The Unclad Soul

President Obama’s decision to respond to the horror and conflict in Syria makes me think of that line in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” where one of the characters says, “This is as strange a maze as ever men trod.” How do you watch children and women and people of all ages being gassed to death, writhing in convulsions and gasping for air, and not want to immediately do something about it? And yet, how will throwing a few bombs at Assad’s air force do anything to change the dynamic or stop the carnage? I believe President Obama is a man who truly wrestles with all of this. He obviously is counting the political costs, but I do believe he is a man with a conscience. I think he wants to do the right thing, but I’m not sure he knows what is right in this instance. His “red line” comment was careless and not well thought through. It put him in a spot where he is forced now to back it up in some way. But let’s not pretend the Congress and especially all of the Republican/Tea ...

It is time to face the facts in this country. We are dangerously divided. You can’t sugarcoat it by saying it’s always been this way between people and groups. You can’t dismiss it as just life in contemporary society. You can’t pretend there is any middle ground any longer. The evolutionary biologist and author, Richard Dawkins, has said, “When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.” How true. It’s not that the Democrats are a little right and the Republicans are, too. It’s no longer true that both sides share basically the same political ideals. They don’t. Maybe once, but not anymore. Democrats are not without their own hypocrisies, blunders, irritating passiveness, and cheap compromises. But there are clear differences in the crafting of traditional, well meaning, good for all of society political legislation, which they are still commit...

The small and almost silent group of religious leaders, politicians, authors, editors, social critics, teachers, physicians and others who seek to define themselves and live by a compassionate faith, a social conscience, and who work for a progressive approach to solving our massive problems in this country, swim against a raging current of resistance.  It comes from those who disdain unity, who are terrified of diversity, who hate government unless it works only to their advantage, who care nothing about preserving a social fabric that holds all of us in community. The struggle against this forceful cultural current is exhausting, expensive, and often defeating. No one will be surprised if those fighting to move against it grow tired and sometimes collapse in shallow waters. Bullies flourish in this environment and are always the last to go down. They prey on the defenseless, those smaller, those less powerful, those with gentle souls who have no lust for battle or conflict. ...

An incident at the recent Missouri State Fair is getting quite a bit of attention. During the bull riding event a clown appeared wearing a ragged sport coat and a cartoon mask of President Obama. The announcer asked the crowd if they wanted to see Obama “run down by a bull.” The crowd cheered and then the announcer said, “We’re going to smoke Obama, man.” At one point another clown walked up and started flapping the lips on the mask. The crowd howled with laughter. The incident was recorded by an eyewitness and then shared with some news sources. Not everyone thought the stunt was funny. The governor of the state and other Republicans and Democrats stated their strong objection to the way President Obama was characterized and disrespected. A spokesperson for the State Fair later issued an apology. But of course the damage had been done and hundreds of families and children watched the spectacle of our nation’s president being made fun of and derided and the clown impersonating...

In Roland Merullo’s lyrical novel, “In Revere, In Those Days,” we find a loving and moving memoir of the lead character, Anthony (Tonio) Benedetto. Tonio grows up in Revere, Massachusetts, in a home of love with his struggling but hard working and adoring Italian-American parents. All is well until at age 11 his parents are killed in a plane crash. Young Tonio is crushed by this tragedy and overwhelmed by what seems like life’s harsh indifference. But his paternal grandparents, gentle people who treasure Tonio, enter into his grief and envelop him in a love so rich it fortifies him the rest of his life. His uncle Peter, too, steps in to be a caring father figure. Tonio eventually finds ways out of his sorrow and out of Revere. But there are other challenges and heartaches to face. And he learns to love through them as he was loved. Here is a story of family affection and commitment, sorrow, tragedy, society’s prejudices against immigrants, the struggle to survive in low paying wor...

There is an etching by the 18 th century artist Francisco de Goya that I find haunting and relevant. The picture shows an artist, perhaps a painter or writer, slumped over his desk. His pen and sketching paper are there. His face is buried in his arms that are resting over his head. We cannot see his face in sleep. We can only see his thick black hair tousled around his head. Behind him in the darkness are flying creatures that look like fierce bats and sneering owls. Next to him reclining on the floor is a large cat with big eyes with its head erect. It looks startled. The title of the drawing is, “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.” Goya’s amazing pieces, there were 80 in all, were attempts to confront the political and religious institutions of his day, institutions that had turned cruel and oppressive and brutalized the common defenseless people of that era. His etchings were also wake up calls to fellow artists to use their talents to expose the intolerance, criminal...

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...