The Unclad Soul

And now, the struggle for authenticity beckons. The fight for what is real in our world, in our nation, and in ourselves, that fight exists whether we participate in it or not. War is real. Syria is real. Children dying, their small bodies broken in pieces, blood running from their frail faces. That is real. Iraq is real. Afghanistan. Yemen. The horror that stalks the days there, the screams heard through the nights. The innocent brutalized. The cities decimated. Those are all real. We ignore it. We pretend those things are far away from here, that we are not a part of it, that we have no responsibility for it. We close our eyes, our minds, our hearts to it. I can’t turn away, can you? And here, in dear old America, our flag sags under the weight of our mutual shame. Reagan’s tired description of us, “a shining city on a hill,” rings discordant, empty, false. We do not shine; we are tarnished with the stains of our selfishness, our shallow cravings, our racism and ...

José Rizal, a physician, writer, and a peace advocate during the Spanish-American War wrote: “There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.” Merriam-Webster defines a tyrant as “an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution…an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power.” We normally think of tyrants as madmen, vicious and violent dictators who brutalize their people, often with beatings, imprisonment, and death. And there have been and still are leaders of countries with those characteristics. But tyrants can also be less than that. They can simply be those who lead by manipulation, deceit, and mocking rhetoric, who, as Merriam-Webster put it, rule “unrestrained by law or constitution.” But whatever stripe of tyrant one may be, they cannot stay in power, as Rizal said, “without slaves.” What does that mean? It means those who do as they are told. Those who follow without consideration of their own best interests or the interests of others....

I am fascinated with TV series that deal with the seedier side of life. I loved The Sopranos. And Peaky Blinders. Also, Boardwalk Empire, Gypsy, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Nurse Jackie. These shows and others like them portray people caught in their human frailties. They are deeply flawed people, wounded, sometimes by their own poor choices in life and sometimes by people who betrayed or used or mistreated them in some profoundly cruel way. I am currently making my way through Showtime’s series, “Ray Donovan.” Soon to begin its 6 th season, the series centers around the Donovan family, a father and three sons mired in old hurts, deception, corruption, and crime. Ray (Liev Schreiber) is the middle son, a “fixer” for L.A.’s elite crowd of Hollywood stars, producers, financiers, and old money people who inevitably cross the line into affairs gone wrong, crooked payoffs, illegal deals, and so forth. Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight) is the father, an old-schoo...

I want to stand under a wild sky at night and hear the ancient stories the stars tell. I want to get lost in the wonder of trees lining a country lane and welcome the breeze that refreshes and soothes. I want to swim in the ocean and feel the soft weight of the water hold me in the rhythm of its support. I want to watch children play and relish the freedom in their laughter and remember again what innocence is. I want to make friends with a lonely dog and walk with it along the beach and rest in the grass with its head on my chest. I want to stand in a garden of flowers and disappear in their color and drink in their fragrance. I want to be with people of character and depth and withdraw into the intimacy of affection and know again the worth of my humanity. I want to experience the fundamental powers that define me and believe in my own dignity and authenticity. I want to examine the truths that are pillared in my soul and honor the stability of their influence. I want to...

I wonder now, in these agitated, often berserk times, if we have lost something precious in ourselves. Maybe we never had it. Maybe I have an image of our humanness in my mind that does not exist outside my mind. If so, then where did I get the idea that we are mostly good, and kind, and know how to behave in decent ways? I got it from people in my life who demonstrated those beautiful characteristics to me. Real people. Family. Teachers. Neighbors. Coaches. Friends. I know we can be caring people because I still see people caring all the time. And because I want to be caring, too. Where does that come from if we are basically just selfish, coarse, vulgar people? Who in our culture today champions good manners, courtesy, appropriateness? Where are we to look for people who value intelligence, learning, curiosity; who demonstrate kindness and generosity? It was blistering hot this past weekend. I was running errands and saw an elderly woman walking on the sidewalk. She was ...

Clergyman, author, and professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School, Halford Luccock, used to tell the story of a father who took his young son camping. At one point the father handed his son binoculars so he could better see the beauty of a mountain range. But the boy took the binoculars and looked through them from the wrong end. He complained that everything seemed so small, that he couldn’t make anything out. His father turned them around and said, “Now, you can see things as they are.” I read that story years ago and have never forgotten it. It seems an appropriate example of the error of our day. We seem, as a society, to be looking through the wrong end of the binoculars. Everything is small, insignificant, trite, unclear. We have no grand vision, no breathtaking sense of the beauty of our world and its people. We have lost our perspective. The gifted historian and novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was a voice of courage and truth against the old Soviet Union. Hi...

The news photo of a defenseless 92-year old Mexican man who was recently beaten with a brick by a woman and kicked by men, haunts and torments me. The woman, whose toddler daughter watched the whole thing, told the bleeding and battered old man to “Go back to Mexico.” He was visiting his family and was simply taking a walk near the house when the woman assaulted him. 92 years old. I watched a lengthy video on Facebook last week by a young Latina woman at a Chicago park who was verbally taunted by a drunk white man who kept getting in her face while a white police officer stood by and watched, doing nothing, even though she kept asking the officer to intervene. She and her family had rented a space at the park for a birthday party. But the drunk man and another white man were sitting in their space and wouldn’t leave. He then began harassing her because she was wearing a shirt that read, Puerto Rico on it. Eventually, several other police officers arrived but they let the drunk man ...