The Unclad Soul

The politics of our day is a deadening force. The angry divisiveness, the arrogant partisanship of it all, the refusal to cooperate with others, the obsession of winning at all costs even if it costs the nation its dignity and its worth, is a bitter reality. I’m unclear as to what brought us here. Why our politicians failed to evolve and became instead a crowd of petty, juvenile, angry, warped and one-sided tyrants is debatable but it discredits all of us. It is impossible to move the country forward if our chief lawmakers have no interest in anything but their own political careers; if they care about nothing but holding onto their elected offices even if it requires them to compromise themselves into some form of prostitution, the selling of themselves to corporate giants and the czars of finance. Which many if not most have already done. Our current presidential campaign is a humiliating display of defective candidates. The Republicans have paraded before us a crowd of ...

"True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others." —   Edward O. Wilson , Harvard Professor/Pulitzer Prize Winner Author

There is an error in how our country is seen today. We appear to be a nation of angry, bigoted, mean-spirited, violent people. The picture is one of weakness and ingratitude, of people holding endless grudges, of crooked cops killing minorities, of shallow selfish Christians demanding everyone obey their beliefs, of incompetent predatory politicians desecrating democracy. It’s true; the country has its fair share of these people. And the dishonorable behavior and the loud voices of all of them overwhelm the good Americans everywhere. We are not well represented to the world. However, every day decent Americans do their jobs honestly, competently, and well. They care for their families. They follow the law. They respect the diversity of our country. They get along with their neighbors. They worship regularly and attempt to live by their beliefs; they don’t cram them down the throats of others or assume they alone own God. They are concerned about the environment and appreci...

“The good life doesn't knock on the door. Joy is a job.”  ~ Lionel Shriver,  Novelist

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever”, he told the boy. “You might want to think about that.” “You forget some things, don’t you?” the boy said. “Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”  ― From The Road , by Cormac McCarthy 

There is a scene in the first episode of the Showtime series "Nurse Jackie" where she consoles a young unmarried girl whose boyfriend, a bike courier, had just died of injuries in a bike accident on his way to work in the crushing traffic of New York City. The girl—poor, pregnant, wearing a stained t-shirt and asking what she is going to do, that she doesn’t even have money to get a cab home—sits on a bench in the hallway outside the chapel in All Saints Catholic Hospital. Jackie, a morally complicated, fiercely dedicated nurse but who is herself addicted to pain killers and whose personal life is a disaster, stands next to the girl and gently puts her hand on the girl’s head and draws her to her. Nothing is said. Just that moment of tenderness. As the scene ends and the camera pulls away from them, we see behind them at the end of the hallway set into the wall, a beautifully sculptured figure of Jesus with his arms extended.   I don’t know what Christianity is anymore....

“By things so achingly small are lives measured and marred.”  ~ Guy Gavriel Kay, Canadian Novelist