The Unclad Soul

In Kate DiCamillo’s sweet little chapter book, “Because of Winn-Dixie,” ten-year-old Opal takes home a stray dog from her local supermarket and decides to name him after the Winn-Dixie store she found him in. Opal is new in her small town in Florida and is lonely and the ragamuffin dog clearly has been abandoned so the two become a cozy team of shared acceptance, fun and love. Eventually Opal meets the local “witch,” as the neighborhood brats call her.  But Opal, who is not afraid of witches or nearly anything else, delights in Miss Gloria Dump and makes fast friends with her. They are first acquainted when Opal chases Winn-Dixie through the overgrown grass in Miss Dump’s yard.  He had sped away from Opal but she finally finds him in the backyard eating peanut butter out of Gloria Dump’s hand. They greet one another and after sharing a peanut butter sandwich together they sit down to visit.  Miss Dump, who had put in her false teeth so she could eat,...

There is innocence in life that exists not simply within the confines of childhood. It is a spirit within all of us, an impelling urge for something that rings so true within us and within life, something exemplary and authentic, something that feels like goodness, something fragile and tender and loving that we long for it, often and sincerely, and sometimes desperately. The world can be hard and harsh with its obsessive competitiveness and its isolating values that pit people against one another.  This is done in politics and in religion, in school and in work, in neighborhoods and in suburbs everywhere. And what happens is we lose our innocence because we tell ourselves we have to fight to survive.  We have to slug it out and push our way through and not care.  We have to play games of cruel prejudice and of disengaging from those different from us, those not in our social status, those not of our faith, those of a race not our own. Our dislikes begin...

There is a great line in the movie “Levity” where Morgan Freeman, a wildly free-spirited and wounded preacher named Miles Evans, says to Manuel Jordan, a broken man recently out of prison and played by Billy Bob Thornton: “You think God talks to me?  We argue maybe, but He don’t participate.  It’s all right.  I’ll see Him one day.  When I do, I’m gonna whip His holy ass.” I have never forgotten those words.  So honest and human.  So full of the courage of a man who takes God seriously. Today, God isn’t taken seriously.  Not really.  God is used.   God is toyed with.  God is disgraced by the worst kind of cowardice.  God is betrayed by sanctimonious windbags who brag on themselves and pretend the praise is coming from God. Religious people can be some of the most annoying people in the world.  They are often full of crap.  They talk big but then act petty and small.  They quote scriptures not as guid...

For years liberals owned the day.  The amazing leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II guided our country through one of the most difficult periods in our history.  People saw the Democratic Party as the party of the people—the poor, the middle class, immigrants, minorities, and the wealthy.  The succeeding Democratic presidents demonstrated a similar commitment to all Americans.  And more amazing advancements in freedom and opportunity were the result of their leadership. Importantly, Republicans cooperated with these Democratic presidents.  They voiced their opposition at times.  They fought against policies they disagreed with.  But when it came time to work together and get important legislation passed for all of the country, they were willing to do their part.  And many of them contributed their own intelligent and compassionate ideas to the process. Then, somewhere during the 1...

I don’t think many in this country realize how powerful the religious right has become over the past 20 years in terms of their influence on our political system. Some of them are led by greedy posers who are using religion as a way of getting Christian voters to elect candidates who will do the bidding of people who only have their own financial interests in mind.  They are not interested in any kind of religious ideology to follow in their personal lives.  They just want to stay rich and powerful.  And they intend to use the large voting block of gullible very conservative Christians to do it. And then there are leaders who are the truly religious fanatics who have lost touch with the true message of Christianity, which is completely love centered.  These fanatics approach religion in terms of legalistic, rule-oriented, judgmental, punishing thoughts and actions.  There is no joy in their faith, no room for grace or charity, no tolerance of anyone wh...

Dear Mr. Romney, I watched on television at home the final night of your Republican National Convention.  There were certainly some moving moments but there were disappointing ones too.  For me anyway. I thought the older man and woman whose son David you were close to were very sincere and lovely people. I have known people like them in my lifetime and they are genuine and decent in every way.  You were obviously a caring inspiration to them at a very difficult time in their lives. And the woman whose husband and ill daughter you and your wife befriended and loved was a beautiful contribution to your night; so articulate and warmly authentic in her appreciation of you.  But I felt at times these loving people bordered on being exploited in the way they were presented.  The older couple was clearly uncomfortable under the bright lights reading from a teleprompter no doubt for the first time in their lives in front of thousands of people.  ...

There is a call upon us today.  It comes from the forces of good within us and from outside us in the universe.  You can say it’s God if you want to.  Or you can say it is a force inside our human spirit, the stuff we were made of at our creation, which all the sacred texts of every religion say was, at our origin, good. It is a call to basic decency, to common sense, to getting our heads out of the muck and breathing some fresh air and getting in touch with our goodness again. We are stuck in the dirt, stuck down to our souls, filthy inside and out, stained with our own fears and prejudices and anger and hate.  We have given in to our meanness and it has made us a nation of moral pygmies.  Our wrath, our fuming oaths, our senseless petty fury—all of that is mountainous, a huge growing thing within us and it has left us with pint-sized virtues that are being more and more diminished by the day. We are greedy and tacky and mean, nasty and spiteful a...