is obsolete, intolerable. They want more freedom, a fairer economy, cultural renewal, and a political system that is open and without the domination of cruel and corrupt dictators and demagogues. Africa, in spite of smal...

The Archipelago of Kisses We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don't grow on trees, like in the old days. So where does one find love? When you're sixteen it's easy, like being unleashed with a credit card in a department store of kisses. There's the first kiss. The sloppy kiss. The peck. The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we shouldn't be doing this kiss. The but your lips taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss. The I wish you'd quit smoking kiss. The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad sometimes kiss. The I know your tongue like the back of my hand kiss. As you get older, kisses become scarce. You'll be driving home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road, with its purple thumb out. If you were younger, you'd pull over, slide open the mouth's red door just to see how it fits. Oh where does one find love? If you rub two glances, you get a smile. Rub two smiles, you...

I attended Ingrid’s 4th & 5th grade Valentine's Dance last night at Larry G. Smith Elementary. She had been talking about this for weeks and wanted to know if she could go. Of course she could, I said. And she was so excited. But then I asked if parents were going and if I could go, too. She said she wasn’t sure about that and would have to get back to me. I asked if she would be embarrassed if I went with her and she sort of shyly grinned and I so I promised I wouldn’t get out on the dance floor in front of all of her friends and do the Glide, or the Fist Pump, or the Shuffle, or that thing kids today call cwalking. She giggled and said, “Oh Poppy.” Anyway, I bought our tickets and decided to go as a volunteer. I kept telling her she needed to pick out an outfit for the dance but she insisted that she was just going to wear her skinny jeans and “a cute top.” Hmmm, I thought. Okay. So we went to the mall and picked out a cute top which she didn’t end up wearing a...

In honor of African American History Month, a quote from Dr. King: "Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Every morning when I leave my apartment complex I have to cross into a busy flow of four lanes of traffic to go pick up my little princess Ingrid and take her to school. Some mornings it is a daunting task crossing the incoming traffic and getting over to the other side going the opposite direction where I need to be. Most Dallas drivers are completely insane behind the wheel and morning rush hour only intensifies their frenzied irrational behavior. My particular morning start often feels like a scene out of Mad Max where Mel Gibson is being furiously chased by absolute maniacs. To get it right without missing cars by inches and elevating my blood pressure into near unconsciousness it requires two things: timing and courage. I have to make sure there is plenty of space on both sides to safely move out into an open lane. That’s the timing part. The courage comes in getting the right feeling, seeing a clear way, and then moving the heck out into the quickly closing window of opp...

Ingrid and I were strolling through Macy’s on our way to the food court in NorthPark mall. We walked by the men’s cologne section and I decided to stop to see if there was anything new on the shelves. I sniffed around a few things and finally sprayed on a little True Religion. It’s been around for awhile but I liked the scent. The rest of the afternoon whenever I would get a whiff of the cologne I kept thinking about the whole idea of true religion. I spent a lot of years studying religion, talking and writing about it, trying to figure out its mysteries and contradictions, its deep thoughts and arbitrary rules, its beautiful ideas and ugly prejudices. I am a Christian by family tradition, by parental influence, by focused exposure, by environmental coincidence, and as an adult, by choice. Had I grown up in India or Iran, Africa or China, Russia or Israel, I’m sure I would be something else. I do not believe any of us are destined or foreordained to be a Christian or to fo...