The Unclad Soul

Emerson, the brilliant essayist, philosopher, and poet, started his long and productive career initially as an ordained minister. When his young wife died of tuberculosis he was devastated. He questioned his faith and the simple beliefs he thought as a minister should be accepted unconditionally and believed by everyone. He left the ministry, went to Europe, met with towering people in literature like William Wordsworth, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. When he returned to America he was transformed and began a series of lectures on spirituality and ethical living.  In one of his many books, he wrote, “Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.” It is a beautiful and profound statement and one I fully embrace. And it is a part of a personal religious search I started years ago. As a young minister I struggled with biblical texts that I could not make sense of, thing...

This beautiful land of ours. The old cities. The towns and neighborhoods. All once so incredible with their highways and their landmarks, their lakes and parks, their schools and churches, their giant buildings and small country stores. There were good jobs with fair pay and opportunities for promotion and advancement. Most of that is vanishing under the weight of high tech jobs, computerized gadgets and mind consuming e-toys, expensive big vehicles, high rise condos, billion dollar sports stadiums, interconnecting gyrations of freeways with vast concrete loops, and relentless urban sprawl. It’s all gobbling us up in a net of human indifference, aloofness, rage, and ill will toward one another. What we once accomplished astounds the imagination. Across our creative history other nations have envied our freedoms, have marveled at our productivity and ingenuity, have seen as sacred our humanity and compassion. There are reasons why people all over the world have wanted to li...

"I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart." ~ Mary Oliver, Poet/Essayist

Mary Oliver has a beautiful little poem in which she asks: “Is the soul solid, like iron? or is it tender and breakable, like the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?” It is both. The soul, we are told by philosophers, theologians, and mystics, is our essence, the permanence of our true self. It is that part of us that lives beyond death. Or so we are taught by religion. Where exactly the soul exists beyond that, has of course, been long debated. There are times in life when something deep within us is, as Mary Oliver says, solid as iron and we operate out of some sense of aliveness, confidence, and inner strength. It may be fleeting, but there when needed; or it may carry us through long periods of endurance when we build a sturdy self, confident and capable of our abilities and talents. This is the work of the soul. This is a part of our spiritual development. This is what enables us to believe there are forces in life, loving and generous and mystical, that nurture an...

The movie, “Collateral Beauty,” deals with vitally important themes. For me, it fell short in many ways. There were moving moments, to be sure. The all-star cast made good attempts, but they distracted me. I kept seeing them as the movie stars they are and not as real characters in a difficult story. The film centers on an advertising executive, played by Will Smith, who three years earlier lost his young daughter to a fatal illness. His grief has crippled him and he is lost in bitterness and silent rage. He spends his days building colorful, elaborate domino mazes that he then collapses. It’s an obvious metaphor of his life and the shattering of his spirit and soul. He created his ad company on the basis of three imperatives: Time, Love, and Death. These, he told his colleagues and employees, are what connect us to all things fundamental to our well-being. He wanted his ad agency to reflect these themes in all aspects of its work. And yet, in his tormenting loss, he sees thes...

In case any of us have forgotten, the Jesus of Christmas was a Jew. He was born one, lived one his entire life, and died one. He had no intention of starting a new religion (Christianity). His life as a teacher and healer was to do something good within Judaism, within the faith he had known all of his life. He did not die for the sins of the world. This was something his followers and the writers of the New Testament later ascribed to him. He died because he challenged the powers of the Roman Empire. He died because he threatened the Emperor’s influence, by promoting peace between people and nations, and not war and dominance. He died because he preached economic and political justice, which people were starving to hear and experience, but which those who governed thwarted. We forget these things. Or else we have never considered the real facts around the life of Jesus. But Bible scholars, theologians, archeologists, historians and solid researchers have known these things fo...

In the holiday classic, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” George Bailey loses it all. His small building and loan company appears bankrupt due to Uncle Billy’s foolish misplacement of their funds. Believing he had nothing to live for except ruin and disgrace, George jumps off a bridge in desperation. He is rescued by Clarence, an odd, elderly angel still trying to get his wings. As they are both drying out from the cold water below the bridge, George tries to understand what is happening: George : Look, who are you? Clarence : I told you, George. I'm your guardian angel. George : Yeah, yeah, I know. You told me that. What else are you? What...are you a hypnotist? Clarence : No, of course not. George : Well, then, why am I seeing all these strange things? Clarence : Don't you understand, George? It's because you were not born. George : Then if I wasn't born, who am I? Clarence : You're nobody. You have no identity. George : What do you mean, no identity? ...