The Unclad Soul

If I was told there was a bomb in my building and I had five minutes to evacuate my apartment I’d grab a grocery bag and quickly toss these items into it: 1. A photo of my grandparents, Mom and Pop and me, when I was 15 years old. I learned what love is made of from them. I learned what it is to be kissed on and hugged in arms so tender they felt like God’s arms. I discovered self worth from those two angels in human flesh. Of all the people in my life, they were the ones who made me feel I counted. Honestly, whatever capacity I have to love others came from them. 2. A sentimental, dog-eared, stars in the margin copy of Pat Conroy’s, “The Prince of Tides.” It is a book I have read three times and often return to for its wisdom. It is a harsh, profoundly tragic novel, the story of a family so broken and tortured by such flawed and wounded people that it is sometimes difficult to turn the next page. And yet it is the story of such Herculean courage and endurance that you want...

The religious theme, if you can actually call it that, running through this ongoing presidential campaign, is revealing a worrisome truth. And that is that we have a lot of misguided thinking in this country about religion. Many of our very religious sounding politicians today keep telling us what a dangerous threat Iran is to us. But what seems to be completely lost on them is that the government of Iran is a theocracy led by religious leaders who have made their sacred teachings the law of the land. And any violation of those teachings is strictly punishable by brutal and sometimes fatal consequences. There is a cruel and shameful trail of abuse and horror throughout history when religion has attempted to control the lives of all people. Catholics, Christians, Muslims, and Jews have all contributed to those grim periods in history when people were victimized by obsessive and extremist religious beliefs and the leaders who demanded faithfulness to them. The distinguished Sup...

The Layers By Stanley Kunitz I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? .... Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my...

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...