The Unclad Soul

And in this season we call Christmas and Holidays, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, Germany’s Saint Nicholas’ Day, and the Philippines’ Giant Lantern Festival, Columbia’s Day of Little Candles, and Toronto’s Cavalcade of Lights, France’s Joyeux Noël, and Russia’s Grandfather Frost, let us find unity, cooperation, friendship. Let us revel in the pretty lights and the decorated trees, the wintry days and the cozy nights, the happy faces and the party fun. Let us feel the grief of the losses of others, the struggling families in an unbalanced economy, the addicted caught in some endless torment, the shamed haunted by a long-ago abuse, the ill unable to enter into the many festivities, the lonely shut off from the busy happy crowds, the prisoners locked in their regrets and dishonor, the mentally infirm whose minds no longer work and whose memories have lost their power. It is a season of birth, of lights, of glory. It is a time to remember the...

The election in Alabama yesterday to replace Senate Republican Jeff Sessions ended another high profile, tawdry political race, one that reminds us of how far our political system has fallen into disgrace. Roy Moore, a controversial evangelical firebrand, a man who had twice been removed from office as an Alabama Supreme Court justice, for blatantly ignoring federal laws, and who reportedly was banned from a mall for spooking teenage girls, and who was accused by various adult women of having made inappropriate advances toward them when they were teens, centered his campaign, unbelievably, on Christian principles. Moore made a career of using religion to bolster the support of Christians for his political ambitions. And for years it worked. But apparently many voters got tired of the hypocrisy and the manipulation and rejected him. Including a large number of Black voters who courageously stood up to Moore’s shoddy politics that were often prejudicial and intolerant of minorit...

I suppose nearly everyone has now heard of Keaton Jones, the Tennessee middle school boy whose mom’s video of him went viral. Keaton apparently has had surgery for a cleft pallet that sometimes interferes with his speech and his appearance, although he’s a handsome boy with bright eyes. After kids at school made fun of his nose, called him ugly, and said he didn’t have any friends, they then poured milk on him in the lunchroom. Broken hearted and ashamed, his mom came to school to pick him up. Thankfully, celebrities and others have covered him with affirmation and offers of friendship. He knows now he’s not stupid or ugly. And what child doesn’t need to know that, always? As parents, we have the moral and human responsibility to teach our children to treat all children with respect and care. I don’t know where the teachers or monitors were when this boy was being so mistreated, but the real responsibility for bullying others lies directly at the feet of those of us wh...

I saw a child in a grocery basket Singing in the produce section And I smiled at the cheerfulness Of children. I saw a white crane perched on a dead tree At peace in a pond at the golf course And I wanted to stand with it In the sunshine. I saw an old man with a cane Hunched over and walking wearily And I thought how nice if I could Carry him to his destination. I saw a woman sitting at the bus stop In the cold, her face covered with a scarf And I thought how selfish when I complain My car heater takes so long to get warm. I saw a couple kissing in the parking lot With shopping bags resting beside them And I reveled in how love often ignores Its surroundings and blooms fearlessly. I saw teens volunteering at an SPCA stand Outside the mall, warmly holding and petting Dogs and cats and chatting with customers And I thought we don’t give teens enough credit. I saw the sun setting gloriously as I left work The colors stunning a...

I have confessed here before that I was in a career I often didn’t understand or felt suited for. I was a Baptist minister for more than 20 years. I met some loving, beautiful people in those years. I dedicated babies. I watched toddlers turn into teens and I loved them all. Some of them I married with spouses I thought were perfect for them. Many are still together with children of their own. In my last congregation, I spent nearly 14 years with people I adored. Some of them are still my closest friends. There were, of course, tough years, times when my own search for an authentic theology and philosophy of ministry clashed with the long-held traditional beliefs of some of our church members. By the time I arrived at my last congregation I no longer had any interest in building huge numbers, baptizing people in some kind of competition with other churches, and creating worship that was hyped, emotional, something similar to cheerleading and entertainment. That was not for me....

If I could, I would Stop all the wars And heal all the sores And give the less more And free the bored And individualize the hoard If I could If I could, I would Have all women revered And all children loved And the old honored And the sick well And the disabled cheered And the foreigner welcomed If I could If I could, I would Enact gay rights around the world And celebrate them as whole And give them freedom To be who they are And embrace them into The family of you and me If I could If I could, I would Empty Congress of its politicians And fill it with teachers And Poets And writers; With artists And sculptors; With farmers And ranchers; With animal lovers And stargazers; With gardeners And fishermen If I could If I could, I would Remove all bigotry And prejudice of every kind And put the redneck and the whitey and the Confederate flagger and the bully cop and the crooked judge and the ...

Playwright and screenwriter, Robert Ardrey, once wrote, “We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.” Which is to say, our acts of benevolence, kindness, love and generosity transcend our acts of terror, barbarity, murder, and mayhem. The unimaginable carnage, cowardly and beyond any possible reason, carried out Sunday by Devin Kelley, takes us to our knees. We collapse under the weight of such a beastly crime. How does anyone human carry out such an inhuman atrocity? Details are murky. The answers we need and want, and what will finally be revealed, if any at all, will not be sufficient. Whatever the motive or mental defect may have been, all we will be left with is that the depths of our individual capacity for evil and harm know no limits. Monstrous crimes are not new. But what seems to be dramatically different these days is the frequency of them, so that they are becoming not an aberration but a common reality. There is without question a poiso...