The Unclad Soul

“Until you are willing to be confused about what you already know,  what you know will never grow bigger, better, or more useful.”  – Milton Erickson, Psychologist/Author

“Art is so often better at theology than theology is.”  – Christian Wiman,  Poet/Author/Professor of Sacred Music, Yale Divinity School  

“The only person you are destined to become  is the person you decide to be.”  ~ Emerson

“Make a list of what is really important to you. Embody it.”  ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn, Physician/Professor/Author

If your religion, your faith, helps you handle your addictions, brings you emotional balance and enables you to deal intelligently with life in healthy ways, then wonderful. I applaud you. If your religion/faith helps you live with a terminal illness or a lifelong disability with grace and courage and dignity, then you are an inspiration and someone I truly admire. If your religion/faith enables you to be understanding and compassionate of all people everywhere, if it creates a welcome in your heart for the oppressed and the forgotten and the different, if it makes you genuinely tolerant of other religions, if it moves you to social action, to deeds of kindness and generosity, then I respect you and will appreciate your commitment to your beliefs. But if what you believe in a religious context makes you feel you are more than others, if it leaves you arrogant and removed from the rest of struggling humanity, if it gives you a sense of superiority, the idea that you have some speci...

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ― Cynthia Occelli, Author/Attorney/Blogger

"There isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.”  ~ Raymond Carver, American Writer/Poet