The Unclad Soul

I recently spent the weekend with my son, Luke, in southwest Oklahoma. He manages a large ranch there set in the hills of vast trees and rugged trails. I love going there because, for one thing, I get to spend time with him and his dogs, Maggie and Gus. And for another, I get to get out of the city and enjoy the peace and quiet of the country. The ranch is a majestic spot set on nearly 3,000 acres and Luke has transformed it into a real paradise. The grounds around the ranch house, the barn, the shed, and the corral are immaculate. Big trees stand by the house and shade the nearby fire pit. It’s a perfect spot for morning coffee or friends around a fire at night. There are cattle and horses that Luke tends to and across the rolling hills deer graze and raise their heads to stare if Luke and I pull up in the gator. Then they take off, running elegantly into the woods. There are various tanks on the ranch, both large and small ponds. In the largest one Luke and I have fished...

The remarkable Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, once wrote, “This hasn’t been the age for the righteous and the decent.  I know what it means to beget monsters  And to recognize in them myself.”  It is an appropriate indictment of our own day and of our own selves. I keep telling myself that what we are experiencing in our country is just a phase, something we have gone through before, where people who turn loathsome and violent, enormously greedy and arrogant, will change. That these dark clouds of hostility hovering over us will pass and the sunlight of decent behavior will shine again. But there is something alarmingly stubborn about the indignity, prejudice, violence, division and hatred among us. We seem stuck in a continuous atmosphere of rancor and bitter estrangement. And it is disturbing and frightening that our leaders seem incapable or not interested in changing the nation’s oppressive mood. Our media, in all of its forms, is clearly geared t...

The world is yearning. America is yearning. We are yearning. I am yearning. What is this longing in us? What necessary thing is it that we yearn to know or have or experience? Writer, essayist, and editor, Rebecca Solnit, has written: “For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go.” These are beautifully haunting words. Haven’t we seen the distant horizon and felt its pull, its mystery? That distance, as Solnit describes it, “the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go.” Such powerful thoughts. That “blue at the far edge of what can be seen,” lures us and, perhaps, ta...

When I was a boy, I was loved by the sweetest women in the world. My Mom, of course, beautiful in every way was one. Smart, devoted, lovingly and fiercely protective of her family. But then also, on my Dad’s side, there was my grandmother, Maude, whom I called Nana. Quiet and reserved, small and lovely, she was a tender presence. By my Aunt Laura, who was fun and beautiful with a contagious laugh, generous and open-hearted. By my Aunt Mary, tiny and petite, poised and gracious. By Aunt Florida, snow white hair and the most winsome smile, a deeply self-confident woman. On my mother’s side, there was my grandmother, Ruby, whom I called Momo. Quite simply, a saint. I adored her. My great-grandmother, Joanna, whom I called Gammy. A gifted pianist, the first female American Indian graduate in the school of music at Bacone College. Her embrace was arms of love. And there were my Aunt Emerald and my Aunt Jackie, wonderful women of grace and affection. These women taught me never to b...

I didn’t vote for President Trump but I did try to give him the benefit of the doubt once he was elected. I often held back from any real criticism simply because I thought he might very well shake up our political system in a way that would set it back on some reasonable track, away from the career politicians who have all but demolished it. I was wrong. President Trump continues to demonstrate no real interest in politics. He has no legislative goals other than to make certain existing laws harsher, more punishing. He is not impressed with the Republican leadership in Congress and has so far refused to be cowered by any of them. That, I do find somewhat refreshing. Those guys have ignored the country for far too long, hiding behind pretended concern, while voting and plotting to do nothing about immigration reform, police brutality, the militarization of police, Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria and Yemen, race relations, Israel’s merciless regime, the catastrophic refugee problem...

(This week was my brother's birthday. This is for him.) The weeks have scurried on and turned into months now and still you are gone, but, here as well. There are remembrances of you, photos, emails, and memorials, both small and large. Your voice is in my memory and now and then I hear you speak, recalling old phone conversations where together we cursed politicians, phony preachers, a sleeping church, and, where we replayed the last major golf tournament, Tiger’s life collapse, Phil’s implausible shot, Rory’s power swing, and Spieth’s relentless grit and skills. We grieved Mom’s difficult life, Dad’s mysterious remoteness, and our own flaws and foibles and foolishness. And, there is your laughter, still floating in my consciousness; a laugh that drew you up, shoulders raised, head lifted, eyes closed, a sort of breathless moment of immobility, slow motion seconds of you drinking in great gobs of elation and jubilance ending in coug...

The human body – what a miracle. Despite all we do to it—abuse it, take it for granted, it still operates with amazing precision. Walt Whitman wrote, “If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred.” It is more than a work of art; it is the work of genius. The mind – a complex computer with nearly unlimited capacities. Think of all we do without even thinking about it. Breathing, swallowing, sleeping, waking, walking, running. My typing, at this moment, without actually thinking about it, my fingers run across the keys effortlessly as though they somehow instinctively find the right letters on their own. It’s all the involuntary work of the mind. Creation gave us a brain but life gives us a mind. If we are aware, life will feed and nurture our mind. The ancients called the mind “a palace.” Such a gift. Intimacy – touching, kissing, making love, holding one another; it’s all so vital to our humanity. We shrivel and withdraw, we isolate and grow remote when there is no real i...