The Unclad Soul

Anthropologist Loren Eiseley, whose life and career was a brilliant search for meaning and whose books are a romance in language, called himself “a refugee at heart, a wistful glancer over fences.” I love that description and find so much in it to identify with. All my life I, too, have been a seeker: for love; for purpose and meaning; for affirmation of whatever skills I have learned; for an expanding awareness both in my soul and in my mind; for an embracing of wonder and beauty, of ecstasy and delight; a seeker of a simple goodness inspired by a generous heart. These remain longings of mine. I have also been a fugitive, an alien of sorts, a defector escaping the confines of suffocating rules and stifling beliefs; a person displaced in a setting of so many contradictions. I was born a captive and have struggled all these years to be free. I had loving parents and amazing grandparents.  And as a boy I enjoyed all the things boys do.  I played with toy...

Episcopal minister and author, Alan Jones, tells in one of his books about a discussion he had with the president of a fundamentalist Christian college.  They were discussing their various theological differences and at some point Dr. Jones asked the college president what was the most difficult part of his job.  The man replied, “Everyone here, faculty and students, is a born-again Christian, and we have had food stolen from the kitchens, books stolen from the library, and there’s even been a suicide.” Apparently that was the most difficult thing facing him as the president of a religious school, the violation of students and others of their Christian principles. I learned a long time ago as someone who worked for years as a leader in the church that just because a person accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior does not mean they have lost their humanity.  And accepting Christ, in my thinking, is not about salvation from hell or ridding oneself of selfish desires o...

There is no question that we have in this country a kind of grinding stalemate between conservative Christians and moderate thinking Christians as well as with those who may be lapsed in their faith or who have no religious faith at all. There are two characters in David Lodge’s novel, “Thinks,” who give some definition to this stalemate.  Ralph Messenger is a professor of cognitive science at an English University and is a convinced unbeliever.  He is attracted to visiting professor Helen Reed, a writer and teacher of literature who is Catholic but is only loosely connected to the Church. Ralph sees Helen across campus one Sunday morning and tries to catch up with her but she turns past a building and disappears.  Later they meet and he asks, “Where were you?” “I went to chapel.” “What for?” “Why do people usually go into a chapel on a Sunday morning?” “Are you religious, then?”  There’s a note of disapproval, or perhaps disappointment, in his voi...

I am reading Judith Guest’s monumental classic, “Ordinary People.”  It was written 30 years ago and was made into an Academy Award winning movie directed by Robert Redford.  It remains an extraordinary novel with life lessons still fresh and relevant today. Here is a journey into deeply wounding grief, into the dark shadows of shattering loss. The Jarrets are a suburban family of affluence and refinement.  Calvin, or Cal, the father, is a successful tax attorney.  He appears confident and polished but underneath the suits he wears is a broken man coming apart from sadness and crippling self doubts.  He longs for his family and himself to heal from a terrible event but he does not know how to guide the process.  He is stuck in bewildering passivity.  His wife Beth is a sophisticated, attractive woman, neatly put together in color coordinated outfits.  But she is coldly indifferent to her family, more than high maintenance, she is touchy an...

I spent last evening watching on C-Span the House Oversight Committee eviscerate the former commissioner of the IRS, Douglas Shulman. Both Republicans and Democrats took turns sanctimoniously judging Shulman and trying with all the drama of a courtroom trial of some grotesque murderer to humiliate and destroy the man. The Republicans of course love this kind of stuff.  Their questioning bordered on hysteria and orgasmic delight.  Most of it was complete buffoonery; as usual.  And the Democrats, who never miss a chance to hold hands with Republican fanatics and support them in their derangement, joined right in.  They always do this if they think doing so will impress someone out there in the voting public who thinks Democrats are passive sissies.  But of course no one is ever impressed by this display of phony outrage. Having a brain and being an intelligent, rational presence seems lost on all of those on this committee.  With the exception o...

I have a great need to experience the sacred.  I think we all do. We live in times that so often desecrate the human spirit.  War, drones, gun violence, road rage, political wrangling, insatiable greed, sexual abuse, child abandonment, and all sorts of inhuman acts against one another too often occur which all serve to deaden our souls. The recent news of the man who systematically kidnapped three young girls in his neighborhood, who just decided to own them as his property, held them captive for years, sexually used them for his own entertainment, was unimaginable in its heartlessness.  How do those women, whose youth and teenage years and sense of self were taken from them, how do they recover from that kind of fiendish, barbaric treatment?  We see this on the news and something dies inside us.  It is so easy then to want to harden ourselves against the cruelty of others.  But in the process we lose our connection with the sacred. Each m...

Fear is a paralyzing, crippling emotion.  It takes all of the joy of spontaneous living out of us.  It keeps us off the paths of adventure and exploration.  It turns us sour on life and people.  It makes cowards of us. I was a very fearful boy.  I was afraid of the water and didn’t learn to swim until I took a beginning swim class in college.  I was determined to conquer that fear that had kept me out of so many fun and happy moments growing up.  And in spite of the embarrassment and terror of facing three mornings a week an Olympic size pool with a 15 foot deep end, I did learn to swim.  I was the only non-swimmer in a class of 50 guys.  I couldn’t even dog paddle.  But in the last week of class I had to dive into the deep end, tread water for 2 minutes, and then swim to the other end.  I did all of it and that class of guys lined the pool and watched and applauded when I finished and stood up out of the shallow end.  I ...